by Svetlana Cheusheva, updated on
The tutorial shows how to share your calendar in Outlook Online and Outlook.com, publish it on the web, and add a shared calendar to your view.
If you have an Office 365 subscription or are subscribed to another Exchange-based mail service, you can use Outlook on the web to share your calendar with coworkers, friends and family members. If you don't have any of the above, then set up a free Outlook.com account for the calendar sharing feature.
To share your calendar in Outlook 365 (the online version) or Outlook.com web app, this is what you need to do:
Alternatively, in the navigation pane on the left, right-click the calendar you want to share, and then click Sharing and permissions.
Each of the specified persons will get a sharing invitation and as soon as they accept it, your calendar will show up in their Outlook under People's calendars.
Notes:
Depending on which application you are using and whether you are sharing with internal or external users, different permission levels are available.
For people within your organization, you can choose one of the following levels of access:
For people outside your organization, the Edit and Delegate permissions are unavailable, so you can only provide the "view" level of access: when you're busy, titles and locations, or all details.
For all persons, the choice is limited to these two options:
To change the permissions granted to a certain user or stop sharing the calendar, perform these steps:
After you've stopped sharing the calendar with your coworkers, your calendar will be removed from their Outlook completely. In case of external users, their copy of your calendar is not removed but it won't sync to your calendar any longer.
To provide access to your calendar to anyone without sending individual invitations, you can publish it online, and then either share an HTML link to view your calendar in a browser or an ICS link to subscribe to it in Outlook.
To publish your calendar, carry out these steps:
Once the calendar is published, the HTML and ICS links will appear in the same window:
If you no longer wish to allow anyone to access your calendar, you can unpublish it in this way:
There are several ways to add a shared calendar in Outlook on the web and Outook.com. Depending of the sharing method used by the calendar owner, choose one of the following techniques:
When you receive a calendar sharing invitation, all you have to do is click Accept :)
Once you've accepted the calendar, you will find it under People's calendars in Outlook on the web or under Other calendars in Outlook.com. You can now change the calendar's name, color and charm, or remove it from your view. For this, right-click the calendar in the navigation pane and choose the desired action:
In Outlook on the web, you can also add a calendar that belongs to someone in your organization (provided you are allowed to view their calendars). Here are the steps to perform:
The calendar will be added under People's calendars. If the owner shared the calendar with you personally, you will have the permissions granted to you. Otherwise, the calendar will be opened with the permissions set for your organization.
If someone gave you an ICS link to their calendar, you can subscribe to it as Internet calendar and receive all updates. To have it done, perform these steps:
The calendar will be added under Other calendars and synchronize automatically:
If someone shared an .ics file with you, you can import that file into Outlook on the web or Outook.com too. The imported file won't show up as a separate calendar, rather its events will be added to your existing calendar.
To import the ICS file, this is what you need to do:
Note. The items from the imported calendar will be added to your own calendar, but they won't sync with the owner's calendar.
There may be different reasons why sharing calendar is not working in Outlook. Below is the list of knows issues and possible fixes.
Issue: The sharing option is missing in Outlook on the web for Office 365 Business or does not work for outside people.
Reason: Calendar sharing is disabled or limited to people within your organization. Please contact your administrator for more information.
Issue: You cannot edit events in a shared calendar though the edit permissions are granted to you.
Reason: Currently shared ICS calendars in Outlook on the web and Outlook.com are read-only even for those who have the edit level of access. Possibly, this will change in future updates.
Issue: You have added a calendar published on the web and are sure the URL is correct, but no details are displayed.
Fix: Remove the calendar, change the protocol from http to https, and then add the calendar again.
Issue: When trying to accept a calendar shared with you, you get an HTTP 500 error.
Fix: Reopen the invitation and click the Accept button again. Outlook should accept the invitation and redirect you to the shared calendar.
Issue: You cannot send sharing invitations from an account connected to your Outlook.com account.
Reason: A calendar is linked to your Outlook.com account, not the connected account, and sharing invitations are sent from the account linked to the calendar.
Issue: You get an error when trying to send sharing invitations in Outlook Online.
Reason: Possibly, there is a conflict with the permissions assigned to the same recipient in the past.
Fix: Your administrator can fix this by using ADSI Edit. The step-by-step instructions can be found here.
That's how you share and publish your calendars in Outlook on the web and Outlook.com. I thank you for reading and hope to see you on our blog next week!
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