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Understand how to view and work with personal and group calendars in Microsoft 365.

Quick reference

Shared Calendars in Outlook

Learn how to view and work with personal and shared calendars in Outlook.

When to use

We use shared calendars to keep track of group appointments and meetings.

Instructions

Shared Calendars are one of the most important features of Microsoft 365 groups. 

  • From the App Launcher, click on Outlook
  • Click on Calendar 

Calendar Views

When we open our calendar, what we see depends on the view we have selected. We have a choice of Day, Work week, Week or Month. 

To view a specific number of days at a time, click the drop-down arrow next to Day. 

The Mini-Calendar

On the left-hand side, we can see a mini-calendar. This shows the entire month. We can use the up and down arrows to move through the different months. 

My Calendars/Shared Calendars

Underneath the mini-calendar, we have a list of calendars we can toggle off or on depending on which ones we want to see. 

The My calendars section contains the calendar that is attached to the account we are currently logged in as. This is our personal calendar that no one else has access to. 

To see other calendars click Show All. 

This is where we can see our Microsoft 365 group calendars. 

We can view a group calendar and our own calendar by simply selecting the group calendar to display. 

Any appointments and meetings will now be merged with my own calendar items. We can differentiate between items that are from the group calendar and items from our own calendar by color. 

To only show in the calendar list the calendars in use, click Show selected. 

Viewing Calendars in Outlook Desktop

In Outlook online the default is for calendars to be merged together.

In Outlook Desktop, the behavior is different. Outlook will show multiple calendars side by side. 

We can merge these calendars together and replicate the default behavior in Outlook online by clicking on the arrow icon. 

Scheduling with Group Calendars

It's important to ensure we are working in the correct calendar when scheduling appointments and meetings. 

  • Click on the New event button

We can check which calendar we are scheduling an event for by checking which one is selected at the top. If it's incorrect, click the drop-down and select the correct calendar. 

  • Add a title and description

There is also a field to invite attendees. It's worth noting that if this isn't a meeting that requires attendees e.g. a doctor's appointment, we can leave this field blank. When we add attendees we are effectively creating a meeting, not an appointment. 

  • Set a date and time
  • Click Save

The appointment will be added to which calendar you selected. If it's a group calendar, group members can see the appointment. 

Hints & tips

  • Work week view shows Monday to Friday only and excludes the weekends. 
  • If you cannot see the mini-calendar or the shared calendars, click on the three lines to toggle on the left pane.
  • When creating appointments in Outlook desktop, ensure you have the correct calendar tab selected before creating the new event. 
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  • 00:04 Shared calendars are one of the most important features
  • 00:07 in Microsoft 365 groups.
  • 00:09 So let's dive in and take a look at them.
  • 00:12 Now I'm currently in the mail part of Outlook so
  • 00:15 I need to switch across to my calendar.
  • 00:18 And we could do that very simply from the left-hand menu,
  • 00:21 we can just click the calendar icon.
  • 00:23 Now when we open up the calendar,
  • 00:25 what you see really depends on which view you currently have selected.
  • 00:29 So I'm currently working in month view, but
  • 00:32 remember you can switch that I could work in week view, or
  • 00:35 maybe I just want to see Monday to Friday, so that would be work week view.
  • 00:39 Or alternatively, I can choose how many days I want to view at a time.
  • 00:43 So maybe I just want to see the next three days, I can select that from there.
  • 00:48 Now in this lesson, I'm going to use month view.
  • 00:50 Now over on the left-hand side, this is where we can see our mini calendar.
  • 00:55 We can use the arrows to scroll through the different months.
  • 00:58 And then underneath that we have all of the calendars that we have access to and
  • 01:02 which ones we're currently displaying.
  • 01:05 Now if you're looking at your Outlook and you're thinking I can't see any of this on
  • 01:09 the left-hand side, it might be that you need to toggle that left-hand pane.
  • 01:14 So if yours looks something like that, click the three dots or
  • 01:18 the hamburger menu as we like to call them to open that up.
  • 01:22 Now notice just below where we have my calendars, currently,
  • 01:25 I have calendar selected.
  • 01:27 And that's exactly what I can see here.
  • 01:29 This is the calendar that's attached to the account that I'm signed into
  • 01:33 Microsoft 365 ads.
  • 01:35 Now if I click Show All,
  • 01:36 this is going to show me all of the other calendars that I have access to.
  • 01:41 So you can see here I have access to a calendar that
  • 01:45 specifically shows all of the public holidays in the United Kingdom.
  • 01:49 I also have a birthday calendar so I can keep track of people's special day.
  • 01:55 And then underneath that, we have our group calendars.
  • 01:59 And what you should see here are the Microsoft 365 groups that
  • 02:02 we created earlier.
  • 02:03 So we have Sample Team Side, and we also have Project Alpha.
  • 02:07 Now if I want to view the Project Alpha calendar, I can simply click to select it.
  • 02:12 And you can see how that changes my current calendar.
  • 02:16 I now have both calendars, both my own personal one and
  • 02:20 the Project Alpha calendar merged into one.
  • 02:23 So this is really useful because it means that when I'm scheduling things,
  • 02:28 I can see what commitments I have across different calendars, and
  • 02:32 maybe these are the two calendars that I like to display all of the time.
  • 02:36 I can remove the rest of the noise cause I do have quite a lot of calendars down here
  • 02:41 by simply clicking Shows selected and it's going to minimize that list down
  • 02:45 to just the two calendars that I currently have displayed.
  • 02:49 Now viewing multiple calendars in this overlay format is the default in
  • 02:54 Outlook Online.
  • 02:55 However, it does work slightly differently if we're working with the desktop
  • 02:58 application.
  • 02:59 So let's switch across to that and take a look.
  • 03:02 So in the desktop version of Outlook when I switch across to this,
  • 03:06 I currently have My Calendar showing.
  • 03:08 But if I was to select Project Alpha from all group calendars,
  • 03:12 notice that we get it side by side as opposed to overlayed.
  • 03:16 Now, it might be that you prefer working in this view.
  • 03:19 My personal preference is to have them both mesh together.
  • 03:22 I just find it a lot easier.
  • 03:24 Now the good news is you can do that simply by clicking on the little arrow
  • 03:29 just here.
  • 03:29 So where we have Project Alpha, can you see it says view in overlay mode?
  • 03:34 Let's click this and now I can see both calendars merged together.
  • 03:39 So just be aware of that difference between the online version and
  • 03:42 the desktop version.
  • 03:44 Now one thing to note here when you're working with multiple calendars is you can
  • 03:48 see that My Calendar, the appointments are showing in blue, and the group calendar,
  • 03:52 the appointments are showing in green.
  • 03:54 So this is really important when it comes to scheduling because you want to make
  • 03:59 sure you are scheduling in the correct calendar.
  • 04:01 So if we click on the new event button, this is where you would select this.
  • 04:07 So right at the top here, we get a choice so
  • 04:10 I can add this into My Calendar or I can add this into Project Alpha.
  • 04:15 So let's go for Project Alpha.
  • 04:17 Let's just give it a title.
  • 04:18 We're having a brainstorm session.
  • 04:20 Now notice underneath, we have Invite attendees.
  • 04:23 Now, at this stage I just want this to be an appointment so
  • 04:26 I'm not going to invite anybody else.
  • 04:28 Let's set a time.
  • 04:30 So let's say Tuesday the 30th.
  • 04:32 We'll go for 11:00 to 11:30.
  • 04:35 Also, note here, you can add a cute little icon if you want to.
  • 04:40 So let's just add a star to this.
  • 04:42 Why not?
  • 04:43 And click on Save.
  • 04:44 So that appointment has now been added to the group calendar,
  • 04:48 which means that anybody else who has access to that group calendar is going to
  • 04:52 be able to see the appointment.
  • 04:54 Remember, nobody else in the group can see anything
  • 04:57 that's saved into my personal calendar.
  • 05:00 So just be aware of that when you're scheduling.
  • 05:03 And just a final note that if you're doing this in the desktop application,
  • 05:07 the easiest way to do this is make sure you have the correct
  • 05:10 calendar selected first.
  • 05:11 So once again, at the top here, I can select My Calendar or
  • 05:15 I can select Project Alpha.
  • 05:16 So I need to make sure I'm clicked on Project Alpha and then the quickest way
  • 05:21 is just to double-click on one of the days to open up a new appointment.
  • 05:25 You can then add the details in and
  • 05:27 one way that you can check that you are adding this to the correct calendar is if
  • 05:31 you glance down to the bottom you can see it says in folder Project Alpha.
  • 05:36 So just bear that in mind when you're scheduling in Outlook.

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