Can I See Your Calendar?
Have you ever started a new job or had your email system upgraded only to find out that you can’t see anyone’s Outlook calendar?
And now you’re sitting at your desk sending everyone calendar view requests hoping they’ll know how to answer the invites?
Well there’s a handy dandy way to fix this.
It’s starts with a simple company rule that everyone should be allowed to see everyone’s calendar.
Now I’m sure Microsoft was just trying to help reduce liabilities by locking down calendars by default but it’s a pain, and an inconvenience, and it wastes time for most companies.
Now there’s 3 basic levels of calendar sharing you can choose from. Here’s the quick run down.
Free/Busy Time — This just shows people blocks on your calendar and isn’t helpful to me. For example. If you have a meeting across town and then open time the person trying to schedule a meeting with you can’t see that. This causes back and forth and wastes time.
Free/Busy Time, Subject, Location — This shows people blocks of time and includes the meeting title, location and … This is a better option and likely what most people would want as their default calendar policy
Reviewer — This shows people everything including what you write in the meeting description which includes, notes, attendees and all that good stuff. This is my preferred option, although most people would think this is sharing too much. My view is that I’ve got nothing to hide and if I really need to have a confidential meeting, I’ll just click the box on the meeting properties that says, Make Private.
Once your decide which calendar sharing option you’d like ask your tech guy to get it set up.
It’s little things like this that promote productivity.
It provides a better employee experience which translates into having a better company culture.
Don’t be a calendar troll.
Share your calendars.
