Microsoft Outlook Calendar Permission

This article describes how to grant permissions for Read to successfully connect to your Microsoft calendar. Please refer to the section that is the best fit for you: 

• Individuals: Read AI users who are not able to connect their Microsoft Outlook calendar specifically due to permissions not granted by their Microsoft admin. 

• Admins: Microsoft/Office 365 admins who would receive these permission requests from Read AI users.

Individuals: I am a Read AI user who is not able to connect my Microsoft Outlook calendar

There are a couple of reasons why you might not be able to successfully connect your calendar to Read AI at first:

• You are a new user signing up whose organization requires approval to connect your Outlook calendar.

• You are an existing user who is connecting your Outlook calendar for the first time, and your organization requires admin approval to connect your Outlook calendar.

• You are a user in an organization where IT has restricted third-party app permissions.

Depending on whether your IT team allows users (like you) to send them permission requests from a third party app, you will see different messages when you try to connect your Outlook calendar to Read.

Scenario A: IT Allows Approval Requests

1. Initiate the Outlook Calendar connection from a calendar connection page (either during account creation, or from your integrations page).

2. A Microsoft-controlled window appears where you can type an explanation for why you would like to connect your calendar to Read AI, and submit a request to your Microsoft admin.
   

3. After submitting, the window will close.

4. Read AI will then display a modal explaining the situation, and provide an email draft that you can send to your IT admin team with additional context on your request.

5. If you are new user, you can proceed with setting up your Read AI account while your IT team is reviewing your calendar connection request. 

Scenario B: IT Does NOT Allow Approval Requests

1. Initiate the Outlook Calendar connection from a calendar connection page (either during account creation, or from your integrations page).

2. A Microsoft-controlled window will appear stating "Need admin approval". There is no option to submit an approval request to your IT team from this window, so continue to step 3.
   

3. Close the Microsoft window.

4. Read AI will then display a modal explaining the situation, and provide an email draft that you can send to your IT admin team to request approval to connect your Microsoft calendar to Read AI. 

   If you do not see the email draft, please contact your IT admin directly and ask them to enable this setting in Microsoft: Navigate within Entra to “Enterprise Apps” > “Consent and permissions” > “Admin consent settings” and change “Users can request admin consent to apps they are unable to consent to” to “Yes”. It looks like this:

   

   After that, you can try to connect again, and you will be able to send a request for approval.

5. If you are new user, you can proceed with setting up your Read AI account while your IT team is reviewing your calendar connection request. 

Draft Email for IT Approval

This is the email draft explaining that Read AI needs permissions to connect to your calendar. On the bottom right, there will be a "Copy Message" button that will allow you to easily send the email to your IT admin team. (You must locate your IT admin team's email address on your own, Read AI does not have that information.)

Your IT admin will receive an email that includes:

• An explanation of what Read AI is and why calendar access is needed.

• A unique link to a Read AI landing page for your organization.

If your IT team approves your request, you may receive an email from Microsoft that looks like this:

Admins: I am a Microsoft/Office 365 admin who has received a calendar connection permission request

As a Microsoft admin or IT admin of an organization managing people who use Read AI, you might receive an email containing:

• Information about Read AI and the permissions requested.

• A "magic link" landing page link to enable calendar access for your organization.

Enabling this will authorize Read AI to access Outlook calendars. Read uses this connection to join meetings and generate AI summaries on the user's behalf. Read is SOC 2 certified and only accesses meetings that users explicitly invite Read AI to join - see our Security & Privacy Overview page for more information.

Depending on how you approve this request, users may:

• Receive an email notification, prompting them to retry the calendar connection

• Not receive an email notification, and will need to proactively retry calendar connection.

Approval Method: Directly via Microsoft portal With this approval method, users will not receive a notification when their calendar connection request is approved.

Within your Microsoft admin portal, you can view pending calendar connection requests under Enterprise applications > Admin consent requests:   Once approved, the user will not receive an email notification that they can now connect their calendar to Read. When they login to Read, they will continue to see a banner notifying them that the ability to connect their calendar to Read is blocked. Because of this, we recommend reaching out to the user to let them know their calendar connection request is approved, and they can now return to Read AI to connect their calendar. To connect their calendar, the user can navigate to the Outlook calendar connection page (under Integrations) and complete the Outlook calendar connection. If the calendar connection has been approved, the user will be able to successfully connect their calendar:

What if I deny the user's calendar connection request?

If you choose to deny permission for users to connect their calendar to Read AI, please note that Read is not notified of the denial and has no visibility into the status of the user's permission request. Therefore, the user's account will continue to display the message that the calendar connection is blocked. The user may submit another request to your team, or try connecting their calendar again, so we recommend reaching out to users to notify them about the status of their request. 
 

FAQ

"I signed up but can't connect any Microsoft integrations"

This is likely due to your organization's Microsoft 365 security settings. Your IT administrator needs to approve Read AI for your organization. You should have seen an option to send an email to your admin during sign-up or when you attempted to connect a Microsoft integration. If you missed it:

1. Go to Account Settings > Integrations in Read AI.

2. Click on Outlook Calendar.

3. Follow the prompts to send an approval request to your admin.

"I sent the email to my admin but nothing happened"

A few things to check:

1. Confirm your admin received the email - They may need to check spam/junk folders.

2. Ask if they've approved the request - If they approved the request directly via Microsoft's admin portal, your Read AI account would not update automatically, so you would have to reconnect your calendar to find out.

3. Try reconnecting your calendar - Go to Account Settings > Integrations and try connecting again. If approved, it should say "Connected" now.

"My admin approved it but I still see the blocked banner"

If your admin approved the request through Microsoft's admin portal instead of using the unique magic link in the email, our system won't automatically update. Please:

1. Go to Account Settings > Integrations.

2. Click on Outlook Calendar.

3. Complete the connection process.

The banner should disappear once your calendar is successfully connected.

"I don't know who my IT admin is"

Unfortunately, we cannot identify who your organization's Microsoft 365 administrator is. You'll need to:

• Check with your manager or HR department

• Contact your company's IT help desk

• Look for IT contact information on your company intranet

"Can I use Read AI without connecting my calendar?"

Yes! You will just need to manually invite Read AI to meetings (see manual add options here). Another option is downloading Read AI's Desktop app, and capturing meetings that way. 

You can also still view meeting reports shared with you, use Ask Read to search across your meetings and connected content, and push meeting notes to other connected platforms.

"I connected my Google Calendar instead. Will I still see the Outlook banner?"

Yes. If you attempted to connect your Outlook calendar, and we detected that you needed Microsoft admin approval, the banner will persist even if you've connected a different calendar. 

"My Outlook calendar is already connected to Read. Do I need to follow this process?"

No. If you have already connected your Outlook calendar to Read, you will not need to go through this approval process. This only impacts new calendar connections.

"Can my admin approve Read AI for everyone, or just for me?"

This depends on how your IT admin configures the approval. Microsoft provides options to:

• Approve for the specific user who requested

• Approve for the entire organization

We recommend asking your admin to approve for the organization to prevent other colleagues from hitting the same block.