Merging Outlook calendars for successful office communication

Merging Outlook calendars for successful office communication

30-second overview:

Merging Outlook calendars helps in office calendar planning:

• Merging Outlook calendars lets you see other people’s calendars
• It lets you make appointments for others
• It makes it easier to find someone that has availability to do work
• Available time appears as “white space” in the calendar
• It’s easy to merge Outlook calendars
• There are benefits to merging calendars, but there are many limitations
• In this article we show how to merge Outlook calendars, and how to overcome the limitations

Timewatch’s Whitespace® for Outlook shows multiple employee Outlook calendar data side-by-side. Business managers and Team leaders can finally get real-time visibility of workforce activities, productivity, utilization and availability – and it all comes from your existing Outlook calendar data.

1. Merge Outlook calendars (we show you how to do this next)
2. Export Outlook calendar data and manipulate in Excel or some other system into the format you need
3. Use a system like Timewatch’s Whitespace® for Outlook that does all of this for you

How to merge calendars in Outlook

1. In your Outlook calendar, click on the File tab
2. Click Options
3. Click Advanced
4. Under Export, click Export
5. Click Export to a file, and then click Next
6. Click Outlook Data File (.pst), and then click Next
7. Click the calendar folder that you want to export, clear the Include subfolders check box, and then click Next
8. In the Save exported file as box, enter a folder location and file name, or click Browse to select a folder and enter the file name
9. Click Finish

How do Merged Outlook Calendars Work?

Merging calendars is great for your work and your personal google calendar into one. However, if you want to view work colleagues’ calendars, merging ends up showing multiple overlapping appointments. This makes a merged calendar very cumbersome and confusing, however, there is a better way to view work colleagues’ calendars.

Using Discrete Outlook Calendars Instead of Merged Calendars

If you need to view calendars of other work colleagues, displaying discrete calendars for each person avoids the drawbacks of merged calendars. Viewing discrete calendars works well for viewing under five people over one or two days, but gets slower the more people you add and you are limited as to how many days you can view.

What is the best way to view multiple Outlook calendars over days / weeks?

Outlook’s merge calendar feature works well for individuals, but not so well if you want to look at or manage work colleagues’ calendars. Discrete calendars is better, but is very limited.

Many organizations have asked us to help them gain better real-time visibility of their workforce, and provide the analytics they need to manage them. To solve this, we created Whitespace® for Outlook, a simplified version of our Whitespace® resource scheduling system. This can be added to existing Office 365 Outlook implementations to provide instant visibility of the entire workforce without affecting users, changing the way they use Outlook, or requiring any end user installation or training.

How Timewatch’s Whitespace® Improves Upon Outlook Merged Calendars

Timewatch’s Whitespace® for Outlook system provides real-time views of employee Outlook calendars, showing more calendars over greater periods than Outlook, as well as providing real-time analytics and reporting.

Whitespace® for Outlook allows companies to view large teams of people over days, weeks, or months.

Whitespace® for Outlook can also provides advanced functionality including: availability, productivity and utilization views, employee group / skills views, conflict resolution, enhanced security, analytics, reporting and even time tracking and time & billing – all features not possible in Outlook itself.

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