How to share an Outlook calendar

Microsoft Outlook provides not only email ca­pa­bil­i­ties but also extensive groupware func­tion­al­i­ties for managing contacts, tasks, and ap­point­ments. Busi­ness­es utilize Outlook’s calendar feature to organize col­lab­o­ra­tion and plan meetings. Shared sched­ul­ing is made easier through Outlook calendar sharing, both within the or­ga­ni­za­tion and with external parties.

How to share an Outlook calendar quick guide

1. Open calendar view > Home tab > click on Share calendar
2. Select calendar and adjust per­mis­sion settings > OK
3. Select contact under Add > Adjust au­tho­riza­tion settings > OK

Microsoft Office 365 provides cloud-based office ap­pli­ca­tions, whereas Outlook is a desktop ap­pli­ca­tion installed locally. For personal use, it is primarily utilized as an email program that manages multiple accounts. In or­ga­ni­za­tion­al settings, Outlook often acts as a client for the Microsoft Exchange Server, which serves as a central hub for emails, ap­point­ments, and tasks. The following sections will demon­strate the options available for sharing calendars both in the Outlook desktop ap­pli­ca­tion and the web version.

How to share a calendar in Outlook desktop

In the Outlook desktop version, you have the following options for granting other people access to calendar in­for­ma­tion:

• Share the Outlook calendar as a snapshot
• Share the Outlook calendar (only in com­bi­na­tion with an exchange server)
• Share the Outlook calendar by pub­lish­ing it on a website

How to share your Outlook calendar as a snapshot

Re­gard­less of how Outlook is used in your home or business, the desktop ap­pli­ca­tion will allow you to send a snapshot of your calendar by email. Follow these steps:

1. Click on the Calendar tab in the footer bar of your Outlook ap­pli­ca­tion window.

2. Select the Home tab in the toolbar and click on Email Calendar under Share.

3. A window will open for a new message, and the dialog box Send a Calendar via Email will appear. There you can select the desired calendar and a time period. You can select the entire calendar or just in­di­vid­ual days, weeks or months.

4. Select one of three levels of detail to define what in­for­ma­tion the calendar section should contain.

5. Under Advanced, Outlook offers the option of including ap­point­ments and at­tach­ments marked as private in the snapshot of your calendar. You can also choose one of two email layouts:

• Daily schedule
• List of events

Once you have selected the desired calendar and made settings for the time period, the level of detail and the display format, confirm with OK. Outlook will then insert a copy of the selected calendar section as a snapshot in a new email.

6. Enter the desired recipient’s email address and add a personal message to the email if required. Click Submit to share your Outlook calendar.

Each message created with the “Send a Calendar via Email” function also contains an iCalendar file (ICS), which enables the recipient to open the selected calendar section in any calendar program. The file format is supported by various products from different providers. The best known of these ap­pli­ca­tions include Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, IBM Lotus Notes, Yahoo! Calendar, Evolution, eM Client, Mozilla Thun­der­bird, SeaMonkey and Novell GroupWise.

How to share your Outlook calendar with Microsoft Exchange Server

If you use your Outlook desktop ap­pli­ca­tion in con­junc­tion with an exchange server, the software allows you to share calendars that are updated au­to­mat­i­cal­ly. To share an Outlook calendar, you can send a sharing in­vi­ta­tion to people both inside and outside your company. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, Outlook allows you to publish your calendar on a website.

How to share your calendar with people inside your own or­ga­ni­za­tion

To share your Outlook Calendar with a person in your or­ga­ni­za­tion, follow these steps:

1. Select the calendar view in your Outlook desktop ap­pli­ca­tion. Then go to the Home tab in the toolbar and then Share Calendar in the Share section.

2. In the dialog box that appears, use the Add section to search for in­di­vid­u­als in your address book that your wish to share your calendar with. Select the desired Outlook calendar per­mis­sions for each person, then click OK to send an automatic sharing in­vi­ta­tion via email. You can modify the access levels for others at any time via this menu.

Re­cip­i­ents who receive a sharing in­vi­ta­tion by email only need to click on the Open calendar button to add the sharing calendar to their own calendar list.

If you want to stop sharing your calendar again, select the people you want to revoke access to under Currently shared with:. Click on Remove and then OK to save the changes.

How to share your calendar with people outside your or­ga­ni­za­tion

Do you want to share your Outlook Calendar with contacts outside your or­ga­ni­za­tion? It is more or less the same process as sharing a calendar with col­leagues. However, something to note is that many networks limit your ability to share detailed calendar in­for­ma­tion with those not in your network.

How many details your or­ga­ni­za­tion can share with external users is set out by your network ad­min­is­tra­tor in the sharing policy settings. If it is not possible to share your calendar with the desired level of detail, you will receive an error message stating that the calendar cannot be shared.

In this case, contact the ad­min­is­tra­tor of your network or select a different level of detail.

How to publish a calendar to a website

Another way to share an Outlook calendar with people outside your own or­ga­ni­za­tion is to publish it on a website set up specif­i­cal­ly for this purpose. Outlook offers the Publish Online function for this purpose. Please note that you need a web server that supports the WebDAV protocol. Proceed as follows when pub­lish­ing:

1. Go back to the Outlook calendar view, check the calendar you want to share and select the Home tab. There, click on Publish Online.

2. The Publish to WebDav Server… function is displayed in the drop-down menu. Select this function.

3. If you decide to publish to a WebDav server, Outlook will prompt you for the WebDav server address, and the desired time span and level of detail using the Publish Calendar to Cus­tomised Server box.

4. In the Publish Calendar to Cus­tomised Server dialog box, click Advanced… to make detailed settings for upload method, private items or update frequency.

How to share your Outlook calendar on the web and the new Outlook

Sharing calendars works slightly dif­fer­ent­ly in the web version of Outlook and the new Outlook:

1. Select the calendar you want to share and click Share.

In the Sharing and per­mis­sions dialog box that appears, you can view who has access to your calendar both within and outside your or­ga­ni­za­tion. You can also modify the Outlook calendar per­mis­sion settings directly from there.

2. To share the calendar with a new person, enter their email address or contact name in the input field.

3. If you have entered an email address or a contact, you can adjust the au­tho­riza­tion settings via the drop-down menu. Click on Share to send an in­vi­ta­tion by email.