So we've been running Exchange Server for the past 10 years. We have always used a public calendar so when someone makes a change, everyone's calendar reflects the changes in the office. This has been ok up to this point but the only issue is that we cannot see the calendar outside the office. I've looked and tried a couple of app's that don't work. This is 2000 fing 14 and I still cannot see a calendar on my phone. Our IT guy who setup our server wants us to keep this setup and simply begin to send invites for every appointment which I think will be a nightmare. Our schedule is very fluid and we are constantly changing the schedule which is why the invite is out of the question IMO. So I need to figure out something else.

I'm currently leaning to Google but I'm open to any recommendations. I'm ok with paying for mailboxes so long as it's reasonable.

A big requirement is that we currently schedule 16 people so color coding is important and so is room for growth. I want to be able to see all of of our guys on a given "group" calendar and some calendars make it difficult to see the broad overview for the day. As we continue to grow, so will our calendar requirements.

Most smartphone email clients will run Exchange. I have it on my iphone now and Android before that. You can't see other peoples calendars (not easily anyway) but as long as other people's calendars are managed from a heavyweight client (like Outlook on a computer) it's no big deal. You can manage your own calendar to the nth degree on your own smartphone.

Although it's not perfect, I really do feel like Outlook and Exchange can run a very organized and efficient operation once you know how to use it.

Google calendar might help you. I use it but I never do anything anywhere near as complicated as what you're talking about.

You're describing a situation that is getting more and more complicated but maybe it's complicated because of how you're trying to do it. In computer network terms you might say you're asking for everyone to have Administrator privileges. We readily predict the insane complications of doing that with a network, and maybe your path leads that way too with the calendar. Maybe you need to elevate someone and lower others in their responsibilities and capabilities in order to keep control. Require a scheduler to be the master control. You say your company is growing, and it's reasonable for positions to need to be created to handle situations your smaller company never had.

We've used Google Apps for about 7 years give or take. If I understand your needs correctly, it looks like it will do everything that you need.

We are a smaller company with 4 techs. We happen to use invites in order to get things from our "Master Crew Calendar" to each person's individual calendar. However, we could just create the appointment directly in someone's individual calendar and do away with the Master Calendar altogether, and then share those individual calendars with everyone and turn them on or off as needed to get the overview that you require.

In fact, the more I think about it the less relevant and useful I think our Master Calendar is now. In fact as of right now I can't really remember why I didn't just use the individual calendar route; I think it had something to do with earlier versions that could only sync one account to a mobile device... or something... I'll be talking to my coordinator about this tomorrow!

I am all Apple based but this is very easy for us, I create the needed calendars on our office computer using apples own calendar app (or there is an improved version called busycal that we use on our desktops) and setup the other computers, iPhones, etc to share these calendars, give them read/write privileges and all done, been doing this for many years and works well for us.

Glad I can help! LOL

I think the overview is extremely important to see everyone's schedule quickly so you can determine who's open.


I'm not sure I understand this. Do you know a way to publish or view multiple calendars in a single view? The only way I know is to send invites to each person so that it pushes the appointment to the individual exchange account. As I mentioned, I feel like dealing with constantly sending/changing 16-30 appointments a day would be a huge time vampire and result in unnecessary emails to each tech.

My point was that maybe you need a coordinator.

Or a better calendar ;)

Google Apps for Business

I would say, truly, that it's "maybe". The one con to the coordinator is that it's, to put it in our terms, a centralized system. Of course you expect him to do a good job and, well, keep in coordination.

BUT if you have a "de-centralized" system where everyone is making their own schedule and it's actually WORKING, I think that's pretty powerful. The more you can empower a field guy to do on his own, the better, IMO, thus not worrying about a single point of failure, and spreading the responsibility among many. A flatter organization structure.

Outlook can look at and edit multiple calendars, but most smartphones cannot. So the way we use it for example, when I want to create a schedule for technicians, I open their calendar (assuming all the proper permissions have been set up) and create events directly in their calendar as needed. The appointments just show up on their end, no emails necessary. Obviously the appointments have different fields where many different details about the appointment can be stored. If they make a change on their end or add details, I will see it on my end as well. I can attach emails to the event if needed also.

I can look at one persons calendar at a time or everybody's all at once.

Can you see the "Master" calendar outside the office? Could I take a call, open my phone, and change the calendar? Otherwise I'm scratching some crap down on a piece of paper and hope that I will transfer the info when I get back to the office (which will likely not happen).

Drewski,

What you are seeing is the difference between the Light and Premium versions of the Outlook web app interface.

The following Microsoft Knowledge Base Article will shed some light.

The answer, is that to do what you want, you're likely going to need more than a phone. A Win tablet would work...

[Link: support.microsoft.com]

Many smartphones now support multiple exchange accounts, my note 2 can view and edit multiple exchange calendars overlaid onto the same calendar view. Why not create a new mailbox kind of like Frog mentioned and put it on your phone. This new account would essentially act as your company calendar. Every Outlook user can also add multiple exchange accounts with Outlook 2010 for easy management.