Chapter 6: Managing the Calendars

The scheduling power in Outlook comes from the Calendar feature. The Calendar is fully integrated with other objects within Outlook, such as email, contacts, and tasks. This happens seamlessly so you don’t see the full functionality that is present.

When you use a desk calendar you simply write where you want your events to appear. It is somewhat the same in Outlook Calendar: you click on a line by a time and start typing what your appointment is. Some of the advantages to using an electronic calendar are that you can do the following:

• Access your calendar from multiple devices, such as a phone, tablet, and computer
• Schedule meetings and appointments from anywhere
• Set up reminders to prevent you from missing important meetings and events
• Schedule time blocks to get work done
• Create recurring items without typing them several times

This list could go on and on. The main advantage of using the Calendar feature is it helps you stay organized so you can accomplish more within your day.

This chapter will help you take advantage of the various tools that you can utilize in Outlook’s Calendar feature. We will discuss how you can customize Outlook for your work or home life with the built-in views and set multiple options to tailor Outlook to your workday by changing working times and work days, or simply add time zones for other locations that you interact with consistently. We will cover the following:

• Views and how to customize them
• Calendar options
• Appointments, meetings, and events
• Creating multiple calendars
• Printing calendars

With all these tools available to you through Outlook, you will find if used, they will improve your productivity and help to keep you well-balanced and ready to tackle that next project you take on.

Views

Outlook gives you the choice of using four different views to view your calendar. Open the Calendar object first to view your calendar and then click View | Change View and you will see the choices available for the Calendar views, which are as follows:

• Compact – My version (Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise) says Calendar instead of Compact
• Single – My version says List instead of Single
• Preview
• Active (New to Outlook 365 for 2021)

The default view is Compact. Unless you have changed this view, that is what you have been or will be using. You have the ability inside of Outlook to change views, modify, copy, and reset them. To change views, click View | Change View and select the view you want to see.

Figure 6.1 – Change View

Occasionally, you may automatically end up in List view depending on what Outlook identified as being helpful. This would be the case after you search for an item in your calendar. Follow the previous step to switch back to the Calendar view if needed.

Manage Views…

To customize your own view of the Calendar (be sure you have selected the Calendar button), click on View | Change View | Manage Views…. You can use the Manage All Views dialogue box to copy the current view setting of a view and use it to apply that view to an existing view from the list or copy it to create a New… view.

Figure 6.2 – Manage All Views

Note

The Object view that you have to show when you click on the View tab determines the menu that you get for that current view. You will have a different View menu if you have the email, contacts, or calendar view activated.

Customizing your views

Outlook lets you customize your view to fit your working/non-working style. Not everybody works the same hours, lives in the same time zone, or has the same holidays. You may want to turn off the automatic reminders that you get with every new Calendar item or view the weather on the Calendar to help you navigate your activities according to the weather forecast. Using the Options dialogue box has these settings for you to adjust. Access this by clicking File | Options | Calendar.

Work time

In the Work time section are the items that allow you to control when your workday starts and ends. You can also specify the days of the week that you want to be scheduled as workdays, and you can change the First day of week field to begin on other days of the week besides Monday, and First week of year as well. This group is useful for having your time set up for you and not the working times that are the defaults within Outlook. If you are working on a different schedule than the default 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM or Monday through Friday schedule, this is the place you will want to customize your schedule.

Figure 6.3 – Work Time options

After you customize Work time in the Outlook Options dialogue box, you will want to look at your calendar by clicking on the Calendar button on the navigation pane. Notice the shading by Work time that is shown in the timescale on the calendar. You will see darker shading for non-working time and lighter shading for working time.

The following figure, in addition to the working and non-working time, also shows three times zones set up, as discussed later in this chapter in the Display options section:

Figure 6.4 – Calendar display

Now, let’s move onto the Calendar options dialogue box.

Calendar options

This section of the Outlook Options box includes options for how you want to control meetings and appointments. You will want to take the time to look at this box. I like to turn off the Default reminders setting as I don’t want a reminder to pop up for every appointment I set. Unchecking this option means that I need to set that manually when creating my calendar appointments and meeting activities.

Figure 6.5 – Calendar options

Calendars that are used in Outlook 2016 and later use the Gregorian calendar, which is the most widely used calendar in the world, for the years 2016-2026. If you use a calendar that is not Gregorian, such as the Julian calendar, then holidays that occur during the same period are included.

Should you have problems with holidays, you can use these steps to delete holidays:

Calendar | View | Change View | List.

In the Arrangement section, select Categories:

1. Scroll to find the Holidays category.
2. Select the holidays you want to delete and click Home | Delete.
3. Return to the normal calendar view by clicking View | Change View | Calendar.

   Note

   Using the Add Holidays… option will enter the holidays in your calendar for that country. Doing this a second time will duplicate the holidays on your calendar.

Display options

In the Display options section within the Calendar tab, you can specify how you want your calendar to appear in the Calendar display within Outlook. You will find the different groups within this section and a few of the prominent features described after the following figure:

Figure 6.6 – Display options

• Default calendar color: Click the drop-down arrow by this button to select the color you would like to work with while in Outlook.
• Show week numbers in the month view and in the Date Navigator: This will show the number of the week in the Calendar represented by a number throughout the Calendar, starting at 1 for the first week of the year.

  Note

  The final two selections for Display options are to switch from vertical layout to schedule view according to how many calendars are displayed. Read the selection carefully as these are reversed wording as written for each item.

Time zones

We will configure the time zone that Outlook will use with the options listed in this section. You will also find the options Show a second time zone and Show a third time zone, which are only available in Outlook 2016 and later. This is useful if you find yourself making phone calls or appointments with people in different time zones frequently.

Figure 6.7 – Time zones

I have found this to be a game-changer in keeping up with what time it is in Arizona. Arizona does not have daylight savings time. Time zone in the USA changes every 6 months – half the year is the same time, and the other half of the year is an hour different.

Scheduling assistant

Scheduling assistant will let you view when people are available on their schedule before you plan a meeting or event. You will be able to view others’ calendars to help schedule events with no conflicts. Remember that this information is only as good as the actual information that gets scheduled. More on Scheduling assistant will be covered in Chapter 11, Sharing Mail, Calendars, and Contacts, on sharing with Outlook.

The Scheduling assistant area on the Calendar tab allows you to turn on or off the ScreenTips to show. This makes it so that when you hover over an appointment in the Calendar, a short description will show with details. Show calendar details in the scheduling grid makes it available to others on your exchange network. By default, these two options are turned on. Turn these off if you want added privacy for your calendar.

Figure 6.8 – Scheduling assistant options

Automatic accept or decline

It is now, more than ever, easy to decline meetings that you cannot fit into your schedule. By clicking on the Auto Accept/Decline… button, you can have Outlook automatically decline those meeting proposals for you if they conflict with another Calendar event. This can be a real timesaver if you are confident your calendar is up to date.

Figure 6.9 – Automatic accept or decline

Weather

With the help of the Weather section, you can toggle the weather bar on the Calendar and also choose how you would like to view the temperature in the Calendar window. By turning on this feature, you will see a bar at the top of your calendar with weather information listed.

Figure 6.10 – Weather options

Appointments, meetings, and events

When it comes to working on your calendar, the most important topic is creating appointments, meetings, and events. The difference between Appointment and Meeting is that an appointment only involves you, not others, and a meeting involves other people as well. All-day events will show up at the top of the day with a bar indicating that the event takes all day.

For appointments, I would recommend you mark yourself as busy if you are sharing your calendar with others. Appointments are straightforward to set up. Click on the day in the Calendar that you want to place the appointment on and either double-click on the day or click on Home | New Appointment. If you want an all-day event, this can be done in the exact same way but then check the All day box for the event.

When viewing your calendar, you have a small monthly calendar that appears in the navigation pane on the left. In this calendar, you can select days that you want to view. Click the date or hold the Ctrl key down and select multiple days. You may choose every Friday in a month, for example, if you are trying to schedule a lunch appointment with a peer, or you could select the first week of January and then hold the Ctrl key to select the first week of February to locate the best day for a webinar in the first weeks of each month, as shown in this example.

Figure 6.11 – Navigating Calendar

Once you’ve identified the date, you can simply double-click on the time of the event or day and the New Appointment dialogue box will open to schedule your appointment, or check the All day box to schedule an all-day event.

Figure 6.12 – All-day event

When setting your dates in these windows, you can use natural language dates. Try typing the following:

• In seven weeks
• Second Monday in July
• Christmas
• Thanksgiving does not work but you can type the fourth Thursday in November.

Give it a try – it is a real timesaver!

Recurring appointments

If you have meetings or events that happen at regular intervals, you will want to enter them into your calendar as a recurring appointment or recurring event. When you create the appointment or meeting, click on the Recurrence button on the Appointment or Meeting tab ribbon.

Figure 6.13 – Recurrence button

There are three settings you can adjust in the Appointment Recurrence dialogue box:

1. Appointment time: Specifies the Start, End, and Duration along with your time zone selections.
2. Recurrence pattern: Specifies whether the recurrence should be Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly and specific settings to go along with each selection.
3. Range of recurrence: Specifies a Start date for recurrence and determines whether it should End by a specific date, End after a specified number of occurrences, or have No end date.

Figure 6.14 – Appointment Recurrence

Recurring appointments are great for annual events such as birthdays or a meeting held every other week on the same day, or even the first week of a new month. This tool is a great timesaver.

Prioritizing appointments

Is your calendar swamped with appointments and meetings? Do you hesitate to say “no” to another appointment request?

Outlook’s default priority field has three settings: low, normal, and high. Applying one of these settings will allow you to sort tasks by priority level. Viewing by priority level over the due date will give you a little edge in the importance of your appointments. To view the priority, you may filter high- and low-priority items:

1. In the Calendar, click View | View Settings.
2. Click on Filter and click the More Choices tab.
3. Check the Whose importance is box and select normal, high, or low.

Figure 6.15 – Filter priority

It’s best to view the filtered appointment by clicking View | Change View | List. Turn on this filter when you need to prioritize your emails according to your high-priority appointments and you’ll know which appointments you can reschedule or should not reschedule based on the priority level you assigned. If you are not currently applying a priority to your appointments, they will all show in this filtered list as normal priority so using this list view to show the filter will not be as effective. If you are currently setting priorities on your appointments by using this filter, you will instantly know which appointments you can or cannot reschedule based on the priority level that you applied.

Multiple calendars

If you are combining various activities together on one calendar, you may want to consider creating additional calendars tailored to your lifestyle. I have found this extremely helpful as I start working on a new project because I will create a new calendar on which I schedule only activities related to that specific project. I have also found it nice to not have to display the Calendar all the time and I can hide it if no activity is happening for a while or delete it altogether once my project has been completed. If my project gets busy all of a sudden, I will use the Overlay option to be able to see my calendar combined with my activities on my other calendars. How busy you get or how overwhelmed you get maintaining your calendar will determine when you need to start keeping separate calendars.

1. To create additional calendars, click the Calendar button in the navigation pane, then click Folder | New Calendar.

Figure 6.16 – Create a new calendar

2. Give the Calendar a name in the Create New Folder dialogue box and the calendar will by default be created in the Calendar folder.
3. Enter a name for the new calendar and, unless you prefer a different location, it will automatically have selected Calendar Items from the Folder contains dropdown and it will be placed in the Calendar folder.
4. Click OK. You can now view the new calendar in the Calendar view from the navigation pane.

Figure 6.17 - Create New Folder

Creating separate calendars can be very useful for keeping all your appointments and your thoughts organized. Now we will discuss how you can easily view your calendars in different ways to help you quickly view your calendar entries. You can view the calendars you create either as a single calendar or together in a side-by-side view or overlay view. You can choose the view you want based on your liking.

Viewing side-by-side calendars

Once the new calendar is created, its name will immediately appear in the navigation pane. You will see a box next to the name of the calendar. By clicking on this box, the calendar will appear in the view within the Calendar workspace. By default, your calendars will appear side by side.

Figure 6.18 – Calendars side by side

I like this side-by-side view because it allows me to compare calendars and also focus on one calendar over another within the same workspace. You can hide any displayed calendars by deselecting the calendar’s checkbox in the navigation pane or clicking the X that appears on the right side of the calendars tab in the workspace window above the calendar days.

Sharing calendars with coworkers who share the same Exchange account will be discussed in Chapter 11, Sharing Mail, Calendars, and Contacts.

Viewing overlay calendars

Outlook has an Overlay feature within the Calendar to be able to view two or more calendars together by layering them. This view will make it so that you can view all of your appointments or events together in one calendar. To activate this view, click View | Overlay. Repeat the step again to turn off Overlay.

Figure 6.19 – Overlay

In order to help you differentiate the appearance of items in the Calendar, in the Overlay view appointments are color-coded. All items not on the primary calendar (usually the calendar opened first) will appear slightly transparent, indicating that it is not the primary calendar. For example, you could view your main calendar normally, and when you overlay a calendar that you have been made a delegate of, that calendar will have transparent headings so that you know the items are not on your personal calendar, as in Chapter 11, Sharing Mail, Calendars, and Contacts.

Figure 6.20 – Overlay calendar view

I like to activate Overlay on my calendars when I want to find an open available time on multiple calendars to schedule an event. It saves me a lot of time not having to open and close multiple calendars.

Note

To view a calendar in a separate window, as a separate calendar, you can right-click on the calendar name in the navigation pane and select Open in New Window.

Printing calendars

It’s always nice to rely 100% on being able to access your calendar information online. But there might be times when you want to print out your schedule. Having a busy day can also mean your phone or computer battery may die or you may leave it behind somewhere when you find you need it. As a safeguard, I suggest you create a printout of the day, week, or month depending on your business needs. This could end up being a real frustration saver.

Printing out a calendar is straightforward. File | Print will give you the printing features for a quick printout. Ctrl + P is the shortcut for printing.

You have six settings for printing a calendar. If no details are entered on the calendar, it will print the calendar in Daily Style:

• Daily Style: This style prints a selected day of the calendar, which will include time and time zone information, calendar events, and the daily task list and notes.

Figure 6.21 – Daily Style view

• Weekly Agenda Style: Prints a selected week on one page. Shows each day in a separate box and daily events.

Figure 6.22 – Weekly Agenda view

• Weekly Calendar Style: Prints a selected week showing time and time zones and events for that week within the calendar.

Figure 6.23 – Weekly Calendar view

• Monthly Style: Prints a selected month in a calendar view style showing events listed within the days of the month.

Figure 6.24 – Monthly Style view

• Tri-fold Style: Prints selected dates in a tri-fold style to allow the user to fold the calendar like a brochure. Includes days with time zones and times and events for the day on the left fold. The centerfold has a daily task list and a weekly calendar is displayed on the right fold.

Figure 6.25 – Tri-fold Style view

• Calendar Details Style: Shows an email that has been brought into the calendar to display the details of the day and the email is what will be displayed.

Figure 6.26 – Calendar Details Style

After selecting the setting style that you want to print your calendar in, you should then look at Print Options. Click on the Print Options button above Settings in the Print window.

Figure 6.27 - Print Options

In the Print dialogue box, for each of the six styles, once selected, you can choose various additional settings for your printing preference. Click the Print Options button located above the Settings selections. In this box, you can change the printer, choose your Print style preference, select a Page range option, such as Pages: 2-3, or even select a date for Print range.

Figure 6.28 – Print dialogue box

Two options that are overlooked in this Print dialogue box are the Hide details of private appointments option at the bottom of the box, which you can select to have private appointments not show up on the printout, and the Print to file box at the top right of this box, which you can use to print to the computer and save it on your PC instead of printing it out on paper.

Printing a specific day or range

A handy feature when printing Outlook calendars is the ability to first select the day or days that you want to print and then select File | Print. By doing this first, only the selected day or selected range will be printed and you won’t have to specify the style.

Summary

As you can see, there are so many reasons for you to use Outlook Calendar, and harnessing the power of Calendar features is just another example of using an electronic calendar. You can use Outlook as a tool to help you get organized and complete things you need to get done and stay on task at the same time.

In the next chapter, we will discuss the people side of Outlook. We will see how Contacts are an important part of keeping you connected with your friends, coworkers, and new and old acquaintances you have in your life. You will learn how you can efficiently add and handle new contacts. You will also learn best practices for organizing those contacts rather than be individually or within a group. You will learn what the People Pane is and how it can help you stay connected to your contacts socially and, most importantly, how to back up those contacts so you don’t lose any of the information. Lastly, we will discuss the various address books that are available and give you guidance on how they should be used.

Questions

1. In the Calendar, why does the current calendar show in the navigation window on the left side?
2. How can I turn off the reminder feature on appointments? I don’t want every appointment I make to have a 15-minute reminder set.
3. Can I have my Outlook tasks show on my calendar?
4. Can an email be converted into a meeting request?
5. Where is the Board (Kanban) view on the desktop version of Outlook?

Answers

1. The two calendars that are on the left side in the navigation pane are a way to navigate and select the days you want to view in the main Calendar window. You can use the arrows to navigate to other months, and when you change the month of the calendar, the other bottom calendar will change as well. You can also click on a date in these calendars to navigate to that date in your main Calendar window or even select two or more dates (hold down the Ctrl key) to compare them side by side. This is a very useful tool that many users do not use because they don’t know of its power.
2. Click the File | Options | Calendar | Calendar Options section and uncheck the Default reminders box, or you can change the reminder time here as well.
3. Yes. Click View | To-Do Bar | Check To-Do. This will add the calendar to the To-Do Bar that will appear on the right side of the calendar.
4. Yes. Select the email that you want to convert to a meeting request, then click Home | Reply with Meeting (Ctrl + Alt + R). This creates the New meeting request with the message recipient on the To line and the email message included in the body of the meeting request.
5. As of now, the Board view is only available in the Calendar view of Outlook on the web. It is not yet on the desktop versions. If you like Kanban boards, then you may want to sign in to Office 365 on the web and give this a try.

Further reading

• How to use the Board view:

https://www.howtogeek.com/752967/how-to-use-board-view-in-microsoft-outlook-calendar/