3. Sharing Your Calendars with Others
Windows Live Mail synchronizes your calendar data between
the desktop program and the online service. If you create or join
Windows Live Groups, the group calendar will be added to the desktop
program. You also can subscribe to other people’s calendars. If you do,
these shared calendars will be added as well. To subscribe to or share
calendars, you must be logged in to Windows Live and accessing the
service through your web browser.
You can publish any calendars you’ve created, so that other users
can access and subscribe to them. To publish a calendar for sharing,
follow these steps:
After accessing your calendars online in the Windows Live service (http://calendar.live.com), click the Share option and
then select the calendar to share.
Select “Share this calendar” and then select the appropriate
sharing options (see Figure 3).
Keep the following in mind:
If you choose to share your calendar with your friends and
family, click Add People and then select the people to share
with. Afterward, use the list provided to choose how much these
people can see and do and then click Add. Only the people you
selected can subscribe to your calendar.
If you want to send friends a view-only link of your
calendar, click “Get your calendar links” if the links do not
appear and then click the appropriate link or links. Each link
you click will display a URL that you must copy and paste into
an email so that people can see your calendar. No one can
subscribe to a view-only calendar.
If you choose to make your calendar public for all the
world to see, set the permission level and time zone and then
click “Get your calendar links” if the links do not appear. Each
link you click will display a URL that you must copy and paste
into an email so that people can access your public calendar.
Anyone can view or subscribe to a public calendar.
Click Save to save your sharing options. Confirm that you want
to do this when prompted. If you are sharing your calendar with
friends and family, an invitation with the calendar URL is sent to
each person.
As shown in Figure 4,
the email message sent to your friends and family allows the person
to accept or decline the invitation. If the person accepts the
invitation and is using Windows Live Mail or is signed into to the
Windows Live service, they’ll be automatically subscribed to the
calendar. The invitation also contains accept and decline links that
can be copied and pasted into a browser.
If you no longer want to publish a calendar, you can stop
publishing it. To do so, follow these steps:
After accessing your calendars online in the Windows Live
service, click the Share option and then select the calendar to stop
sharing.
Select the “Don’t share” option and then click Save.
You’ll see a confirmation prompt. When you click Save, other
users will no longer be able to subscribe to or access the
calendar.
Being able to publish a calendar is pretty cool, but we haven’t
even begun to touch upon the new features that Windows Live Calendar has
to offer. Now, keeping with our scenario, we just published a calendar,
so your next task is to subscribe to someone else’s calendar so that it
will appear in Windows Live Calendar. Once you’ve subscribed to a
calendar, you can get automatic updates to keep your view of the
calendar in sync with the published view.
To subscribe to a calendar that someone else has published
(including .ics calendars used on
some websites), follow these steps:
After accessing your calendars online in the Windows Live
service, click the Subscribe option.
As shown in Figure 5, you
can subscribe to a public calendar or a private calendar shared to
you. To do this, select the “Subscribe to a public calendar” option
and then type the URL path to the calendar to which you want to
subscribe. This can be any iCalendar-formatted (.ics) and published calendar.
NOTE
As calendar URL paths can be quite long and complex, you’ll
usually want to copy and paste the path. This will help ensure you
enter the correct path.
Type the display name you want to use for the calendar to
which you are subscribing. This doesn’t have to be the same as the
name used by the person who shared the calendar.
Click “Subscribe to calendar” to complete the procedure. If
you entered the calendar URL incorrectly, you’ll see an error and
will need to retype the URL. To reduce the possibility of making a
mistake, copy and paste the URL path.
Once you’ve subscribed to a calendar, Windows Live Mail will
retrieve and display updates as they become available and when
synchronization occurs. If you don’t want to see the events for a
subscribed calendar, clear the checkbox for the calendar. When you are
working with Windows Live Calendar (and not the online service in your
browser), you can unsubscribe from a calendar by clicking the calendar
and selecting Delete. When prompted to confirm, click Delete.
4. Synchronizing Google Calendar with Windows Live Calendar
You can subscribe to your Yahoo! and Google calendars,
too. For Google, the steps you use should be similar to the
following:
In Internet Explorer, browse to the Google calendar to which
you want to subscribe, and log on.
On the left-hand side of the page, under My Calendars, click
Settings.
Under Sharing, click on “Share this calendar.” Similar to
Windows Live Calendar, you have the option to make the calendar
public or share the calendar with specific people. If you make the
calendar public, everyone in the world will be able to see it and
you’ll need to copy and paste the calendar URL into an email. If you
share the calendar with specific people, you can set a permission
level to control how much these people can see and do.
After you select the sharing options for this calendar, click
Save. If you are sharing your calendar with specific people, you
have the option of sending an email invitation to each person. You
probably don’t want to do this as the invitation requires
registering for a Google account and then accessing the calendar via
Google.
On the left-hand side of the page, under My Calendars, click
the options button and then click Calendar Settings. This displays
the Calendar Details page.
Scroll down. You’ll see a Calendar Address and a Private
Address section.
With a public calendar, you’ll have several different
calendar formats for the calendar address. You should be
interested in only iCal for now. Right-click on iCal under
“Calendar Address,” and then click “Copy shortcut.” This is the
shortcut you use to synchronize your Google Calendar with
Windows Live Calendar (or another iCalendar-enabled
calendar).
With a private calendar (one shared with friends), you’ll
have several different calendar formats for the private address.
You should be interested in only iCal for now. Right-click on
iCal under “Private Address,” and then click “Copy shortcut.”
This is the shortcut you use to synchronize your Google Calendar
with Windows Live Calendar (or another iCalendar-enabled
calendar).
After accessing your calendars online in the Windows Live
service, click the Subscribe option.
You can now subscribe to the public calendar or the private
calendar shared to you. To do this, select the “Subscribe to a
public calendar” option and then type the URL path to the calendar
to which you want to subscribe.
NOTE
As calendar URL and file paths can be quite long and
complex, you’ll usually want to copy and paste the path. This will
help ensure you enter the correct path.
Type the display name you want to use for the calendar to
which you are subscribing. This doesn’t have to be the same as the
name used when publishing the calendar.
Click “Subscribe to calendar” to complete the procedure. If
you entered the calendar URL incorrectly, you’ll see an error and
will need to retype the URL. To reduce the possibility of making a
mistake, copy and paste the URL path.
Because web interfaces tend to change more frequently than program
interfaces, I won’t repeat the example for Yahoo!. However, you’ll use a
similar procedure to share your Yahoo! calendar so that you can
subscribe to it in Windows Live Calendar.
