explain free/busy time?

[jerrodbug]

we are a small business who use a hosted exchange. I am trying to share my
employers free/busy time with all employees so we know when he is available.
What i have been able to do is give everyone reviewer permissions through his
outlook, but then everyone can see who the meeting is with. What i want to
do is keep everything the same, but have it so that when someone looks at the
employers calendar in their outlook, they only see free or busy--not "meeting
with client" etc.

I understand to a certain extent that we would be able to see his free busy
time if we tried to schedule an appointment with him, but i want his
free/busy time to always be available when someone just looks at his
calendar, since we normally just need to know if he is in the office.

I have tried to go into the permissions and change the "reviewer" options to
only show free/busy time, but when i make that change the calendar items
disappear on the other users outlook clients.

To me, it seems like this should be a very simple change, but for some
reason i can not get it to work. Also, i dont want to have to internet share
his free/busy time, since i can share more details without doing that--why
would i have to take a completely different route to accomplish something
even more simplified?

 

[Judy Gleeson \(MVP Outlook\)]

You do not need to give ANY level of permission for users of your Exchange
network to see FREE/BUSY time. Permissions enable others to see MORE than
just FREE/BUSY. So set no permissions and then have a look. Each user
should see the coloured bars and no details.

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Trainer and Consultant www.pragmatix.com.au
My suggested settings for Outlook 2003 are FREE on my website.

..

 

[jerrodbug]

i went in and was not able to change my permissions to "none"--since it wasnt
an option--so i just removed myself from his permissions list, and all his
calendar items disappeared, and his calendar was blank.


Also not sure if im explaining myself clearly enough, but i have added his
calendar so it is in with mine, and i want to always be able to look at
it--not just through the scheduling assistant.

thank you for the help

 

[Judy Gleeson \(MVP Outlook\)]

You have 2 situations here about permission levels for the Boss' Calendar.
Your permission level and everyone elses.

Describe clearly whay you want for each of those situations.

Also go have a look at Group Schedule and how they enable people to see each
other's Calendars almost instantly.

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Trainer and Consultant www.pragmatix.com.au
My suggested settings for Outlook 2003 are FREE on my website.

..

 

[jerrodbug]

i want everyones permission levels to be the same.

What i am doing to share the calendar is going to the boss's computer, and
clicking "share calendar" then i have everyone click on "open this users
calendar" in the email they receive. i want it to always be available to
everyone on their respective computers. I have also used the "open other
users data file" option to get his calendar into someones outlook as well.

When they go to "calendar" in each of their own outlook clients, i want them
to have 2 calendars--theirs, and the bosses--which i am able to get to this
point. If i go back to the bosses computer and set up the permissions for
each user (all users have the same permission level) to reviewer, they can
then go in and see the details of all his appointments. What my boss would
like is for them not to see the details, and only see Busy or Out of office.
When i go back to his computer and change anyones permissions from reviewer
to free/busy, everything goes away on the calendars they have in their
outlooks, and when i change it back to reviewer, it all comes back.

I know we could do a group calendar, but at the moment that wouldnt work for
us.

 

[Judy Gleeson \(MVP Outlook\)]

I think (but can't check at present 'cause I don't have Exchange in my home
office) that the lowest level of permission will give everyone access to the
details of meetings.

To have the calendar viewed the way you want, the boss must mark every
meeting Private.

You could edit their standard Meeting form to be Private by default - see
the programming newsgroup for that one!


Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Trainer and Consultant www.pragmatix.com.au
My suggested settings for Outlook 2003 are FREE on my website.

..