Using Multiple Calendars in Outlook 2007
Posted on : 01-08-2008 | By : Andy | In : tech
Tags: multiple calendars, outlook 2007
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Imagine that you use Outlook at work to maintain your work schedule, and Google Calendar at home to keep track of your personal life, and you want to keep the two schedules together, but separate. You want to be able to share your Work schedule with work people, your home schedule with your wife, and nary the two shall meet.
The solution? Multiple calendars.
In Outlook 2007, you’ll be able to see these events side-by-side, but if you want to share just one of those calendars to your Boss, it will show only the events in that calendar to those who view it. (This also has the added benefit of showing you at a glance that you work too much!)
I personally maintain 5 calendars: Personal, Work, Class (I’m a full-time student), Church, and Birthday/Anniversaries. Makes it easy to keep my life nice and organized.
Here’s how you do it with Outlook 2007:
- Open Outlook, and click on your calendar. (duh!)
- Click the little arrow next to the “New” button just under your Tool Bar, and select “Calendar…” (screenshot)
- Give it a name and hit OK.
- Repeat as many times as you like
- If in the past you’ve been categorizing by Color, you can now easily move items from your current Calendar to your new Calendars.
- Make sure your original calendar is selected (It’s called “Calendar”)
- Type a common letter (such as “a”) in the “Search Calendar” Box
- Click the “Categories” header to sort by Category
- Select all the items in a Category and drag-and-drop them into the appropriate new Calendar on the left. (If you don’t see them listed, Click the “My Calendars” heading under “All Calendar Items”
- Finally, to overlay your calendars and view all events together, check the box next to each calendar, and use the little left-pointing arrow next to the Calendar name on each tab (screenshot).
P.S. This is also possible to do in Outlook 2003, I believe. I will post instructions when I have the chance.
Now that you’ve done this, you can go read how to do the same thing with Google Calendar and iCal, and then you can read sync multiple iCal, Google, and Outlook Calendars to keep them all automagically synced together!
Maybe you can help. With your example above, can you describe the process of receiving a meeting invitation. Specifically I’m curious how you get it to land on the calendar you want. For example, if your boss sends you an invite, I’m sure you’d want it on your work calendar. When I try this it seem to always land on my main calendar. Thanks for the info.
Jason — I haven’t found an ideal way to do this, but I find the following to work quickly:
1) Accept the invite. It will drop into your main calendar.
2) Open your main calendar, select the event, and Cut it (Ctrl-X)
3) Click over to your desired calendar, and Paste it (Ctrl-V)
How can you select the default calender, if possible?
I’m not sure how to choose the default: it may not be possible.
You could try moving the desired calendar to the top of the list on the left side of Outlook where it lists them all. Let me know if that works!
Here’s a tricky question:
I’ve got multiple calendars set up (the default, school, kids, etc.) and I love it. What I’m trying to do is sync these calendars with my Windows Mobile phone, so that they ALL show up. Right now, only the main one shows up.
I could just copy the other calendars and paste them into the main calendar, but that kinda defeats the purpose of the multiple calendars…
Good question–I don’t know how Windows Mobile works with syncing, but I do know that Outlook (unfortunately) doesn’t really provide much in the way of using multiple calendars as primary instruments (just try accepting a meeting invite directly to some calendar other than your default). My thought would be that you use something like Calgoo to sync your Outlook calendars with a (free) Google calendar account, and then try using Google Mobile Sync to sync from Google to your mobile device.
Of course, it’s also possible that Google Mobile Sync only handles one calendar, and then you’re back to looking for something to pick up the Google < -> Mobile connection.
What Scott is looking for….I am too.
Does anyone have an easy solution?
It’s ok for them to be separate on the PC…that’s fine. But I want ALL the calendars in one “sync” on my phone.
I would like to use the multiple calendar suggestion above, but I also need all of them to synch to my Blackberry so I can see all appointments (work, personal, etc) in one place when I’m on the road, but keep them separate so when I share my calendar at work only those items appear there. Any ideas?
I’m not aware of any solutions–in fact, I was so frustrated that I went back to using a singular calendar and just sharing availability with others (instead of full event details)–I use Outlook’s “Categories” to categorize myself. It’s possible that there’s a third-party software solution out there that would do what you’re talking about–if you find one, I (and others here) would love to hear about it!
Hi I have two different outlook accounts (with different email addresses) that also have the online service, one for work and one for uni. Am I able to synchronize the calendars for the two, so any changes and additions I make to one, also happen on the other?
I’d suggest that you set up a free Gmail account to serve as the in-between. Then, link each Outlook calendar to your gmail calendar using Google calendar sync, or Calgoo.
Outlook < ---> Gmail < ---> Outlook