Adding items to the shared calendar

Items can now be added to the calendar in three ways.

1)      E-mailed invitations

a)      Create an appoint in Outlook

·         If you are viewing your calendar in Outlook make sure you have your personal calendar tab, "Calendar" selected.

b)      Click Invite Attendees

c)      Type in the e-mail address of the calendar or select it from the GAL

·         The contact object created by SharePoint for the shared calendar will be visible in the GAL by default.  But due to AD replication latency, Offline Address Book generation delays, and cached mode Outlook clients, it may not show up in the GAL for awhile.  By default the OAB is only generated once a day and cached mode client used the OAB for their GAL, so they won’t see new object until the new OAB has been generated and downloaded.

d)      Set any other options as you normally would and click Send

·         This will send the appointment invite to SharePoint, which will automatically accept the appointment.  The appointment will also show up on your calendar.

·         SharePoint calendars do not support advanced rules, like prevention of meeting conflicts, meeting size, etc, so they should not be used for rooms or equipment.  The Auto Accept Agent for Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 natively provides these capabilities for shared mailboxes, or resource mailboxes.

e)      After a few minutes navigate to the SharePoint calendar and confirm the appointment shows up

f)       In Outlook hit F9 to force a full synchronization of all items

·         By default SharePoint list in Outlook are only synchronized every 30 minutes.

g)      Goto the shared calendar in Outlook and view the new appointment

2)      Direct booking in Outlook

a)      Select the Calendar tab in Outlook

b)      Click the shared calendar tab to make it the current calendar

·         If it is not shown click the check box next to it under "Other Calendars."

c)      Click New to create a new appointment

·         The options show for this meeting invite will be different than those shown for a normal appointment, for example there is no Invite button.

d)      Set the meeting options and click Save & Close

e)      Hit F9 to force a full synchronization of all items

f)       Navigate to the calendar in SharePoint and confirm the appointment shows up

3)      Direct booking in SharePoint

a)      Navigate to the calendar in SharePoint

b)      Click New to create a new appointment

c)      Set the desired options and click OK

d)      Hit F9 to force a full synchronization of all items

e)      Select Calendar tab in Outlook

f)       Click the shared calendar tab

g)      Confirm the appointment shows up

Tasks

When working on several projects with various team members, task management becomes very important.  Using a SharePoint tasks list allows individual team members and managers to easily assign tasks to other team members and to monitor the status of all tasks.  Once a SharePoint task list is linked to Outlook those tasks show up in the To-Do Bar, like other Outlook tasks.  They will also show up under the Tasks tab in Outlook.  Furthermore, these tasks can be updates directly in Outlook or in SharePoint.

Prepare a task list

1)      Create a new Tasks list, or navigate to an existing one

·         If creating a new list choose Yes under "E-Mail Notification", this setting requires SharePoint is enabled to send out SMTP mail.

2)      Enable e-mail notifications of updates

a)      Goto the list settings

b)      Click Advanced Settings

c)      Under "E-Mail Notification" choose Yes

·         This option will e-mail user when tasks are assigned to them or task that are assigned to them are modified.

Link Tasks to Outlook

1)      Select Actions\Connect to Outlook from the list’s pull-down menu

Figure 8 - Connecting tasks to Outlook

2)      Filter the task list to only show those assigned to you and active

By default all tasks will be shown, including those for other people and completed ones.  These steps will help filter the list so only active ones for the user will be shown.

a)      Goto Tasks in Outlook

b)      Expand "Other Task", in the left hand pane

c)      Choose the "<SharePoint site> – <task name>"

d)      Choose View\Current View\Customize Current View from the Outlook pull down menu

e)      Click the Filters button and then click the Advanced tab

f)       Click the Fields button and choose All Tasks fields\Assigned To
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Figure 9 - Creating a filter on tasks

g)      Enter your name, in the format of <last>, <first> in the Value box and click Add to List

·         This assume names in the GAL are in this format, if not enter your name the way it appears in the GAL.

h)      Repeat step e)

i)        Repeat step f) and choose All Tasks fields\Custom Status

j)        Change condition to "doesn’t contain" and enter "Completed" in Value box and click Add to List

k)      You should up with a filter like this one:

Figure 10 - Task list filter

l)        Click OK & OK

m)   The view in Outlook should now look like this:

Figure 11 - Filtered task lists

Create Tasks

Like appointments, tasks can be created both in Outlook and directly in SharePoint.

1)      Using Outlook

a)      Goto Tasks in Outlook

b)      Select the shared tasks list under "Other Tasks"

c)      Click New

·         You will notice at the bottom of the new task window it will say "In Shared Folder: <site – tasks list name>"

d)      Select who the task should be assigned to

e)      Enter other settings and click Save & Close

·         You can only sent the reminder value using Outlook

2)      Using SharePoint

a)      Goto the task list on the SharePoint site

b)      Click New

c)      Select who the task should be assigned to

d)      Enter other settings and click OK

Getting alerts

If you selected the option to generate alerts\e-mails when tasks are assigned or modified the owner of a task will get e-mails similar to the one below.  The alert is generated by the SharePoint server only after the new item has been synchronized to SharePoint, F9 to force, from task that are created and modified in Outlook.

Figure 12 - E-mail alert on a task change

SharePoint does not sent alerts out immediately, by default there seems to be about a 5 minute delay before alerts are set out.  I am sure there is a way to adjust this settings but I haven’t research it.

Setting up alerts on other changes

SharePoint supports alerting users to any changes with multiple filtering options.  Using this feature a manager or team lead can easily monitor tasks as their status changes.  Below I give an example of how to setup a daily alert on for changes that have occurred.

1)      Navigate to the list in question

2)      Click Actions\Alert Me from the list’s pull-down menu

Figure 13 - Creating an alert

3)      This brings up the new alert options:

Figure 14 - Alert options

a)      Change the name to "Daily for <name> Calendar"

b)      Leave Send Alerts To set on your name
Multiple names or mail enabled groups can be added to this list.  This will let you setup daily alerts for other people.  I would suggest informing users to setup alerts, if one hasn’t been done for them already, if they want to know when items change.  I also suggest putting together an "end users" Quick Tips & FAQ for guide for SharePoint.

c)      Select "All changes" under Change Type

d)      Select "Anything changes" under Send Alerts for These Changes

e)      Select "Send daily summary" and When to Send Alerts

f)       Click OK
After a few minutes you should get a confirmation e-mail that the alert has been setup:

Figure 15 - Alert creation notification

·         If alerts are setup for other users, who are using Outlook 2007, they can quickly connect to this task list by clicking the Connect to this Task List button.  So very little training should be needed, but a demo of how Outlook and SharePoint integrate would help speed learning along.

4)      When the daily alert runs users will see something similar to this:

Figure 16 - Daily change alert