Google Calendar gets optional attendees

Google Calendar has received support for 'optional attendees' today. This lets you communicate the importance of an event for each individual attendee and was born out of the observation that meetings aren't equally important to all the people invited to attend them. For some, a certain meeting may be crucial, while others could have been added just as a courtesy. The new feature lets you mark attendees as optional so they won't be forced to attend a meeting that isn't very important to them unless they really want to.

To make some attendees optional, click on the "Make some attendees optional" link above the guest list for any meeting in Google Calendar, and toggle the role of each attendee by clicking on the icon next to their name.

Support for optional attendees should already be available to all Google Calendar users.