Overview

You would like to send a meeting invite to all the members in a Listserv. If you attempt to send the calendar invite from Office365 or Gmail the members will receive the meeting invitation, but there is no option to accept or decline. You would like to know if Lyris LM supports an add to calendar function.

Solution

Unfortunately, this is not a functionality offered in ListManager. When you are sending the calendar event to a list, the members will not be able to accept it because the invitee was the "list" and not any specific member therefore the invitation will be only an email. This is expected behavior.  To work around this issue you can create an .ics (iCalendar) file that can be attached to your message. 

1. Create an iCalendar attachment in your email application 
   NOTE: Creating the .ics file is beyond the scope of support. Consult with your IT staff to determine the best method for your particular application. For reference, consult these guides:
   1. Office365
   2. Creating an iCalendar (.ics) file in Outlook
   3. .ICS File Extension 
      
      
2. Log on to Lyris LM
   
   
3. Create your content, the invitation message, in Lyris LM - click Content > View Content
   
   
4. Click the Create New button
   
   
5. In the Content > Create New Content > Essentials tab, enter a Name and Description to identify the content
   
   1. From: By default, your email address will appear there.
      To customize the message, select Insert Field to insert a mail merge field or an autoresponder address
   2. To: By default, the To: field is set to %%nameemail%%, which will merge in the name and email address of each recipient.
      To customize the message further, select Insert Field to insert a mail merge field. The To field does not actually select the message's recipients. When building your mailing, you will specify the segment or lists to whom you'd like to send the message.
   3. Subject: Recipients will see this line as the subject of the message they receive.
      To customize the subject line for each recipient, select Insert Field to insert a mail merge field
   4. Click the Text Message or HTML Message tab, and type or paste the contents of your message in the field
      You may create just a text or HTML body, and that is what will be sent to your recipients. Or, you can create both, and send a message that has both text and HTML. This format is called multipart-alternative, and ListManager will create the correct headers and boundaries automatically. Recipients who can see HTML will only see your HTML message; those who cannot will see the text.
      You can customize your message for every recipient by selecting Insert Field or Insert Condition. Track which URLs recipients click by using Insert URL
   5. Click the Advanced tab
      1. Attachments: Click the Attach File button. You will be taken to Content: New Attachment, where you can add the .ics file you created in Step 1
   6. Click the Essentials tab
      1. Select one of the following options, depending on your needs:

         1. To save your content: click Save. This returns you to the main Content page

         2. To save your content and see what it would look like in a message: click Save and Test

         3. To create a mailing using your content: click Create Mailing

After completing these steps, your invitation (content) is ready for mailing with your iCalendar attachment which will allow list members to accept or decline your invitation.