Outlook should support a group calendar for home/small business

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Outlook needs to have native support for common or group calendaring for
those of us without Exchange Servers, like home users with 2-3 [networked]
PC's (or 1 PC with multiple users/profiles) who want to have all users work
on one common calendar for Dr's appt's, Kids activities, school Holidays,
etc. Most 3rd party "plug-ins" for Group Calendaring can cost $500 to $1000
and up, which can be cost-prohibitive for some/most home users.
 
there are several affordable (under $250 for 2-5 users) utilities available
and you can use a yahoo or msn/hotmail account to sync and share.

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm#other

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

Vote for your favorite Outlook and Exchange utilities in the
Slipstick Ratings Raffle at http://www.slipstick.com/contest/
 
Now for some reason, I can't select new so I'm posting my quetion here:

have the calendar in the 31 day view, I click on the future date and when
the new appointment window comes up it has the day and date for today.

I tried your suggestion with the date navigator and it didn't work.

I'm using MS Outlook 2000 SP-3 (9.0.0.6627).

Judy Gleeson said:
How are you doing it? What version are you running? My ESP's not too good
today.

This may help...

use the Date Navigator (small calendar above TaskPad in Calendar View) to
select the day you want. Highlight the space in the Calendar, right click,
then new meeting. This should be on the right day at the right time.


Judy Gleeson
Acorn Training and Consulting
"we're nuts about Outlook"

www.acorntraining.com.au/productivit.htm

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????>
When I try to set an appointment for a future date it makes the appointment
Click to expand...

Karto said:
Outlook needs to have native support for common or group calendaring for
those of us without Exchange Servers, like home users with 2-3 [networked]
PC's (or 1 PC with multiple users/profiles) who want to have all users work
on one common calendar for Dr's appt's, Kids activities, school Holidays,
etc. Most 3rd party "plug-ins" for Group Calendaring can cost $500 to $1000
and up, which can be cost-prohibitive for some/most home users.
Click to expand...
 
have the calendar in the 31 day view, I click on the future date and when
the new appointment window comes up it has the day and date for today.

I tried your suggestion with the date navigator and it didn't work.

I'm using MS Outlook 2000 SP-3 (9.0.0.6627).

Judy Gleeson said:
How are you doing it? What version are you running? My ESP's not too good
today.

This may help...

use the Date Navigator (small calendar above TaskPad in Calendar View) to
select the day you want. Highlight the space in the Calendar, right click,
then new meeting. This should be on the right day at the right time.


Judy Gleeson
Acorn Training and Consulting
"we're nuts about Outlook"

www.acorntraining.com.au/productivit.htm

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????>
When I try to set an appointment for a future date it makes the appointment
Click to expand...

Diane Poremsky said:
there are several affordable (under $250 for 2-5 users) utilities available
and you can use a yahoo or msn/hotmail account to sync and share.

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm#other

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

Vote for your favorite Outlook and Exchange utilities in the
Slipstick Ratings Raffle at http://www.slipstick.com/contest/

Karto said:
Outlook needs to have native support for common or group calendaring for
those of us without Exchange Servers, like home users with 2-3 [networked]
PC's (or 1 PC with multiple users/profiles) who want to have all users
work
on one common calendar for Dr's appt's, Kids activities, school Holidays,
etc. Most 3rd party "plug-ins" for Group Calendaring can cost $500 to
$1000
and up, which can be cost-prohibitive for some/most home users.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I agree! I work from home and need to go back and forth between my 3
profiles to check for available meeting dates, appointments, etc. I even
bought Business Contact Manager, thinking that this would help - but it
doesn't. Since I work from home and stay home with my 4 year old - my
schedule is packed and needs to be all in one place - and organized. Also,
when I sync it to my Palm - I can't have multiple calendars. If Outlook is
supposed to replace all of these items, why should I have to go somewhere
else to do what another organizational program can do for me all together?
Shouldn't that be the goal of Outlook? I hope that Microsoft helps us out!
 
See http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/scheduleall.htm and
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm for help with sharing and group
calendaring.

Outlook was originally designed for Exchange server, so the group calendar
features are centered around exchange. Sites with a windows 2003 server (and
outlook 2003) can use workspaces in Windows SharePoint Services and sync
them with Outlook (one way sync in this version). I'm not expecting much
improvement in calendar sharing in non-server environments with future
versions - unless you use Hotmail or MSN (or a 3rd party utility).

Have you tried using categories and custom view so you can use one calendar
instead of three? We recommend this method for both calendar and contacts,
for a variety of reasons, one of which is reminders and syncing with PDAs.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/


Munsen2 said:
I agree! I work from home and need to go back and forth between my 3
profiles to check for available meeting dates, appointments, etc. I even
bought Business Contact Manager, thinking that this would help - but it
doesn't. Since I work from home and stay home with my 4 year old - my
schedule is packed and needs to be all in one place - and organized.
Also,
when I sync it to my Palm - I can't have multiple calendars. If Outlook
is
supposed to replace all of these items, why should I have to go somewhere
else to do what another organizational program can do for me all together?
Shouldn't that be the goal of Outlook? I hope that Microsoft helps us
out!

Karto said:
Outlook needs to have native support for common or group calendaring for
those of us without Exchange Servers, like home users with 2-3
[networked]
PC's (or 1 PC with multiple users/profiles) who want to have all users
work
on one common calendar for Dr's appt's, Kids activities, school Holidays,
etc. Most 3rd party "plug-ins" for Group Calendaring can cost $500 to
$1000
and up, which can be cost-prohibitive for some/most home users.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I have opened my own Outlook *.pst file from a LAN connection. Both
copies of Outlook 2000 were configured for Workgroup mode. I did an
Exit and Log Off on the local machine before attempting to open the
*.pst file remotely. Likewise remotely. I did this all the time.

This allows a group calendar, contacts, etc, to be hosted on a machine
as the local user on that machine, and might even be accessible via
VPN.

Only one user can log in at a time remotely, AFIK, and the system won't
tell you who's logged in, AFAIK, so if someone logs in and doesn't log
out, nobody can access the calendar.

Diane said:
Outlook was originally designed for Exchange server, so the group calendar
features are centered around exchange. Sites with a windows 2003 server (and
outlook 2003) can use workspaces in Windows SharePoint Services and sync
them with Outlook (one way sync in this version). I'm not expecting much
improvement in calendar sharing in non-server environments with future
versions - unless you use Hotmail or MSN (or a 3rd party utility).
Click to expand...

Yours,

Doug Goncz
Replikon Research
Falls Church, VA 22044-0394
 
Network access of a pst can result in data loss if the network connection is
lost while outlook is using it.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/
 
So you'd recommend the update method?

My Outlook crashes after about two minutes of being open in that mode.
I can't use that mode readily. No data is lost on such a crash.

But yes, network access of any file can result in data loss on a
network crash.

Doug
 
what is the update method?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/
 
Sorry. By "update method" I mean Share this Folder, which uses email to
synchronize a folder, such as a Calendar, with a list of one or more
recipients. Normally these messages are invisible. I view them, and it
is quite a lot of overhead, a lot of network traffic to get the job
done. With more finesse and selection of what is to be shared, this
overhead can be reduced.

Doug
 
Using Netfolders? That feature is so buggy that it was removed from future
versions.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/
 
Oh. Then let's go back to Workgroup mode.

It seems like this is appropriate for a home or small business.

I don't know that much about it, but we have a 5-node net and I used to
keep two computers busy with Outlook in this mode. However, I always
had a KVMA switch on those two computers, which made comparing views
possible. That's hard without one.

But is there some reason everyone in a home or small business couldn't
be up to speed on logging in and out?

Is there a backup file in case of a crash?

Does the need for a "server" make it inappropriate for a small home or
office network in which all nodes are peers?

Doug
 
Studies show that many small office/home networks are now upgrading to
Office Small Business Server that includes Exchange in order to have sharing
and public folders. Look into it - Dell for one offers a pretty attractive
package.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, (e-mail address removed) asked:

| Oh. Then let's go back to Workgroup mode.
|
| It seems like this is appropriate for a home or small business.
|
| I don't know that much about it, but we have a 5-node net and I used
| to keep two computers busy with Outlook in this mode. However, I
| always had a KVMA switch on those two computers, which made comparing
| views possible. That's hard without one.
|
| But is there some reason everyone in a home or small business couldn't
| be up to speed on logging in and out?
|
| Is there a backup file in case of a crash?
|
| Does the need for a "server" make it inappropriate for a small home or
| office network in which all nodes are peers?
|
| Doug
|
| Diane Poremsky [MVP] wrote:
|| Using Netfolders? That feature is so buggy that it was removed from
|| future versions.
|
|| ||| Sorry. By "update method" I mean Share this Folder, which uses
||| email to synchronize a folder, such as a Calendar, with a list of
||| one or more recipients. Normally these messages are invisible. I
||| view them, and it is quite a lot of overhead, a lot of network
||| traffic to get the job done. With more finesse and selection of
||| what is to be shared, this overhead can be reduced.
 
Hey, everybody, try reading this thread in Google Groups. There are
three ads that pop up for Outlook shares! I haven't investigated any of
them.

Yeah, upgrading to Exchange is a reasonable solution. I hate actually
*paying* for software.

Doug
 
Too bad, software coders actually *APPRECIATE* being paid to code!!!

So, how much are you paid for doing your job and how about your employer not
paying you since your output should be free???

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, (e-mail address removed) asked:

| Hey, everybody, try reading this thread in Google Groups. There are
| three ads that pop up for Outlook shares! I haven't investigated any
| of them.
|
| Yeah, upgrading to Exchange is a reasonable solution. I hate actually
| *paying* for software.
|
| Doug
 
There's always MSMail... http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/msmail.htm but it
doesn't support calendar, only mail. Microsoft is promoting Hotmail
calendars for small workgroups. For personal use, an MSN premium account
gets you up to 10 calendars for $10/month and the outlook connector, so you
can see the calendars in outlook 2002/2003.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/
 
Milly said:
Too bad, software coders actually *APPRECIATE* being paid to code!!!

So, how much are you paid for doing your job and how about your employer not
paying you since your output should be free???
Click to expand...

Oooh. Mea culpa.

I like getting software *with hardware*, not for free. I'm just a
hardware guy.

Of course programmers should be paid for their work.

Doug
 
Dear Doug,

maybe you are interested in another "point of view".

Exchange is not the only way to share Outlook and for smaller companies it
is often not the cheapest way. To purchase an Exchange license are not the
only cost. The license is only 50% of the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), the
other 50% are maintenance, installation und configuration, training etc.

An interesting website about TCO of Exchange or other groupware server is:
http://www.radicati.com/

Anyhow, back to "How to share Outlook". On this site is an article on
various ways to share Outlook data:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011477571033.aspx

Most of the solutions in this article are for free, so I think you will like
it.

There are also different solutions on the slipstick.com website with
different technologies. There are some "synchronization" solutions (based on
the technologie of NetFolders) and also some "Store Providers" who can share
PST files "live". This "Store Provider" solutions are NOT network PST files,
so there is no risk about an unsupported network PST file, if you use a
"Store Provider" solution.

Also on this Microsoft Office Marketplace site are also some rated messaging
software solutions (Shareware):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/CE010719621033.aspx
I hate actually
*paying* for software.
Click to expand...

and all developers hate people who wants the best software, but for free and
nothing is for free. Also death costs the life. ;-)

--
Oliver Vukovics
Share Outlook without Exchange: Public ShareFolder
Notebook Synchronisation for Outlook: Public SyncTool
http://www.publicshareware.com
 
What I was thinking is that every bit of application software I've ever
owned had bugs. Bugs happen to really irritate me. Why spend money on
something sold AS-IS.

At least with hardware you have a warranty, testable performance,
adherence to known standards, and drivers that work. Maybe in the Mac
world you can buy software with a warranty of merchantability, but
usually they cram the license down your throught, and it's always
written by lawyers.

OK, </FLAME>

Really, I just enjoy the OOB experience of hardware with drivers
immensely. That's where I spend my money. I vote with the dollar and
don't violate my licenses.

Doug
 
Back
Top