Information Systems:Shared Calendars in Microsoft Outlook

Overview

A shared calendar an O365 calendar that is created/owned by one person but is readable (and optionally, writeable) by the people it is shared to. Shared calendars can be useful at the department and company level. The process to create one is straightforward:

• Someone creates a shared calendar (this should be the manager). When prompted for the location of the calendar, the user's "Calendars" folder should be chosen so that it goes into this node. (It would be preferred to save this under a common object like a shared mailbox or group, but I haven't found a way to do this - it always errors out.).
• The creator shares the calendar through the "Share Calendar" feature. This prepares an email invitation. There is a tick box to "allow invitees to add entries to the calendar" that can be used accordingly.
• Invitees can use the "Open calendar" in the email invitation to add the calendar tot their list of calendars. This also propagates to the mobile app.

Notes

• By default, creating entries in any calendar sets a reminder/alert - this may not be desirable for entries in the shared calendar. The reminder can be configured off per entry at the time of scheduling or after the fact.