Booking appointments from other people's calendars


Instructions for booking appointments from other people's calendars, meeting invitations and visibility of the calendar to others.

 

Booking a time/appointments on other people's calendars

Booking time from other people's calendars is one of the best features of an electronic calendar. In practice, you can book an appointment on someone else's calendar with a Meeting or Appointment. Alternatively, you can simply make a new calendar entry by clicking or dragging anywhere on the calendar and selecting "Invite attendees" / "Invite".

The picture shows an Outlook calendar. When you click on "New Event", a form will open where you can enter the participants in the "Invite attendees" field.

Then select the person(s) to be invited to the meeting(s) in "Invite attendees" / "Invite" -> "To".  Next, below the persons, options will appear for when everyone is available. Select the date when you want the meeting to take place, suggest a time to see if everyone is available and you can choose a time accordingly. If you mean to select a date and time that the person is busy, the green ball will turn red to indicate that the person is busy.

The picture shows an Outlook calendar. Select "New event" and select the people in "Invite attendees". (You can search for a person by typing the person's name in the empty field). Once the persons are selected the program will suggest available times under the "Invite attendees" field.

You can also browse another calendar to find a suitable time. Select "New Event". Add attendees. Click to open the "Scheduling Assistant" tab.

Outlook calendat to browser version.

 

The basic idea behind booking an appointment on someone else's calendar is to see when they are free and when they are not. This way, you don't have to have a long email rally about when an appointment could fit into both of your calendars. However, you don't need to keep the calendar completely public, just the free-booked level is sufficient. Also remember that a blank space in one's calendar does not always automatically mean a convenient time for the other. Read more about the University of Jyväskylä's common rules for using the calendar!

 

Calendar visibility

The visibility of the electronic calendar may worry many. "If I put my calendar entries in the cloud, will anyone be able to see what I'm doing?", "Will my privacy be lost if I transfer all my calendar entries to an electronic calendar?" or "What if my calendar entries disappear into the cloud?". These are questions we hear often. But to date, the electronic calendar is so advanced that there is no need to worry. They are available on all your devices, regardless of time and place. You no longer have to remember to carry a paper calendar everywhere, and appointments are no longer a matter of not being "on the calendar". Security is also very advanced, with an electronic calendar as secure as email or a cloud storage space like OneDrive. It's just up to you not to share your calendar beyond the appropriate level.

By default, the Outlook calendar for University of Jyväskylä users is shared on a free-busy basis ("All members of my organization can view my busy time" / "My Organization can view when I'm busy"). This means that any user within your organization can search your calendar and see when you are busy or free according to the calendar. No calendar details are shared. No location, whether it's your own entry or a multi-person meeting, description or even the title of the entry. Instead, the status of the entry is shown to everyone ("free, busy, tentative, out of office").

 

Changing visibility

You can set the visibility to be either looser or tighter if you wish. HOWEVER, WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND that the sharing level is "Can view my busy times" / "Can view when I'm busy" (the free-busy level described above).

You can change the sharing level from the sidebar of the calendar page by right-clicking on the "Calendar" text, in Outlook desktop app.

The picture shows the Outlook desktop application. You can access the settings by going to File- Options-General- Privagy Settings.

In the browser version of Outlook, the setting can be found on the calendar page in the left bar, under "Calendar" and by selecting the three dots-->"Sharing and permissions". Please note that in the left sidebar you have selected the correct calendar for which you are changing the sharing settings. In addition to a personal calendar, you may also have a group calendar or other shared calendar.

The picture shows the browser version of Outlook calendar. You can find your own calendars under the little calendar. Click on the three dots next to the calendar to display the settings for the calendar. Select "Sharing and permissions".

The picture shows the Outlook calendar "Sharing and permissions" settings. You can select the setting you prefer from the drop-down menu.

Less restrictive settings include the view headings and locations, view all details and the can edit setting. The last one should only be used for shared calendars (e.g. workgroup calendar), and the previous two can be used if you define a more specific visibility setting for the nearest colleague, manager or subordinate. For the whole organisation, these visibility settings should not be set as a default.

The more restrictive visibility setting is "Not shared". This setting can be used if you absolutely want to hide your own calendar from other users in your organization. You can share your own calendar only with the people you want by changing "My Organization" to "Not shared" and adding either a group or individual specific people and setting separate visibility settings for them. NOTE that if you do not share your calendar information with your organisation, it will be difficult to book meetings and appointments and you will not get the full benefit of the e-calendar. Therefore, viewing booked times at the free-booked level is the ideal visibility setting.