Calendar Entries

[Wyn Bryant]

Our organization has a procedure that is beneficial to us but is also
very tedious and I'm hoping that by describing the process below,
someone might be able to point out a simpler way to accomplish same,
or if it will require custom programming.

We utilize a Public Folder to store our company wide clients. By
creating calendar entries in the Public Folder and assigning them to a
Contact, we can open the Contact and see when the client was last in
the office. Further, if we assign employee(s) to the calendar entry
(with Invite Attendees), it allows us to see who the client saw. We
also want the calendar entry on the personal calendar of the
employee(s) involved in the appointment.

So we need two calendar entries created, one on the public folder
calendar, one on the private mailbox calendar.

So right now, when a client requests an appointment, we follow these
steps:
1. Check to see if the employee has an opening for the requested time
by viewing their personal calendar (in their mailbox).
2. Open Public Folder Calendar, create new calendar entry
3. Enter information about the appointment
4. Click Invite Attendees for the employees that will be involved in
the appointment
5. Click Contacts to assign the appropriate client Contact.

Then an e-mail message is sent to the employee(s) asking them to
accept the invitation, which places the calendar entry on their
personal calendar.

Is there a way we can eliminate several of these steps to create the
two necessary calendar entries and eliminate the invitation step so
that the employee doesn't have to accept the invitation for it to
appear on their personal calendar?

Our environment is Exchange 2003/Outlook 2003.

Thank you,

Wyn Bryant

 

[opusflow]

Wyn,

Our product (@ www.ExchangeGroupCalendar.com) will make life a lot
easier for you.
With that, you create the item in the public folder and it
automagically shows up in the personal calendar of the user.
If the user changes the item it will change in the public folder
too..
It has some more options which you may find useful.

regards,
John

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

You could use scripting to copy the item to the personal folder, but it may
not work well because it needs to copy to a different folder each time.

I might do it this way:
1. Create a Group Schedule containing all the people who you choose from for
these events. Use this, rather than opening the calendar. Provided they
publish Free/busy, you'll see their availability.
2. If the requests come by email from the contact, drag the email to the PF
calendar to create a linked appointment. Otherwise type their name in the
contact field and let outlook resolve it.
3. Send the meeting request as you do now but have the users configure
outlook to automatically accept appointments. If they don't want to accept
every appointment automatically, use rules to autoaccept these. See
http://www.slipstick.com/emo/2007/up071129.htm#3


--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
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