Executive Out-Of-Office Calendar

[oldguyjb15]

Office 365 2016 with Exchange online.  We are all new to this environment.

The boss wants a calendar on which all execs can indicate times they will be out of the office.  I'm guessing an Office 365 Group is the best choice.  Here are the requirements:

• Exec creates new event on his/her calendar, includes O365 Group as an invitee.  Event is added to exec's calendar and to group's calendar.
• When group's calendar is invited to an event, do not want other group members receiving invite.
• Group can be added to user's list of calendars in Outlook's folder pane.
• Group should not appear as a mail distribution list, or at least not to non-members.

I have an idea of how to proceed with the creation of the group and with the assignment of members.  What I am ignorant of is how to show the execs how to use the group calendar.

• How to add the calendar to Outlook's folder pane (in favorites, I guess?).
• How to include the group when an exec creates an event on his/her own calendar.
• How to view the calendar alone or side-by-side with the exec's own calendar.
• How to remove an entry.  (When exec removes entry from his/her own calendar, will it also be removed from group calendar because it was an invitee?)
• How to move an entry.  (I assume that is possible.)

If material exists that covers this info, please point me to it.  However, most of the info I've come across is too high-level and doesn't get into the details involved in a non-mainstream use of some form of shared calendar.

Thanks so much!!

[#2]

Take a look at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/schedule-a-meeting-on-a-group-calendar-in-outlook-0cf1ad68-...

Create an Office Group, make it private-so that others don't see it.

You can add a page in the associated SharePoint site with the Group Calendar web part to display the event data. You can add this page as a Tab in Teams to display the same data there.

[#3]

How many exec are we talking about?
It might seem it could be done in an better way!
Why not just share the exec calendars to the boss and the boss can watch the calendars in an overlapping view or one by one! It will be easier to tell who is who among the events! The execs only have their own calendar to bother about

[#4]

Others may have a different opinion, but I would personally do this as a shared mailbox as Office 365 group calendars AFAIK cannot be opened on mobile devices such as IOS or Android currently in the Outlook App

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/admin/email/create-a-shared-mailbox?redirectSourcePath=%2...

Best, Chris

[#5]

There’s some limitations to this webpart to be aware of though, only 10 upcoming events will be listed at any given time, the usual calendar view isn’t there! You have to open up the calendar in outlook from the webpart to see the whole calendar etc! Also, should all execs see others as well?

[#6]

Why create an extra calendar that has to be managed? Why don't the execs (or any group of employees) just use their existing calendars to let others know when they are out?

For my work group, when I'm out, I make an all day event that I'm out, and send it to my group. Then that appears in all of my co-workers calendars and they don't have to go looking at another calendar to see when I'm out. When they are out they send the same kind of thing to the group.

So in the example below I can see my co-worker M is out Monday - Tuesday, K is out Wednesday, P is out Monday, and F is out Monday - Wednesday.

[#7]

When you say send it to the group, what do you mean?

[#8]

This practice makes my skin crawl when used. This always makes people accept out of office meeting requests and puts their own status in Teams as Out of Office all the time. :p It's also annoying and junks up my calendar. No offense but I just don't like it at all :)

You're on the right path, people should just use their calendars. If they want to see everyone's OOF you can actually just create a Group (not office 365) of their calendars and open them in Outlook with a single click, to overlay them all to look at their availability. This is my prefered method. Assuming there isn't 20+ of them that needs to do this.

[#9]

Basically use a Calendar Group > Add calendar from address book. And you can quickly add the execs. If there is an e-mail group of them it's one click. Then you can click this group when you need to look at the calendars overlayed, and or use the "Schedule View" which is what most people use when trying to schedule their own OOF or a meeting around people's availability.

Good opportunity for user education vs. adding an additional place for them to track something they already set / use.

[#10]

Yeah! This is precisely what I was saying and from experience also, thinks this will be the most efficient solution most times

[#11]

Also if Active Directory manager field is used and they have common CEO all the execs are part of they already have a calendar group for Team automatically generated in later office releases that you can click to get all your peer's calendar availability.

[#12]

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@adam deltinger wrote:
When you say send it to the group, what do you mean?

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My group of co-workers. We have a DL for the 6 of us.

[#13]

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@Chris Webb wrote:
This practice makes my skin crawl when used. This always makes people accept out of office meeting requests and puts their own status in Teams as Out of Office all the time. :p It's also annoying and junks up my calendar. No offense but I just don't like it at all :)

You're on the right path, people should just use their calendars. If they want to see everyone's OOF you can actually just create a Group (not office 365) of their calendars and open them in Outlook with a single click, to overlay them all to look at their availability. This is my prefered method. Assuming there isn't 20+ of them that needs to do this.

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I never accept the calendar items that I receive from my co-workers and since the all day events are marked as "Free" then they do not interfere with Teams or Skype availability.

We are a group of 6 so only during the holidays does it get busy, but the rest of the year the calendars are fairly empty.

[#14]

Ok thanks

[#15]

Well good that you mark them free, many will mark them as Out of Office ;) and not pay attention, was a huge deal at my last org with that and Teams status.

Check out the replies about the Calendar overlays then if it's only 6 people. Should work just fine if everyone just puts in OOO and can use the scheduling assistant.

[#16]

What works, works !!
What if there is an invite you are suppose to accept then? :)