You can share your Microsoft Outlook calendar with people inside and outside your organization.
Have you ever spent a lot of back and forth leaving voicemails or sending different emails to pick a time to meet someone? By the time you pick a good time for yourself, the other person has already scheduled that time with someone else. It is annoying and useless, because you can Microsoft Outlook calendar to someone outside your organization, and the recipient does not need to use Outlook to view your calendar.
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In this tutorial, I’ll show you several ways to fine-tune your availability when sending your calendar to someone outside your organization. That way, the recipient only sees what you want them to see. This is not an alternative to sharing your calendar with someone in your organization. However, if that option is missing or temporarily unavailable, you can email the calendar instead.
I use Microsoft 365 desktop on a Windows 10 64-bit system, but you can use older versions. There is no demonstration file, because you don’t need one.
How to add your calendar to an email in Outlook
The first step to sending your calendar to someone outside your organization is to create an email and attach your calendar.
You won’t believe how simple this is: open a new blank email to initiate the contact, or open an existing email from the person you want to meet to reply. Fill in the appropriate fields, such as the email address and subject. When you’re ready to attach your calendar, click the Insert tab. Click Calendar in the Record group.
Image A displays the resulting dialog box. You can accept all the defaults, but you probably won’t want to.
Image A
Email a specific calendar in Outlook
The first option is a drop-down list that lists all your calendars. As you can see in Figure B, I have Outlook’s default calendar and one that uses my name – that’s the one I want to send. You may only have one email account or you may have several, so make sure you send the correct calendar.
Figure B
Set a date range for the calendar in Outlook
In the second drop-down list, you can define the calendar dates you want to send. There are several options here, as you can see in Figure C†
Figure C
Today is the default, but there are other options, including Specify dates. When you choose this last option, Outlook displays two date controls: Start and End. Use these two controls to send a custom time period, as shown in Figure D†
Note that the End control is one month later than the current month by default. Make sure you select the correct month – don’t assume it’s the same month in the Start control.
Figure D
How to choose calendar details sent in Outlook
The next option allows you to control what the recipient sees in your calendar. As you can see in Figure Eyou can send everything to available times only.
It’s probably not a good idea to send your full calendar unless prompted. Not only will it show everything, including private appointments, but it will overwhelm the recipient.
Figure E
Usually, you choose Availability Only. If you do this, the opening hours will be sent within the time period you chose earlier (Figure D†
After choosing a Details option, check the Show only time within my working hours option, displayed in Figure Funless you want to be available at any time.
If you know that your working hours are set correctly, you can skip the next option. If you want to check them, or even change them, just for this one recipient, click the Set working hours link. In the resulting dialog you can set or change the current working time settings.
Figure F
Include private items and attachments in Outlook
Figure G shows three advanced settings. They are self-explanatory, but the private item requires a warning. It ships all private items within the time frame you send so be very careful when checking this item.
Figure G
The last item allows you to determine the calendar format. The default, Event List sends a simpler visual calendar, as shown in figure H† As you can see, the rest of the month is open.
figure H
Before you send your agenda, look carefully at the listed events. A potential customer doesn’t need to know that you have an appointment with a competitor during the same period, so be careful.
Sending your calendar to someone outside your organization is an easy task, and the Microsoft Outlook options let you control how much information the recipient sees.
