A task with a time can send people a real calendar invitation: building control for an inspection, the client for a site meeting, a trade for a handover. Each person gets an email with the invitation attached, so it goes into their own Outlook, Google or Apple calendar, and every answer comes back to the task. There is no separate diary or calendar to keep: the task is the appointment.
Where it is: in the browser. Open the task and look down the right-hand side for Invitations, under Calls and Email. The phone does not send invitations or show the answers yet, but an answer does reach your phone as a notification.
Who can invite: administrators and members of the project. Followers do not see Invitations at all. Reminders have no Invitations section, because a reminder is only its author’s.
Sending an invitation:
- Open the task and press Invite people
- When: the day, the time and until when. It is filled in from the task. If the task has no time yet, set one here: whatever you set is written to the task before anything is sent, so the task and everybody’s calendar agree. The time is always the site’s clock
- Where: the site’s address is put in for you. Add where to meet if it helps, for example “the site cabin, by the Mill Lane gate”
- Who to invite: pick from your contacts and the people on the job, or type any email address and press Enter. Up to 20 at once
- With two or more people outside your company, choose Separately or As a group. Separately (the usual choice), each gets their own email naming only them. As a group, they share one email and see who else is invited
- Put it in my calendar too is ticked to start with, so you get a copy in your own calendar
- Add a message if you want one, then press Send invitation
What the other person gets: an email from you “via BuildersAI”, with the task and the time in the subject, the time on the site’s clock (for example “Thursday 1 October 2026, 09:00 to 10:00 BST”), the address, where to meet and your message, and the invitation attached as invite.ics. Most calendars show Accept and Decline on it. For a mail app that does not, the email has its own Yes, Maybe and No buttons, which open a page where they answer with no account and nothing to install. Opening that page records nothing; only pressing Yes, I’ll be there, Maybe or No, I can’t make it does, because email security scanners open links too. After answering they can press Change my answer, and, unless they said no, Add to my calendar.
How answers come back: the task’s Invitations card lists everybody invited, with a line such as “3 of 4 accepted, 1 declined” counting the people outside. Each person’s row says what they answered and how:
- “Accepted in their calendar”, or “Accepted by J Smith in their calendar” when somebody they forwarded it to answered
- “Accepted using the link in the email”
- “Accepted in their reply, marked by Alice Admin”
- “Declined by phone, recorded by Alice Admin”
- “No answer yet”, with whether the email reached them
Whoever sent the invitation gets a phone notification for every answer somebody else gives or records, such as “Susan Vale accepted”. It is switched off with Task assignments in your notification settings.
If somebody answers by email, by phone or in person, open the … on their row:
- Open their conversation shows the email thread with them. When somebody writes back “yes, that’s fine”, press Mark as their answer under their reply. You can also write back to them from there
- Record an answer is for a phone call or a word on site: Yes, they are coming, Maybe or No, they cannot, how they told you (by phone, in person, by text, another way), and anything they said. It is kept as recorded by you
Inviting more people later: press the + beside Invitations. They get the same time as everybody else already invited.
Changing or cancelling: BuildersAI cannot yet send a new time or a cancellation to the calendars it has invited.
- If the task’s time changes after the invitation has gone, the card says “The task’s time has changed since this was sent” and shows the time people still have. Tell them the new time yourself, for example from their conversation
- Deleting or cancelling the task does not take the event out of anybody’s calendar. Let them know the same way
When it cannot send: a read-only project sends no email, a demo project outside a company invites nobody, and invitations count towards your company’s daily email allowance, as all project email does. If one person’s email fails, the others still go and you are told who was missed.
Or ask me: I can find a task and its time for you, but I cannot send an invitation, add anybody to one or read the answers. That is the Invite people button. For emailing a supplier without an appointment, see the “mail” topic.