Patent ID: 7752066

Claim:
A method of scheduling a meeting, comprising using computer-readable program code executing on a computer for: programmatically evaluating, for each of a plurality of meeting invitees of a meeting to be scheduled, calendar data of an electronic calendar of that meeting invitee to determine each meeting invitee's availability for attending the meeting in each of at least one allowable participation type for which a meeting scheduler indicates that this meeting invitee is allowed to participate in the meeting, wherein at least one of the meeting invitees has at least two allowable participation types, by using calendared events of the calendar data of the meeting invitees to programmatically build, for each of the allowable participation types for each of the plurality of meeting invitees, a busy bar representing the calendared events of that meeting invitee, wherein: each of the busy bars comprises a free-time segment for each time segment when the calendar data indicates that the meeting invitee is available for participation in the meeting in the corresponding allowable participation type and a busy-time segment for each time segment when the calendar data indicates that the meeting invitee is not available for participation in the meeting in the corresponding allowable participation type; and for at least one of the plurality of meeting invitees that has at least two allowable participation types, the free-time segments and the busy-time segments in a first one of the busy bars programmatically built for a first one of the allowable participation types for that meeting invitee are different from the free-time segments and the busy-time segments in a second one of the busy bars programmatically built for a second one of the allowable participation types for that meeting invitee; and programmatically scheduling the meeting at a time and location where the busy bars programmatically built by the programmatically evaluating indicate that each of the meeting invitees is available for attending the meeting by at least one of the at least one allowable participation type for that meeting invitee.