Creating Group Calendars

A Group Calendar displays the free time schedules of a specified group of people. You quickly see who in the group is available or busy at a particular time. If you have access to their individual Calendars, you can display them below the Group Calendar.

To open a Group Calendar, open your Calendar and click Tools, View and Create Group Calendars from the Action bar. The Group Calendars View opens. If you want to create a new Group Calendar, click the New Group Calendar button on the Action bar. Enter a name for the Group Calendar, select the names of those you would like included, and then click OK. The Group Calendar opens, as shown in Figure 10.11.

Figure 10.11. The Group Calendar displays the free time of all the members of the group. To display the details of any busy block, click it. If you have access to that Calendar, the event will appear at the bottom of the screen; otherwise, you see instructions on how to use the Group Calendar.

Group Calendars only display current and future dates. Older dates are marked as "No Info."

You determine the starting time of the Group Calendar and the total number of hours shown for each day. Click the Display Options button on the Action bar. In the Options dialog box (see Figure 10.12), select a Starting Time and Duration. Then, click OK.

Figure 10.12. In this dialog box, set the total number of hours showing for every day on the Calendar and the time the days begin.

In the Group Calendar you can see what times the members already have scheduled and when they are unavailable. If you have permission to view a person's calendar, you can double-click that person's name and the calendar for that person will appear in the lower portion of the Group Calendar.

Once you have created and saved Group Calendars, they appear in the group Calendar list. To open one of the Calendars, double-click on its name.