Jul 30 2019 09:42 AM
Hello,
I'm fairly new to Office 365.
I have been asked my a department head to create a shared calendar that the whole department can use (view, edit, etc...).
It seems like there are a couple of ways to do this, but I want to know the best way or what does Microsoft recommend? Do I create a group then add users/members to it or do I create a new mailbox then add users/members to it as well?
Jul 30 2019 11:56 AM
Define "best" way for you? What are the specific requirements? For example, will it need to be available on mobiles? As a webpage? How granular you want the permissions?
Jul 30 2019 12:00 PM
@finsfree Office 365 Group - and add members to it . Simple and Best !!
Office 365 Groups have additional features that shared mailboxes do not.
However, shared mailboxes have some capabilities that may make them more suitable to teams than Groups.
If the data you expect to have in Shared Mailbox may be more in size lets say 50 gigs . then there is an additional cost of License as Shared Mailboxes are free to use only upto 50 GB.
Cheers !!
Ankit Shukla
Jul 30 2019 12:16 PM
Jul 30 2019 12:21 PM
@Chris Webb Its all about adaption Chris, be it a SharePoint Calendar or an Office 365 Group. BTW Office 365 have more dynamic features & keep adding comparing to SharePoint calendars.
Jul 30 2019 12:25 PM
Jul 30 2019 05:52 PM - edited Jul 30 2019 05:54 PM
Thanks for the great feed back BTW.
What I am looking for is a way to share a department calendar with about 200 users. I would also appoint a few select people to be the ones to administer the calendar (add events, delete, etc...). I am thinking only 5 people would be the admins of this calendar. The rest would only need to view it. I want the calendar to just automatically show up in their office 365 outlook.
Yes, the users also have smart phones as well.
I would like to keep it as simple as possible so I thing Sharepoint & Teams is out. These people are like robots and don't really care about learning something new.
Jul 30 2019 05:56 PM
Jul 30 2019 06:20 PM
Jul 30 2019 09:10 PM
Jul 30 2019 11:43 PM
If you need it to auto-appear on Outlook and mobiles, you don't have much choice. Groups-based calendar will be easiest to handle for end-users, as newer versions of Outlook feature the "All Group Calendars" node where it will appear automatically. But Outlook mobile still doesn't have support for Group calendars. And as Chris mentioned, you might have troubles with permissions (we do have a parameter to make the calendar read-only for members, but it doesn't seem to be working as expected).
Shared mailbox calendars can now be opened in Outlook mobile, but both on the desktop and mobile it's a manual process and you will need to instruct the users accordingly. The other benefit is that you can get very granular with permissions. And you can even publish the calendar/embed it on a webpage or "tab" it in Teams. But it adds some management overhead overall.
PF-based calendar is another common option, but there is no way to access those on mobiles.