| paul@933 | 1 | = Counter-Proposals and Offers = |
| paul@933 | 2 | |
| paul@934 | 3 | When attempting to schedule an event, an attendee may suggest an alternative |
| paul@934 | 4 | time by issuing a counter-proposal in the form of a `COUNTER` message. Upon |
| paul@934 | 5 | receiving a counter-proposal, an organiser may then issue an updated |
| paul@934 | 6 | invitation with new details (potentially matching those suggested in the |
| paul@934 | 7 | counter-proposal, but not necessarily) for attendees to accept or decline. |
| paul@934 | 8 | Alternatively, an organiser may refuse to consider other times and send the |
| paul@934 | 9 | attendee concerned a `DECLINECOUNTER` message. |
| paul@933 | 10 | |
| paul@933 | 11 | == Offers to Schedule == |
| paul@933 | 12 | |
| paul@934 | 13 | It can be useful for an attendee issuing such a counter-proposal to mark the |
| paul@934 | 14 | periods involved as tentatively occupied until they know that their proposal |
| paul@934 | 15 | has been accepted or not; it is also useful for the organiser to be able to |
| paul@934 | 16 | rely on such periods being temporarily reserved by attendees so that any |
| paul@934 | 17 | acceptance of a counter-proposal will succeed instead of failing because an |
| paul@934 | 18 | attendee has chosen to dedicate those periods to something else. Thus, an |
| paul@934 | 19 | attendee will make a temporary offer of scheduling for periods of time |
| paul@934 | 20 | associated with an event, expiring such an offer in case the organiser chooses |
| paul@934 | 21 | not to respond in a timely fashion (or at all). |
| paul@933 | 22 | |
| paul@933 | 23 | == Managing Counter-Proposals == |
| paul@933 | 24 | |
| paul@934 | 25 | Each attendee invited to an event may respond with a counter-proposal. Thus, |
| paul@934 | 26 | an organiser needs to be able to collect multiple counter-proposals for each |
| paul@934 | 27 | event and to choose one to accept, if any are to be accepted at all. In |
| paul@934 | 28 | principle, an organiser could merge details of different proposals, |
| paul@934 | 29 | particularly if multiple periods are involved (and also if different attendees |
| paul@934 | 30 | are suggested in different proposals), with the resulting combination of |
| paul@934 | 31 | details being issued as a new request to all attendees. |
