By default, if you’re using Exchange Server, your free/busy information is shared automatically with all other users on that server. If you want users who are not on your server to be able to view that information, or if you do not use Exchange Server at all, you can still share your free/busy information. You can also post your calendar information to other servers through File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). For example, your company might set up its own server to enable users to share their calendar information with others, whether within the company (for example, if you don’t use Exchange Server) or outside the company.
Note
This section focuses on how to publish your calendar information and configure Outlook 2007 to search for calendar information. See the section "Working with Group Schedules" later in this chapter to learn how to view others’ calendar information.
Troubleshooting
Other users don’t see your schedule changes
When you make changes to your schedule, those changes might not be visible right away to other users who need to see your free/busy times. By default, Outlook 2007 updates your free/busy information every 15 minutes. To change the frequency of these updates, click Tools, Options, and then click Calendar Options. Click Free/Busy Options, and then click Other Free/Busy to access the Update Free/Busy Information On The Server Every n Minutes option (shown earlier in Figure 36-4), which you can use to set the frequency of updates.
Publishing your calendar information makes it possible for others to see your free/busy times in Outlook 2007 when they need to schedule meetings with you or view or manage your calendar. Likewise, the free/busy times of people who publish their calendar information, and who give you access to that information, are visible to you in Outlook 2007. The ability to publish free/busy information to Web servers therefore brings group scheduling capabilities to Outlook 2007 users who do not have access to Exchange Server.
Exchange Server provides four free/busy states for a given time period: Free, Tentative, Busy, and Out Of Office. When you publish your calendar to Microsoft Office Online or a WebDAV server, you can specify which level of calendar detail is available to the viewing user. When you publish your free/busy information to a Web server or file server via FTP, HTTP, or a file, however, only Busy or No Information status is available. Consequently, if you view someone’s free/busy information that is published to an FTP, an HTTP, or a file server, all time that the user has marked as Tentative or Out Of Office appears as Busy when you view his or her schedule in Outlook 2007. The only way to view Tentative and Out Of Office status is to pull that information directly from Exchange Server, from Microsoft Office Online, or from a WebDAV server (if the posting user has chosen to include detail in the calendar).
Microsoft Office Online is a central place on the Internet where you can publish your schedule. Publishing your schedule allows anyone (or only those you specify) to access your calendar information from anywhere on the Internet. This free Microsoft service is useful if you don’t use Exchange Server but still want to share your calendar information with others, whether inside or outside your company. You can also use this Microsoft service in conjunction with Exchange Server, publishing your calendar information to the service to allow users outside your Exchange Server organization to view schedule status.
The following sections explain how to publish to the different types of calendar servers. Later in this chapter, you’ll also learn how to set up your own free/busy server.
Publishing your calendar to the Web using either Microsoft Office Online or another WebDAV server starts off the same way—you begin by right-clicking the calendar in the Navigation Pane and then choosing Publish To Internet, as shown in Figure 36-5. Alternatively, you could select the option to publish your calendar to a WebDAV server other than Microsoft Office Online by choosing the Publish To WebDAV Server option.
Figure 36-5. To publish your calendar to the Web, choose Publish To Internet, and then choose Publish To Office Online or Publish To WebDAV Server.
If you choose to publish your calendar to Microsoft Office Online, the Publish Calendar To Microsoft Office Online dialog box is displayed, as shown in Figure 36-6.
Figure 36-6. You can configure date range, details, access, and updates when publishing your calendar to Microsoft Office Online.
The Publish Calendar To Microsoft Online dialog box contains the following options:
Time Span. In this area, you can specify the range of calendar information by setting the Previous and Through Next options.
Detail. In this area, you can select the level of information detail that will be displayed to users viewing your calendar:
Availability Only. Only the availability status of the time will be displayed as Free, Busy, Tentative, or Out Of Office.
Limited Details. Displays the availability status as well as the Subject line of calendar items.
Full Details. Includes availability status and all information associated with the calendar items.
Show Time Within My Working Hours Only. You can limit the display of calendar information to only your working hours by selecting the Show Time Within My Working Hours Only check box. You can configure your working hours by clicking the Set Working Hours link.
Permissions. In this area, you can control the access to your published calendar:
Restricted Access. Limits access to your published calendar to people that you invite (via e-mail).
Unrestricted Access. Allows anyone to view your published calendar.
Upload Method. In this area, you can control the uploading of your calendar:
Automatic Uploads. Enables the automatic updating of your published calendar.
Single Upload. Enables the one-time publishing of your calendar with no further updates.
Advanced. By clicking the Show button in the Advanced area, you can elect to have private items also displayed and to have updates occur with the server’s recommended frequency.
If this is your first connection to Microsoft Office Online, you will have to register for a Microsoft Windows Live™ ID (if you don’t have one) and go through online registration for the Windows Live service before your calendar is published. You will be prompted to sign in to your Microsoft Office Online account, as shown in Figure 36-7.
After your calendar has been published, you will be asked whether you want to send e-mail notifications to people whom you want to access your calendar.
Note
When sending e-mail invitations to others to access your calendar, Outlook 2007 will include this notice: "This calendar is shared with restricted permissions. To preview or subscribe to this calendar, you need to enroll the e-mail address to which this e-mail message was sent with a Windows Live ID account."
Your calendar information is now shared using Microsoft Office Online, and other users who have received your e-mail invitations can view that information.
You can also publish your free/busy schedule to another server using FTP, HTTP, or a share on a file server. For example, if you don’t use Exchange Server in your company, you might set up a Web server on your network to enable users to publish and share their free/busy information. Using your own server eliminates the need to use the Microsoft Office Online service and the need for users to have a Microsoft Windows Live ID account (which is required to use the Microsoft Office Online service).
You can publish to local or remote FTP or HTTP servers, making it easy to publish free/busy information to servers outside your organization. For example, you might work at a division that doesn’t have its own Web server, but the corporate office does have a server that you can use to publish your free/busy information. Publishing to a file requires a share on your computer or on a local file server. However, that doesn’t mean that users who need to access that free/busy information must be located on the local network. You might publish your free/busy information to a share on your local Web server, for example, but remote users can then access that free/busy information through the Web server’s HTTP-based URL.
You must know the correct URL for the server to configure the free/busy URL in Outlook 2007. Here are three examples:
http://www.tailspintoys.com/schedules/chill.vfb
ftp://ftp.tailspintoys.com/schedules/chill.vfb
f:SchedulesChill.vfb
Note that schedule files use a .vfb file name extension. Also, the first two examples assume a virtual or physical folder named Schedules under the root of the specified server URL.
Configuring Outlook 2007 to publish to an FTP, an HTTP, or a file URL is easy. Follow these steps to configure Outlook 2007 to publish your free/busy information:
Choose Tools, Options.
Click Calendar Options, and then click Free/Busy Options.
Click Other Free/Busy.
In the Free/Busy Options dialog box, select Publish At My Location.
In the Publish At My Location text box, type the fully qualified path to the server on which your free/busy information is to be published.
In the Search location box, specify the server to search. This server will be used to view other users’ free/busy information. (See the following section for additional details on configuring search locations.)
Click OK to close the Free/Busy Options dialog box.
The Free/Busy Options dialog box includes a Search Location box that specifies where Outlook 2007 will search for free/busy information when you create group schedules or meeting requests. Specify the URL or file share where the group’s calendars are published, and Outlook 2007 will search the specified URL for free/busy information.
These global settings work in conjunction with Exchange Server, providing a search location for calendars not stored in Exchange Server. In addition to these global settings, you can also specify a search URL for individual contacts. You would specify the search URL in the contact if the contact’s free/busy information is not stored on the Microsoft Office Online service or another server specified in the Search Location box.
Follow these steps to set the free/busy search URL for a contact:
Free/busy information is refreshed automatically at the intervals set in the Free/Busy Options dialog box. (Choose Tools, Options, click Calendar Options, and then click Free/Busy Options to configure these settings.)
You can refresh free/busy information manually as well. First make sure that the Calendar folder is open, and then choose Tools, Send/Receive, Free/Busy Information. The free/busy information is updated from the server (Exchange Server or other selected free/busy server), and the free/busy information for the users is displayed in subsequent meeting requests.
Outlook 2007 enables you to send your calendar to other people via e-mail, either by clicking the Send A Calendar Via E-Mail link in the Navigation Pane or by right-clicking the calendar and then choosing Send Via E-Mail. A new mail message form will be opened, and the Send A Calendar Via E-Mail dialog box will be displayed, as shown in Figure 36-8. In this dialog box, you can select the calendar to send and configure the date range and amount of detail that the calendar contains. When you click Show in the Advanced area, you can enable the display of information marked as private, include attachments in the calendar, and specify the layout of the calendar as either Daily Schedule or List Of Events. When you click OK, the calendar is written into the e-mail message as text and as an attachment.
To e-mail your free/busy information to others, you must first link that information to a vCard, as follows:
Open a contact item containing your own contact information.
In the Show area of the Contact tab, click Details. The Details page appears, as shown in Figure 36-9.
In the Address box in the Internet Free-Busy area, type the address of the server containing your free/busy information.
Click the Microsoft Office Button, click Save As, and then select Export To vCard File.
In the vCard File dialog box, type the name of the file, and then select the location where you want to save the file.
Click Save to create the vCard.
You can now send the vCard to other users, and they can reference your free/busy information. For more details about using vCards, see "Sharing Contacts with vCards" in Chapter 18.
You can change the free/busy status of an item easily. One method is to right-click the item, choose Show Time As, and then select Free, Busy, Tentative, or Out Of Office. The second method is to open the item (by double-clicking or right-clicking it and then choosing Open), and then select Free, Busy, Tentative, or Out Of Office in the Show As drop-down list in the Options area.