Wednesday 9 November 2011

Connecting a SharePoint calendar to Outlook vs. Connecting an Outlook calendar to SharePoint

When you have an OOB calendar created with SharePoint 2010, connecting the calendar to display the information in Outlook is an easy task: one click on the “Connect to Outlook” button and follow the wizard.
However, I added the following requirements a couple days ago where a SharePoint user with full control privileges wanted to display the content of her Outlook calendar to a SharePoint calendar. I assumed that this task would be a matter of a one click again. However, it is a little trickier than it seems.
In fact, her team was using that Outlook calendar to update information and events. She was planning to continue updating via that same calendar in order to display the information on the SharePoint site. Unfortunately, the solution that I proposed involved using a new calendar and copying all existing events to the new SharePoint calendar. Moreover, the word “copy:” would appear in front of every single calendar item.
Therefore, the solution that I proposed is a work around to get the task done. This solution can be performed using the SharePoint UI and Outlook.
The tasks that we are going to perform, in order to display all events and be able to update via Outlook, are:
  1. Create a new calendar in SharePoint
  2. Connect the calendar to Outlook
  3. Copy all items from the Outlook calendar to the new SharePoint calendar
  4. Test that all updates from the Outlook calendar propagate diligently to the SharePoint calendar

Task #1

  • Go to your SharePoint site and create a new calendar using “site actions” >> “More options”
  • Filter by “Lists” and select “calendar”
  • Name it accordingly and hit “Create”
  • 2011-10-25-ConnectingSPCalendartoOutlook-01.png

Task #2

  • Once on the newly created calendar, click “Connect to Outlook” from the global navigation menu
  • In the popup windows, click “Allow”, “Allow” and “Yes”. You should be able to see your SharePoint calendar on Outlook
  • Open in parallel the calendar that you want to copy over
  • 2011-10-25-ConnectingSPCalendartoOutlook-02.png

Task #3

  • On the calendar that you are trying to copy, go to “Change View” and “List”
  • Once in the list view, make sure that you are targeting the right calendar
  • Select them all (Ctrl + A) and copy them all (Ctrl + C)
  • Go to the SharePoint calendar in the list view
  • Paste them all (Ctrl + V)
  • Confirm any popup window and let Outlook copy all items over
  • 2011-10-25-ConnectingSPCalendartoOutlook-03.png
    2011-10-25-ConnectingSPCalendartoOutlook-04.png

Task #4

  • Once all items are copied, go back to your SharePoint site calendar view
  • All future additions can be done via the Outlook interface or the SharePoint interface
  • 2011-10-25-ConnectingSPCalendartoOutlook-05.png

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