Shared Calendar in Outlook 2007

	Skill level: Medium
	The instructions on this page require a basic knowledge of linux.

Introduction

This will let you create a shared calendar that will be accessible to all users who have Outlook 2007 installed.

Before you begin, you should decide who you want to manage the calendar. Changes to the calendar can only be made through Horde, so if your users are only familiar with Outlook it might make sense to train one or two people to manage the calendar through Horde; the rest of your users can email the necessary details through to the nominated maintainer(s). Alternatively, if your users are comfortable with web-based applications and you are happy to let them modify the shared calendar, you can give them access to the calendar through Horde.

	Note:
	The calendar, although read only, is accessible from any location and is not protected by a password. If your server is an Internet web server, then the only protection you have against unauthorised users accessing your calendar is the complex URL.

Installation

Configuring Kronolith

First, let’s configure the Kronolith, the calendar extension for Horde.

1. Install the Kronolith Horde module using the instructions here

2. Login to Horde as the user who will be primarily responsible for managing the calendar and select Organising > Calendar

3. Click on the My Calendars icon at the top of the screen

4. In the Create Calendar area, enter a name for the new calendar and click Create.

5. Log out and log back in again to initialise the new calendar (this appears to be a bug)

Setting Permissions

Now we can set appropriate permissions for the new calendar.

1. Login to Horde as the user who will be primarily responsible for managing the calendar and select Organising > Calendar

2. Click on the My Calendars icon at the top of the screen

3. In the Edit Calendar area, select the calendar you created earlier from the drop-down list, and click the Edit button

4. If you wish to grant all users in your company access to the calendar, enable the appropriate permissions in the All Authenticated Users area

5. Enable the Show and Read permissions for Guests; this will allow Outlook to access the calendar

6. Click Save and Finish to save your settings

7. Copy the Remote Subscription URL for use with Outlook

Configuring Outlook Clients

Lastly, we can configure Outlook to show the shared calendar.

1. On the target machine, open Outlook and select Options > Account Settings

2. Go to the Internet Calendars tab and click New

3. Paste the Remote Subscription URL that you previously saved and click OK

4. Enter a meaningful name and description for the calendar in the resulting dialog and click OK

5. Close the Account Settings dialog

6. Open the Calendar view

7. In the All Calendar items area at the left hand side of the screen, check the box next to the Other Calendar whose name matches the one that you configured earlier

Outlook will display the shared calendar alongside the user’s standard calendar.

Configuring Horde for Users

If you have granted other users access to the calendar from within Horde, it is easy for them to configure their Horde settings to display events from the new shared calendar.

1. Login to Horde and select Organising > Calendar

2. In the Display Calendars area, check the box corresponding to the calendar that you wish to display events from

Unlike Outlook, Horde integrates events from the two calendars into a single display version. When creating a new event, the user is able to select the calendar to which the event should be saved. The list of calendars that may be added to depends on the permissions that have previously been set.

References

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,39510.0.html