How can I reply to an Outlook invitation from Android GMail?

[kitenski]

I've just moved my wife over from iPhone to Android, and all was going well up until yesterday.

If I send her an outlook meeting request, she has no option to accept or decline from GMail.

Her device is running KitKat, my device is running Lollipop and has the same issue.

I've spent hours googling and have tried the invitation plugin (which doesn't help)

The meeting request does appear to get put into her calendar, but she has no way of knowing what date it is to go and check within calendar!

Am I missing something obvious or is there a glaring hole in the GMail app on Android?

I came across this thread which seems to suggest the latter. (can't post link but issue 15666)

This is what I see for a calendar invite within my stock gmail app



Thanks for any help!

Greg

 

[SpookDroid]

Wow, I never saw this before but yeah, it seems to be an awful GMail app limitation. If I log into my GMail account via web, I can see the invitation just fine, with date and response buttons, but on the GMail app I see what you see. The worst part is there's no way to see the meeting info on the app! So strange.

I didn't see it before because I use Exchange for my Outlook meetings.

I don't know if it'll work or not, but if I use the stock e-mail app for the Exchange account and it shows meeting invites without issues, maybe adding the GMail app to the stock e-mail app would work?

Update: I just tested this with an Outlook and a Google Calendar invite, and sure enough, the Google Calendar one shows up fine in the GMail app and web. The issue seems to be with Outlook ones. I wonder why? I've submitted a report to Google but you might want to do the same. The more tickets they get with the same issue, the faster it gets attention.

 

[kitenski]

Thanks, stock email app shows the vCard text but doesn't recognise it as a meeting request.

This works fine on gmail on iPhone!

 

[gone down south]

I've had that problem for months now.

 

[Rahul Sukumar]

If you install Sunrise calendar, it will integrate with your gmail account and give a pop-up notification every time you receive a meeting invite - much like what iOS does. So far, it's the best solution I have found for responding to invites on my S5 Lollipop. The calendar itself is pretty slick too, I use it instead of Google Calendar.

 

[bono plus]

Hi !...

I have downloaded Sunrise Calendar on my Xperia Z3 (Lollipop), but it seems that notification for a meeting invitation sent from outlook has worked once... and nothing since...

Does someone has an issue ?

Thanks.

 

[kevin2l]

I submitted a bug as well. This is seriously annoying as it adds it to the calendar on the phone/tablet but the receiver thinks the email is empty. In other words, it pisses people off thinking you're sending either blank mails or "there's something wrong with your email account...try sending it again". In my case, the receiver does not want to use the web Gmail app since they are on their phone all day and not a computer.

I hope they do fix it, but the reality is it seems that this bug has been around since about 2011-12, so honestly, the chances of Google fixing this appear to be...we...will probably never happen. There's a workaround so it's probably not too high on their list, not to mention it only happens with Exchange calendar invites...