Opinions on sharing calendars

[Mike]

Folks,

What is the expertise of this group with regard to how to best have shared
calendars? As I learn more about the options, it looks like there are two:
1) Share out your Outlook 2003 calendar, or 2) Create public folder
calendars.

My boss wants employees to share their calendars so she can look at them,
schedule meetings and such. Most of the employees I have talked to
(including the CEO) don't want their calendar shared, mostly because there
are entries that are non-work related and they don't want everyone seeing
them (nothing malicious, just things like "kids soccer practice at 5pm" or
"haircut at lunchtime").

Can you accomplish basically the same goal by setting up public folder
calendars, giving permissions to whom needs them for a given situation, and
use it for that purpose without sharing their personal calendar? In my
limited testing, it looks like I can do most all of that, but wanted to see
what the experts think.

Thanks for any responses!

Mike

 

[Oliver Vukovics]

Hi Mike,

I am not an expert of Exchange Server, but I hope my answer is also
interesting for you.

If you "share" your personal calendar, all items like:

kids soccer practice at 5pm" or
"haircut at lunchtime").

can be hided if you mark this entries as "privat". This is possible in a
"Personal Calendar" folder and also in a Public Folder..

Reminders do not work in "Public Folders" of Exchange
The next Exchange server do not support "Public Folders" anymore.

I think, the best way is to share "Personal Calendar Folders" to get
reminders from this folder and you can synchronize this folders with your
mobile devices without any additional software.

Maybe it helps.