Forum Discussion
MicrosoftShared calendars now sync to mobile phones
We are rolling out a feature update that enables shared calendars to sync to mobile phones. This update will make it possible to sync all your Office365 shared calendars to your mobile phone for any permission level (view, edit, or delegate permissions). In addition, you can now share a calendar or accept shared calendar invitations from Outlook on iOS and Android.
Existing shared calendars will not be upgraded as part of this change, and they will continue to sync only to Outlook on the web, Windows, and Mac. Only shared calendars that are accepted after these changes are released will sync to mobile phones.
The shared calendar will only sync to mobile phones if:
- The calendar is shared between users who are both hosted in Exchange Online
-
The calendar is accepted from a sharing invitation using Outlook on the web, iOS, or Android
We'll be gradually rolling this update starting on 9/18 and rollout will be completed by 9/22.
You can find more details about shared calendar improvements at the article located here.
- Does this cover Shared Mailboxes as well? Total game changer on the mobile side.
I was doing some testing this morning. I couldn't find out how to make it work with a calendar from a "Shared Mailbox". I didn't see how in OWA or Outlook iOS to send an invite to another user. That was part of the stipulation of how it works - you need to send a sharing invite using a mobile app or OWA and the person needs to accept the invite in OWA or an Outlook mobile app.
I did however get it to work with a calendar that I created under my own 365 account. That calendar showed up under my account settings in Outlook iOS then I invited a co-worker. Then he accepted the invite via Outlook iOS. He could then see my shared calendar in his Outlook iOS app, native iOS calendar (!!) and Outlook PC calendar.
If someone can confirm that this SHOULD work with a "Shared Mailbox" calendar and provide some instructions on how to do that, what would be awesome!
Thanks,
Jason
- Julia Foran
Hi Andrew, John, & Jason,
Thanks for your feedback! To answer the questions:
Support article link:
Good catch on that link. Sorry about that -- it's been updated to point to this support article.
Shared mailboxes
- Yes, it works for shared mailboxes as well.
- You can share the calendar from any Outlook application, as long as you send a sharing invitation so that the recipient can accept from Outlook on the web, iOS, or Android. This applies to user, resource, and shared mailboxes.
- From Outlook on the web: Login to your own mailbox first, and then click your picture in the top right to view Account options. There will be an option to "Open another mailbox". Enter the shared mailbox name to login to the shared mailbox via OWA. After you're logged into the shared mailbox, you can navigate to the Calendar module & share the calendar to yourself or to other users. Then you (or the other users) just need to accept the invitation from Outlook on the web, iOS, or Android.
- From Outlook on Windows and Mac: These clients only offer an option to send a sharing invitation for read-only permissions. Accepting invitation sent from Windows/Mac will work, but people have asked how to grant edit permissions for a shared mailbox calendar (since it doesn't currently send an invitation)? A workaround would be to (1) send a sharing invitation from Outlook on Windows/Mac for read-only permissions, (2) update the calendar permissions in the Folder Permissions dialog (that doesn't send an email) to Editor, (3) have the recipient accept the calendar from the original sharing invitation. Even though the original invitation was for read-only permissions, the calendar will be added as editable because that is the effective permissions.
- Will this be available for a hybrid Exchange environment?
- Julia Foran
Hi Kenn,
The improvements are only for calendars shared between Exchange Online users. If you have a hybrid setup, but both users are hosted in Office365, they would have the improvements. But there is no change to experience if one (or both) of the users are hosted on-prem.
It won't be coming to future on-prem releases because we are unable to support these improvements when on-prem is involved -- many of the improvement rely on functionality that is only possible when both mailboxes are in the service, such as instant syncing.
Julia Foran - when - if ever - will this functionality be available to on-premise Exchange users?. I run a rather large shop and have no need or desire to go to Office 365 - we already have our cloud presence built with rather expensive fully-licensed Microsoft products. My users cannot view shared calendars using Outlook for smartphones and I can't help but feel Microsoft is keeping all the good stuff for themselves.
Your help appreciated
jbw
- Does this include the ability to open a colleague's calendar? This has been a huge gap in the apps for years - really hope it can be added for Outlook for iOS/Android: go to settings, open shared calendar, type in the name of the individuals name and if you have permissions, it opens - just like on Outlook. My users have been asking for this for a long time.
To echo comments below -shouldn't have to be reliant on this invitation exclusively as a result of this new update, but based on the existing permissions that have (in some cases) been in place for years, just relegated to desktop versions of Office (or a web browser).
Thanks! - You can make the calendars appear separately with their own colors and ability to turn them on and off on android by setting up the sync with the gmail app instead of the non-gmail email app (samsung / android / whatever). What matters is the way the sync is setup, not the app used to view the calendar.
Thanks Mike for the workaround! Moved all my email to the Gmail app instead of the standard Samsung email app, and now for some reason my standard Samsung calendar app is syncing my Outlook calendars correctly. Weird! Thanks for the suggestion!
That's a great feature - but only if you want it.
How do you turn it off? I don't want ALL the shared calendars showing on my mobile calendar. The only option is to turn off the "calendar" which incorporates my personal calendar and all shared. This is rather annoying, so hopefully there is a way to do this without actually deleting the shared calendars from within my O365 account.
- Julia ForanHi Allan, there is no way to disable this. We have to promise users that they will have the same calendars sync to all of your devices (just like they experience in every other calendar service). Feel free to private message me with more feedback about your use cases for not wanting all calendars to sync to all devices.
Hi Julia
Thanks for the reply. But as you know in Office365 OWA and Outlook you can turn these calendars on and off as required, as I doubt anyone wants all of their shared calendars on at the same time. Especially on a mobile device where the screen size is so much smaller I cannot see half of the entries on my calendar anymore. This really should be looked at and have a function where you can change what you are viewing.
Julia Foran new feature have reached my installation yesterday...only after 2 years: thanks!
I started seeing this on September 6 after one of my end users brought this to my attention. After finding zero info on this I figured this was a new feature but my question is always this.
Could these posts come out earlier next time?
Julia,
We are loving the new shared calendar features, as we've discussed the past week.
Do you know if there are plans for similar functionality around using the mailbox portion of a "Shared Mailbox"? We were so exicted to see that the calendar part worked but then we noticed that we can't see anything email related in the mobile apps. And i didn't see any way to send a sharing invite from my mailbox view.
We still need a solution to be able to see a shared email account like sales@company.com on a mobile device.
Thanks!
Jason
How about shared contacts, will this apply to them as well? If so is them method to add them the same as the calendars?
- Julia Foran
Apologies for delay in responding! Have been busy at Microsoft Ignite conference this week.
Jason Hartman
Yes -- this update works for calendars from user mailboxes, resource mailboxes, or shared mailboxes. You just need to send a sharing invitation from the shared mailbox so that the user can accept on web, iOS, or Android. The easiest way to send an invitation from a shared mailbox is to use Outlook on the web to open it. A little earlier in the thread I gave instructions on how to do that, and realized it's not possible (yet) from the Windows client, so you will need to share from the web.Part of the thinking behind syncing "opened calendars" (not just "accepted calendars") to mobile phones was to make it easier for this to work for resource & shared mailboxes, so that you didn't have to login & send the sharing invitation. As you know, we disabled the "opened calendars" part due to feedback, and will re-enable it when we only sync calendars that you have explicit permissions to (rather than permissions via the default user).
Becky Martin
There are no plans to support this for shared mail folders or shared contact folders. The best way to give feedback on those plans is to upvote the feature on outlook.uservoice.com in the iOS & Android forums.
