Outlook and more than 6 conflicting appointments - Solution !

[Steve Cull]

Re : Outlook 2000 -

I have a group of users working together who share an outlook
calender. However the problem is that as the group increased, they
very soon came across the limitation that you can only see a maximum
of 6 conflicting appointments in the standard day/week/month view.
The solution seemed quite simple. I used a timeline view (under define
views), it seems the perfect solution except for one thing. If you
have any recurring appointments and you want to edit just the single
occurance you can't !. The only option you have is to go back to the
old day/week/month view and then you again come across the issue that
you can only see a maximum of 6 conflicting appointments again.

Looking at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;222001&Product=out2K
it seems that Microsoft does not recognise this as a problem, it seems
that they think that it should work this way ?.

Is there anyone else who has worked out a solution to this or offer
advise on how to get round it ?.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

did you try using a table view to edit them?

 

[Steve Cull]

Thanks Diane,
Please excuse my terminology, however if I describe the parent
reoccuring appointment as the appointment that holds details of the
series of appointments and the children as the individual appointments
within the series, hopefully I will be making some sence .
The table view only shows you the "parent" reoccuring appointment and
not the individual children, therefore it seems quite valid that in
the table view you can only edit the series (which is the case).
However in the Timeline view (the only view other than the
day/week/month view) you can see the children of the reoccuring
appointment. So in my mind, as with the day/week/month view you should
be able to edit each child separately if you wish. I think that the
problem is that although you are seeing what looks like children, what
you are probably seeing is just copies of the parent, and when you go
to edit a child, you are linked to the parent !. What I don't
understand is why they have made this function differently to the
day/week/month view.

did you try using a table view to edit them?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)

Re : Outlook 2000 -

I have a group of users working together who share an outlook
calender. However the problem is that as the group increased, they
very soon came across the limitation that you can only see a maximum
of 6 conflicting appointments in the standard day/week/month view.
The solution seemed quite simple. I used a timeline view (under define
views), it seems the perfect solution except for one thing. If you
have any recurring appointments and you want to edit just the single
occurance you can't !. The only option you have is to go back to the
old day/week/month view and then you again come across the issue that
you can only see a maximum of 6 conflicting appointments again.

Looking at
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;222001&Product=out2K
it seems that Microsoft does not recognise this as a problem, it seems
that they think that it should work this way ?.

Is there anyone else who has worked out a solution to this or offer
advise on how to get round it ?.

 

[Mark Hurst]

I will eagerly await further comment on this problem, as we are crippled by it too. We are trying to use a single 'fake' user to book rooms (we operate a clinic with around 15 rooms) and have been unable to find a satisfactory way to use recurring appointments. This is because, as already noted here, (a) the only view that can show up to 15 simultaneous appointments is the 'Table' style, but (b) it doesn't show the 'children' of recurring appointments. (b) makes it useless for our purposes, and in any case the Table views are very un-calendar like and hence not very intuitive

I tried the timeline view like you said, and initially that looks like it has potential - but you can't seem to show any of the useful fields (eg. location) in that view. Also, I can't see how to zoom in or make it bigger..

It seems that since appointments have a location field it ought to be possible to avoid conflicting appointments. Do we have to resort to Visual Basic to implement this? Is there a more sophisticated way of designing views that doesn't require programming

I have lots more questions, so I'm eager to start a discussion around the whole subject of room bookings and diary sharing

Mark

----- Steve Cull wrote: ----

Re : Outlook 2000

I have a group of users working together who share an outloo
calender. However the problem is that as the group increased, the
very soon came across the limitation that you can only see a maximu
of 6 conflicting appointments in the standard day/week/month view
The solution seemed quite simple. I used a timeline view (under defin
views), it seems the perfect solution except for one thing. If yo
have any recurring appointments and you want to edit just the singl
occurance you can't !. The only option you have is to go back to th
old day/week/month view and then you again come across the issue tha
you can only see a maximum of 6 conflicting appointments again

Looking at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;222001&Product=out2
it seems that Microsoft does not recognise this as a problem, it seem
that they think that it should work this way ?

Is there anyone else who has worked out a solution to this or offe
advise on how to get round it ?

 

[Steve Cull]

I was beginning to think I was the only person who thinks that this is
not a problem !.

You can look at grouping your appointments in the timeline view by
location, and then expand all. With 15 rooms this might not look very
good, but its a possibility.

By the way we use outlook to book meetings, but I am not sure that by
having a single "fake" user is the right way to go. I have not set
this up here, but this is my impression of how it works.
Each room is set up as an individual who can therefore be invited to a
meetings, each rooms calender and email is set up to be delegated too
or managed by one central person or group so they get the meeting
invitations and can accept them on behalf of the room. This works
really well because all you need to do is add the room to an
invitation request, look at the attendee availability to see if its
free !. Everyone on the invite knows what room its in and if someone
else trys to book the room they will see that its already been
allocated.

Anyway going back to my problem......
Is there anyone out there who has contact with the Microsoft Outlook
guys and can give us some hope that this is at least recognised as a
problem and will be resolved at some point as I don't feel I am going
to be able to work around this one without some development.


Regards
Steve

I will eagerly await further comment on this problem, as we are

crippled by it too. We are trying to use a single 'fake' user to book
rooms (we operate a clinic with around 15 rooms) and have been unable
to find a satisfactory way to use recurring appointments. This is
because, as already noted here, (a) the only view that can show up to
15 simultaneous appointments is the 'Table' style, but (b) it doesn't
show the 'children' of recurring appointments. (b) makes it useless
for our purposes, and in any case the Table views are very un-calendar
like and hence not very intuitive.

I tried the timeline view like you said, and initially that looks like it has

potential - but you can't seem to show any of the useful fields (eg.
location)
in that view. Also, I can't see how to zoom in or make it bigger...

It seems that since appointments have a location field it ought to be

possible to avoid conflicting appointments. Do we have to resort to
Visual
Basic to implement this? Is there a more sophisticated way of
designing views
that doesn't require programming?

I have lots more questions, so I'm eager to start a discussion around the

whole subject of room bookings and diary sharing.

 

[Mark Hurst]

Steve

thanks for that. Your idea about 'inviting' rooms to a meeting sounds cool and will prompt further investigation. However, I have now played with the Timeline view and realised you can zoom it to a single day. This looks great, as long as we mandate that people put all the info on the 'Subject' line, starting with the location (a letter in our case) - for example: '(C) Fred Flintstone (MH)' is an appointment where MH will see Fred Flintstone in Room C. This gives an intuituve 'at a glance' view of which rooms are free at a given time, which is exactly what we need. We just need to figure out how to print this, as the office likes to keep today's page in reception

I tried grouping by location (and was surprised that you can do so, as you can't display it!), but it takes away the 'at a glance' utility of the Timeline view

Mark

----- Steve Cull wrote: ----

I was beginning to think I was the only person who thinks that this i
not a problem !

You can look at grouping your appointments in the timeline view b
location, and then expand all. With 15 rooms this might not look ver
good, but its a possibility

By the way we use outlook to book meetings, but I am not sure that b
having a single "fake" user is the right way to go. I have not se
this up here, but this is my impression of how it works
Each room is set up as an individual who can therefore be invited to
meetings, each rooms calender and email is set up to be delegated to
or managed by one central person or group so they get the meetin
invitations and can accept them on behalf of the room. This work
really well because all you need to do is add the room to a
invitation request, look at the attendee availability to see if it
free !. Everyone on the invite knows what room its in and if someon
else trys to book the room they will see that its already bee
allocated

Anyway going back to my problem.....
Is there anyone out there who has contact with the Microsoft Outloo
guys and can give us some hope that this is at least recognised as
problem and will be resolved at some point as I don't feel I am goin
to be able to work around this one without some development


Regard
Stev

I will eagerly await further comment on this problem, as we ar

crippled by it too. We are trying to use a single 'fake' user to boo
rooms (we operate a clinic with around 15 rooms) and have been unabl
to find a satisfactory way to use recurring appointments. This i
because, as already noted here, (a) the only view that can show up t
15 simultaneous appointments is the 'Table' style, but (b) it doesn'
show the 'children' of recurring appointments. (b) makes it useles
for our purposes, and in any case the Table views are very un-calenda
like and hence not very intuitivepotential - but you can't seem to show any of the useful fields (eg
location
in that view. Also, I can't see how to zoom in or make it bigger..possible to avoid conflicting appointments. Do we have to resort t
Visua
Basic to implement this? Is there a more sophisticated way o
designing view
that doesn't require programming