Tracy van der Schyff

#Office365Challenge – SharePoint Apps – Building a Calendar. So you have a Calendar in Outlook – why would you build one on SharePoint? Have you ever tried to manage and book an event without all the relevant calendars shared with you? Calendars on SharePoint is a great way to have an overview of all the events, meetings, deadlines of your department – without having to access to the owners of those events’ calendars. The SharePoint Calendar won’t be used to book resources, but can be linked with your Outlook to always have an overview of the department’s ‘what’s happening when’. You can copy and paste events from your personal calendar to the SharePoint calendar (in Outlook) which makes it easier.

“A calendar of upcoming meetings, deadlines or other events. Calendar information can be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook or other compatible programs.”
See more about Apps: Around the Office in 365 Days: Day 74 – Adding Apps in SharePoint Online

To create your Calendar, click on the settings wheel > Add an app. Search for Calendar or simply click on the icon. I do not create the Calendar with the name (My Team’s Calendar), I use Acronyms. This keeps the URL short and clean as spaces are replaced with %20. I then rename the application afterwards, see yesterday’s post on how to do this: Around the Office in 365 Days: Day 75 – SharePoint Apps – Building a Task List
When created, navigate to the app, go to the Calendar Tab > List Settings > Library name, description and navigation and rename the app.

Now you’re ready to use it. Calendars are created with default views. The views do not appear above the lists as in other apps – you have to go to the Calendar Tab (1) > Current View Dropdown (2), here you’ll see the views available (3): Calendar, All Events (list view) and Current Events (list view only showing next events). On the left you’ll also notice the mini calendar (5) which can be used for quick navigation.

To add items, you can either double click on a day (1), hover over a day and click on +Add (2)or go to the Events Tab (3) then click on New Event (4):

Calendars are GREAT for deadlines and important dates – not just meetings. Remember you can create filtered views for specific categories, no need to create a calendar for each meeting – see my post Around the Office in 365 Days: Day 5 – Creating Filtered Views in SharePoint

See you tomorrow for a look at Discussion Boards

Overview of my challenge: As an absolute lover of all things Microsoft, I’ve decided to undertake the challenge, of writing a blog every single day, for the next 365 days. Crazy, I know. And I’ll try my best, but if I cannot find something good to say about Office 365 and the Tools it includes for 365 days, I’m changing my profession. So let’s write this epic tale of “Around the Office in 365 Days”. My ode to Microsoft Office 365.

Keep in mind that these tips and tricks do not only apply to Office 365 – but where applicable, to the overall Microsoft Office Suite and SharePoint.