Sun Java System Calendar Server Online Help |

Contents Index

> # Concepts Guide

> ## Getting Started: An Introduction to Calendar Express

> - What is Calendar Express?
> - What to Do First
> - Navigating Calendar Express
> - View Tab Features
> - Calendars Tab Features
> - Groups Tab Features
> - Options Tab Features

> ## Working with Events and Tasks

> - The Difference Between Events and Tasks
> - Working with Events
> - Working with Tasks
> - When Errors Occur
> - Inviting Attendees
> - Repeating Events and Tasks
> - Event and Task Reminders
> - Event Notification

> ## Maintaining Calendars and Groups

> - Controlling Access to Your Calendar
> - Naming Your Calendars
> - Subscribing to Calendars
> - Working with Subscribed-to Calendars
> - Using Calendar Groups

> ## General Topics

> - Finding Home
> - Exiting Calendar Express
> - Changing Dates in Your Calendar View
> - Using the Search Tools
> - Working with Time Zones
> - Standard Time Zones
> - For Systems Configured to Both Invite and Inform

> ## Glossary

> Common terms are defined in the Glossary.

> # What is Calendar Express?

> Calendar Express is the web-based calendar program. You use an internet browser (for example Netscape Communicator) to view your calendar and perform calendaring tasks. When you first start Calendar Express, you automatically have a personal calendar displayed as your main view. From here you can:

> - Use your calendar to record events and tasks.

> An event is anything you might want to put on a calendar, such as meetings, appointments, or birthdays. A task, such as a to-do item, can be scheduled, and optionally, a completion deadline can be set.

> - Create new calendars.

> You can have more than one calendar. For example, you might want to have a calendar that you use only for scheduling your child’s soccer team practices and games.

> - Make your calendar available to other people, and view other people’s calendars.
> - Create a Calendar Group.

> You can put several calendars together and give the collection (called a group) a name. These calendars can then be displayed together. For example, if you have two calendars, one a work calendar and the other a social calendar, you might want to view the two together to better schedule your time. To do this, you can create a group, such as MySchedule, including both your work and social calendars.

> - Invite other people to events.

> For example you can set up a meeting and invite others to attend it.

> - Set reminders for events and tasks.

> You can send email reminders to yourself about events and tasks on your calendar.

> - Back up and restore your calendar data.

> You can choose to back up your calendar data by exporting it to a file. Then, if needed, you can restore the calendar data by importing it back into your calendar.

> # What to Do First

> When you first use Calendar Express, you have a default calendar that automatically displays when you log in. You are in the View tab. There are four tabs; each tab has a specific group of related calendaring functions you can perform. Most of the everyday calendaring functions, such as event and task management, are done in the View tab.

> To get started using Calendar Express, here are a few of the calendaring functions you might want to do:

> - Change your options in the Options tab.

> You can change the appearance and some of the behavior of Calendar Express by setting options. For example, you might want to change the color scheme, or change the way dates are formatted.

> For instructions on setting options, see Options Tab Topics.

> For more concepts information, see Options Tab Features.

> - Add events and tasks to your calendar.

> To use your calendar, you should start adding events and tasks to it. For example, you might want to add meetings, note birthdays or vacation days, or create a to-do list. A meeting can be either a one time or a repeating event. A birthday or vacation day is an all-day event. Creating a to-do list requires adding individual tasks, one at a time. Tasks can also be set up to repeat at regular intervals.

> For instructions on adding events and tasks, see Creating a New Event, and Creating a New Task. Instructions on those and many other common calendaring tasks are listed in the View Tab Topics.

> For more concepts information on events and tasks, see The Difference Between Events and Tasks.

> - Subscribe to other calendars.

> If you want to be able to see other calendars, you can subscribe to them (put them on your calendars list).

> For instructions on subscribing, see Subscribing to a Calendar (Calendars Search).

> For more general information about subscribing, see Subscribing to Calendars in the Concepts Guide.

> - Create your own calendars.

> You can create new calendars for your own use or to share with others. For example, you might want to have a private calendar for non-work related events, or a soccer calendar for your children’s games and practices.

> For instructions on creating new calendars, see Creating a Calendar.

> For more general information on calendars, see Calendars Tab Features.

> - Control access by others to your calendars.

> You can control access to your calendars by setting permissions. For example, you might want to allow all users to view events and tasks on your calendar (Read permission), and to schedule events to your calendar (Invite permission), but you might not want to allow all users to delete (Delete permission) or make changes to events and tasks on your calendar (Modify permission). However, you might want to give individual users those additional permissions. Or, you might want a calendar to be totally private. You can do all of these things by setting permissions to your calendar.

> For more information about controlling access to your calendar by setting permissions, see Controlling Access to Your Calendar.

> - Create groups of calendars to be displayed together.

> Once you have multiple calendars in your calendars list, you might want to see several of them displayed together as a group. You can create various groups depending on your needs.

> For instructions on creating calendar groups, see Creating a Calendar Group.

> For more general information, see Groups Tab Features.

> In addition, you should familiarize yourself with the features of Calendar Express by reading this Concepts Guide.

> # Navigating Calendar Express

> Most of your day-to-day calendar usage takes place in the View tab, which is what you see after you log in to Calendar Express. The other tabs allow you to manage your list of calendars, make and manage groups of calendars, and change your calendar options.

> ## Home Page

> The first time you log into Calendar Express, your default calendar is displayed for today’s date in your default view. This is called the your home page. You can always return to your home page by clicking the home link at the top left of the Calendar Express window.

> The default view used for your home page is the Default Initial View specified in the Options tab settings.

> ## Exiting Calendar Express

> To exit Calendar Express, click the logout link located at the top right of the Calendar Express window.

> ## Tabs

> Tabs are located on the top toolbar, on the left side. You click the tab to see its contents. You can only view one tab at a time. The tab you are currently in is highlighted with a different color than the other three. Every tab has the same toolbar at the top, containing the four tabs on the left, and Help and Logout links on the right side.

> The four tabs are:

> - View

> Displays your current calendar. Use this tab to view all your calendars, and to work with events and tasks. For more information, see View Tab Features.

> - Calendars

> Displays a list of your calendars and calendars you subscribe to. You can add or delete calendars from your list. You can change permissions for your calendars. For more information, see Calendars Tab Features.

> - Groups

> Displays a list of your calendar groups. You can create and maintain calendar groups.For more information, see Groups Tab Features.

> - Options

> Allows you to set defaults for appearance and some behavior. You can also import or export calendar data. For more information, see Options Tab Features.

> ### When You Return to the View Tab

> When you move from any other tab to the View tab, the calendar currently showing in the Current Calendar pull-down menu is the one you will see displayed. No matter which view you were previously in when you left the View tab, the view you will see when you return to the View tab is the one set as the default view in the Options tab. The date you were last displaying will be retained.

> # View Tab Features

> Use the View tab to display calendar information in various formats, called views.

> For information about the various elements you see in the View tab, click the links that follow:

> - New Event
> - New Task
> - Jump To
> - Printable
> - Search
> - Current Calendar
> - Date Heading
> - View Links
> - Time Zone
> - Miniature Month Calendar
> - Action Items
> - Scheduling Icons

> ## New Event

> Clicking the New Event icon opens the Edit Event window, where you can create a new event, and invite others to it. This is the same window that opens when you click an event title in your calendar (for events you have created), allowing you to edit the details of the event.

> The Edit Event window has six tabs:

> - Compose

> In the Compose tab, you fill in the key information about the event: the Event Title, Date, Time, and whether or not it will Repeat. If you choose to have this event repeat, clicking the circle next to Repeat, or clicking “Change repeat pattern” will open the Recurrence window, which will allow you to set a repeat pattern for this event. For more information about setting repeating events, see Repeating Events and Tasks.

> You can also determine whether this event will be public, private, or confidential (only the time and date can be viewed by others). For more information about choosing the privacy level of events, see Public, Private, and Time and Date Only Events.

> In addition to these key details, you can choose to invite others to this event. The event is scheduled onto the calendars of the people in your attendee list. For more information about adding attendees to your event, see Inviting Attendees.

> - Details

> The Details tab gives you the opportunity to specify a location and to describe the event in detail.

> - Reminders

> In the Reminders tab, you can choose to send yourself an email reminder of the event. You can specify the message contained in the email reminder. For more information about setting reminders, see Event and Task Reminders.

> - Availability

> The Availability tab allows you to compare the calendars of all attendees for whom there is a calendar ID in your attendee list. That is, the calendars of people you invite with only a “mailto:” will not show up here. All calendars are displayed in free-busy format. For further information on using the Availability tab to schedule events, see Checking Availability of Attendees Before You Schedule.

> - Calendars

> This event will “reside” on whatever calendar you are currently viewing in the View tab. You might want this event to reside on some other calendar instead. You can choose which calendar to put this event onto in the Calendars tab. For more information about putting events on other calendars, see Placing Events on Calendars.

> - Preview

> The Preview tab allows you to see a summary of the event you are about to create. You can still go back and change the details of the event. This is the same information that any attendees you have added will see when they open the event.

> For more information on events, see Working with Events.

> ## New Task

> Clicking the New Task icon opens the Edit Task window, where you can create a new task. This is the same window that opens when you edit a task you have already created.

> The Edit Task window has four tabs:

> - Compose

> In the Compose tab you enter the key details of the task: Task Title, Due Date (or you can choose not to have due date), Time (or no time due), whether the task is public, private or confidential (time and date only), Location, Description, and whether it is to Repeat, or not. If you choose to have this task repeat, clicking the circle next to Repeat, or clicking “Change repeat pattern” will open the Recurrence window, which will allow you to set a repeat pattern for this task. For more information about setting repeating events, see Repeating Events and Tasks.

> For more information on selecting the privacy level of this task, see Public, Private, and Time and Date Only Tasks.

> - Reminders

> In the Reminders tab, you can choose to send yourself, or others, an email reminder of the task. You can specify the message contained in the email reminder. For more information about setting reminders, see Event and Task Reminders.

> - Calendars

> This task will “reside” on whatever calendar you are currently viewing in the View tab. You might want this task to reside on some other calendar instead. You can choose which calendar to put this task onto in the Calendars tab. For more information about putting tasks on other calendars, see Adding Tasks To Calendars in the Working with Tasks help topic.

> - Preview

> The Preview tab allows you to see a summary of the task you are about to create. You can still go back and change the details of the task.

> For more information on tasks, see Working with Tasks.

> ## Jump To

> The Jump To icon opens the Jump To Date window, which is a tool you can use to change the dates being displayed in your current calendar view. You can move forward and backward in time in a couple of ways. Using this tool is the fastest way to move more than one month forward or backward in time. There are no tabs in this window.

> Note that the calendar system will only accept dates between Jan. 1, 1970 and Dec. 31, 2036. A window appears with an error message if you attempt to change to a date outside this range.

> For more information on using this tool, see Jump To Icon.

> ## Printable

> Clicking the Printable icon opens a window containing a simplified version of your current calendar view suitable for printing.

> ## Search

> Clicking the Search icon opens the Search window, where you can search for events and tasks in the calendar you are viewing.

> For more information on searching, see Using the Search Tools.

> ## Current Calendar

> The Current Calendar box tells you which calendar is currently being displayed. Clicking it reveals a list of all of your calendars, the calendars you subscribe to, and your calendar groups. You can choose to view a different calendar or group of calendars by selecting one from the list. Group calendar names are located at the end of the list, after individual calendar names.

> Other related topics in this guide: Subscribing to Calendars, Using Calendar Groups.

> ## Date Heading

> Located at the top of the calendar view, the date heading contains the dates displayed by the calendar view. The format of the date heading varies depending on the calendar view:

> Calendar View | Date Heading Format
> --- | ---
> Overview | Day of the week and date.
> Day | Day of the week and date.
> Week | Range of dates for the week displayed in the view.
> Month | Name of the month and year displayed in the view.
> Year | Year displayed in the view.
> Comparison | Day of the week and date.

> Two arrow icons are located next to the date. Clicking the right arrow icon will take you one time unit forward (day, week, month, or year depending on the view), and clicking the left arrow icon will take you one time unit backward. The date and view are adjusted accordingly. The day highlighted in the miniature month calendar is also adjusted, with the exception of the year calendar, which has no miniature month calendar.

> Dates can be displayed in several formats. You can set the format in the Settings part of the Options tab. For instructions on changing the date heading format, see Date.

> ## View Links

> You can view your calendar information in different formats, called views. You can switch between views at will by clicking the desired view name. The name of the view currently being displayed is marked in bold letters. The other views are underlined.

> For more information on the six calendar views, see Overview, Day, Week, Month, Year, Comparison.

> ## Time Zone

> Your time zone is displayed at the top of the miniature calendar on the right side of each view (except the Year view). You can change the time zone using the settings in the Options tab. For instructions on how to set the default time zone, see Time Zone.

> When calendar groups are displayed, the Day view and the Comparison view display any other time zones that occur in the group. This can help you determine when to schedule an event for the group. For more information on using time zones, see Working with Time Zones. For a list of standard time zones, see Standard Time Zones.

> ## Miniature Month Calendar

> The miniature month calendar located on the right of the calendar allows you to change dates in the calendar view quickly and easily. From the miniature month calendar, you can click:

> - The forward and backward arrow icons.

> Located on either side of the month name, they cause the calendar view’s current date to change to the next or previous month.

> - Any date in the month.

> The calendar view’s current date will be adjusted to match.

> - The “Today is” link.

> Your calendar view returns to today’s date.

> - The Quick Jump icon.

> Enter a date in the date input field and then click the right pointing arrow to have that date displayed on your calendar. Note that the calendar system will only accept dates between Jan. 1, 1970 and Dec. 31, 2036. A window appears with an error message if you attempt to change to a date outside this range.

> For more concept information, see Changing Dates in Your Calendar View.

> ## Action Items

> The Action Items box is located under the miniature calendar on the right of the calendar view. Action Items alerts you to events and tasks that need your attention, and provides a short cut for you to work with invitations and tasks, rather than having to hunt for them in your calendar.

> The action items listed are for the calendar currently being viewed. That is, if you have more than one calendar, only the invitations and tasks for that calendar are listed under Action Items. If you are viewing a calendar you do not own (not one you created, or not one for which you have been designated an owner), you will not see anything in the Action Items box.

> ### Invitations

> When there are events on your calendar awaiting your reply (such as invitations to meetings), you see the word “Invitations” with a number in parentheses after it indicating how many items need your attention. Clicking Invitations opens the Invitations List, where you can reply to invitations to events. If there are no invitations needing your attention, you see “No Invitations”. You can also reply to an event by clicking the event in your calendar directly.

> For more information about invitations, see Event and Task Reminders. For more information about events, see The Difference Between Events and Tasks.

> ### Tasks

> When you have scheduled tasks on your calendar, you see the word “Tasks” with a number in parentheses after it, indicating how many tasks there are. Clicking Tasks opens a list of all tasks you have scheduled. The number of tasks overdue, if any, is noted. Overdue tasks display in red at the top of the list. A task is considered overdue when it has not been marked as complete by the due date. If there are no tasks scheduled on your calendar, the words “No Tasks”. You can also work with a task by clicking the task in your calendar directly.

> For more information about tasks, see The Difference Between Events and Tasks.

> ### Errors

> If there are any scheduling errors, clicking Errors displays them. If there are no errors, you see “No Errors”. For more information about errors, see When Errors Occur.

> ## Scheduling Icons

> In every view, except the Year view, each time block on the calendar has a scheduling icon. They look like small circles with plus signs inside.

> Clicking these icons causes the Edit Event window to appear, but with the default date adjusted to the date you clicked. Whereas, if you click the New Event icon to bring up the Edit Event window, the default is always set to today’s date.

> The one exception to the function of the scheduling icons, is in the Availability tab for new events. There, the icons function to update the time showing for the event. For more information, see Checking Availability of Attendees Before You Schedule.

> ## Overview

> Today’s tasks and events are displayed in a box at the top of the view. All-day events are located at the top of today’s date box under the heading: All Day. Tasks with no due date are located at the bottom of today’s date box with the heading: Other Tasks. All other tasks for this day are displayed at the top of today’s date box under the heading: Overdue Tasks.

> Located below today’s events and tasks is a Week Ahead calendar, showing events and tasks scheduled for the next six days going forward. For example if today is Wednesday, The Week Ahead displays events and tasks starting with Thursday and going through Tuesday of next week.

> ### Group Calendars in the Overview

> If you are displaying a group of calendars, all tasks and events are merged into the appropriate days. Each event and task is identified by the calendar name it came from.

> ## Day

> The Day view displays the events and tasks for just one day. The day is broken into into time periods as specified in the Settings options. Each time period occupies a separate row of the calendar, where the events and tasks for that time period are displayed. All-day events are located at the top of the calendar under the heading: All Day. Tasks with no due date are located below the calendar. All other tasks for this day are displayed under the heading: Overdue Tasks.

> ### Group Calendars in the Day View

> If you are displaying a group of calendars, events and tasks for all calendars are merged together into the appropriate times. Each task and event is identified by the calendar name it came from.

> ## Week

> The Week view displays the events and tasks for the week containing today’s date. For example, if today is Wednesday the 15th, and my week starts on Sunday, then the week displayed would include Sunday the 12th through Saturday the 18th. You can set the first day of the week in the Options tab. Each day is broken into time periods as in the Day view. Tasks show up on the day they are due. Tasks with no due date do not display in this view. Overdue tasks display on the due date.

> ### Group Calendars in the Week View

> If you are displaying a group of calendars in the Week view, events and overdue tasks for all calendars are merged together into the appropriate days and times. Each event and overdue task is identified by the calendar name it came from. For more information about event and task entries, see The Difference Between Events and Tasks.

> ## Month

> The Month view displays the events and tasks for the month containing today’s date. For example, if today is March 25th, the month of March will be displayed. Since complete weeks are displayed, the Month calendar can also display days that are not actually in the month. For example if the first of the month was on Wednesday, the events and tasks for Sunday through Tuesday are displayed even though those days are in the previous month. This also is true for the week at the end of the month. For example, if the last day of the month is a Monday, the rest of the week falls into the next month, but all the events and tasks for those days is displayed also.

> Tasks with no due date do not display in this view. Due and overdue tasks, and completed tasks are displayed on their due date.

> ### Group Calendars in the Month View

> If you are displaying a group of calendars in the Month view, events and tasks for all calendars are merged together into the appropriate days and times. Each event and task is identified by the calendar name it came from. If you have a large group with lots of events and tasks, the calendar may be too large to display in the browser window all at one time. In that case, a vertical scroll bar will appear on the right side.

> ## Year

> The Year view displays a year’s worth of miniature-month-type calendars for the current year. You can change the year using the forward and backward arrow icons. No events or tasks show on the year calendar.

> Clicking inside the Year calendar, you can display Day or Month views of the current calendar. Click the name of the month to see the Month view, or click a specific day to see the Day view for that date.

> The day last displayed in the main view is highlighted. That is, if you were displaying today’s date, that day is highlighted in the year calendar. If you were displaying a different date, it will be highlighted instead.

> ### Calendar Groups in the Year View

> The Year view is the same for calendar groups as it is for individual calendars.

> ## Comparison

> The Comparison view displays events for one day. (No tasks display in this view.) Time periods are displayed in columns. At the top, a free-busy row indicates whether the time period has something scheduled, If a time period is not scheduled, you see a Scheduling icon. If the time period already has something scheduled, there is no icon and it is a different color.

> You must have Availability permission set in order for people to see your calendar in the Comparison view. This is true even if you also have Read permission set.

> ### Calendar Groups in the Comparison View

> Each calendar in the group displays as one row in this view. Time periods are marked available on the top row only if all group members have the time available. Times are busy if any one of the group members has the time scheduled. This is particularly useful for scheduling an event for a group since you can tell immediately which times are available to be scheduled.

> # Calendars Tab Features

> In the Calendars tab, you can work with all of your own calendars and all the calendars you have subscribed to. These are the same calendars that are displayed in the Current Calendar list on the View tab. In the Calendar tab, you can do the following:

> - View any of the calendars in the list by clicking the calendar name.
> - Create a new calendar, using the New Cal Icon.
> - Find and subscribe to another calendar, using the Subscribe Icon.
> - Edit calendar properties, using the Edit Link.
> - Remove one or more of the calendars from your list, using the Remove Selected Button.

> ## New Cal Icon

> Clicking this icon causes the Edit Calendar window to appear. Use this window to create a new calendar. This is the same window that opens when you click Edit for an existing calendar in the list. In the Edit Calendar window you can set, or change, a calendar’s properties.

> There are four tabs, each allowing you to set different properties:

> - Calendar

> In the Calendar tab, you choose the name of your new calendar. You can specify the display name, which is used only to further identify the calendar. In addition, you can add a text description of the calendar. You can indicate whether you want this calendar included in your free-busy time when calculating your availability. Additionally, the calendar URL for a view-only version of this calendar is listed. You can send this URL to people who are not part of the calendaring system. They will be able to view the calendar but not work with it.

> - Permissions

> You can control access to your calendar by others by setting the permissions. If you want to control the access for everyone in the calendaring system, change the Everybody permissions. You can also control access for a specific user by adding the user and then checking the permissions boxes. (Up to 75 individual users can be added.) For more information on the individual permissions and what they mean, see Controlling Access to Your Calendar.

> - Owners

> In the Owners tab, you can add or delete owners from your calendar. These owners have permission to add, change, and delete events and tasks from your calendar. Only these owners can invite others to events on your behalf. Only other owners can see private events and tasks on your calendar. They can also read the details of confidential events and tasks (time and date only). You can only add owners to your own calendars. For more information on controlling access to your calendar, see Controlling Access to Your Calendar.

> - Time Zones

> This calendar will automatically be displayed in your default time zone (as specified in the Options tab) unless you set it to a different one. For more information on time zones, see Working with Time Zones. For a list of standard time zones, see Standard Time Zones.

> ## Subscribe Icon

> Clicking this icon causes the Calendars Search window to appear. Once you find the calendar you are looking for, clicking the Subscribe button puts it on your Calendars list. This is called “subscribing to” a calendar. What permissions you have to a subscribed-to calendar determines what you can do with it. For example, in order to change an event on a subscribed-to calendar, you would need Modify permission, or be an owner. You can view what permissions you have by going to the Permissions tab of the Edit Calendar window (click Edit).

> For more information about subscribing to calendars, see Subscribing to Calendars and Working with Subscribed-to Calendars.

> ## Edit Link

> Clicking Edit opens the Edit Calendar window, allowing you to change the way a calendar looks and behaves. These settings, such as permissions, owners and time zones, are called properties. You can change any or all of the settings you made when creating the calendar. You can only change the properties of your own calendars (your default calendar and the calendars you created). Co-owners can’t change the properties of your calendars. In the Calendars list, the system only puts an Edit link next to calendars you are allowed to edit. Other calendars in your Calendars list have a View link instead.

> For more information about individual tabs in this window, see New Cal Icon.

> For more information about setting permissions, see Controlling Access to Your Calendar.

> For more information about other owners, see Other Owners.

> For more information about time zones, see Working with Time Zones.

> ## Remove Selected Button

> You can unsubscribe to a calendar by removing it from your calendars list. Click Remove Selected to remove calendars in the list that you marked with a check. If you remove a calendar by mistake, use the Subscribe icon to put it back on your list. You are not allowed to remove your own main calendar.

> You can’t delete calendars. If you believe a calendar should be deleted from the calendaring system, contact your calendar system administrator. Once a calendar is deleted by an administrator, you can never retrieve it again.

> # Groups Tab Features

> Calendar groups are named collections of calendars that you create for your own convenience. You can choose to view one of your groups at login instead of your default calendar. To do this, see Options tab setting Default Calendar Group.

> In the Groups tab, you can create new calendar groups, or work with your existing calendar groups.

> In the Groups tab, you can do the following:

> - View a list of all the calendar groups you have created.
> - See all the calendars in a group by clicking its name.
> - Create new groups by clicking the New Group Icon.
> - Edit the group’s properties by clicking the Edit Link.
> - Remove a group from your list by clicking the Remove Selected Button.

> ## Groups List

> All of the groups you have created are listed in the Groups list. There are three columns. Each group entry consists of a checkbox in the left column, a link to the group’s calendars in the middle column, and an Edit link for editing your groups’ properties in the right column.

> ## Group Calendar Links

> In the Groups list each group name is a link. You can display all the calendars in your group by clicking the link. If you want to add or delete calendars from a group, do not click this link, click the Edit link.

> ## New Group Icon

> Clicking this icon causes the Edit Calendar Group window to appear. You can create a new group with multiple calendars in it. This is the same window that opens when you click Edit.

> There are two tabs:

> - Calendars Group

> You can create a group by giving it a name and then adding individual calendars to it. The only calendars you can put in your group are ones already in your calendars list. If the calendar you want to add to the group isn’t in your calendars list yet, you must add it to the list first (by subscribing to the calendar), and then add it to your group.

> A checkbox is provided if you want to change the default view for this group to the Day view, which displays all the calendars merged together. If you do not select this checkbox, then the default view is the Comparison view, which displays each calendar separately.

> - Time Zones

> You can also set the default time zone for the entire group. If you do not specify a time zone, then the group has no time zone. When you view a group with no time zone, all calendar times will be adjusted to your default time zone, set in the Options tab. For more information about how to use time zones, see Working with Time Zones.

> ## Edit Link

> Clicking Edit opens the Edit Calendar Group window, allowing you to change your group’s properties (you can’t change its name). You can add or remove members from your group, and add or change the time zone for the group. For more information about adding or changing a time zone, see Working with Time Zones.

> ## Remove Selected Button

> You can delete a calendar group by removing it from your list. Click Remove Selected to remove the groups in the list that you marked with a check. Removing a calendar group deletes it and you can not retrieve it again.

> # Options Tab Features

> You can use the Options tab to change the appearance and some of the behavior of Calendar Express. You can also move calendar-formatted data into and out of files. There are four sets of options you can choose from:

> - Appearance

> You can choose a new color scheme or font size and style, or whether the icons appear as text and graphic, graphic only, or text only.

> - Settings

> You choose default settings for your calendars, such as date format, time format, time zone, and others.

> - Import

> You can copy calendar-formatted data into your calendars from files.

> - Export

> You can copy data from your calendars into calendar-formatted data files.

> The Appearance options set automatically display when you first view the Options tab. To change to another set of options, click the appropriate set in the list at the top left.

> You must click Save Changes before moving to another set of options, or your changes for the current set will be lost. For example, before going from Appearances to Settings, be sure to click Save Changes, or the changes you made to Appearances will be lost.

> ## Appearance

> The Appearance category in the Options tab allows you to modify the appearance of Calendar Express in three ways:

> - Color Scheme

> There are four color schemes to choose from. Click the button next to the color scheme you prefer. Your change takes effect when you click Save Changes. You can experiment with various color schemes without having to leave the Options tab by clicking a circle and then clicking Save Changes until you find a color scheme you want to keep.

> - Toolbar

> You have three choices of how the icons display: icons and text, icons only, or text only. Each choice has a circle to the left. Clicking the circle next to your choice selects it.

> - Display Font

> You can change the font style (face) and the font size separately:

> - Face

> Click the box under the word “Face” to see a list of font styles to choose from.

> - Size

> Click the box under the word “Size” to see a list of font sizes to choose from.

> Click Save Changes before going on to another Options tab category.

> ## Settings

> The Setting category allows you to modify the behavior of Calendar Express in the following ways:

> - Default View After Login

> You can change the default calendar view you see after logging in. The default is the Overview. For example, if you’d prefer to see your default calendar or group in the Day view, choose “day” in the pull-down menu.

> - Default Calendar Group

> Instead of displaying your default calendar when you log in, you can choose to display a calendar group of your choice.

> Click the box to see a list of your calendar groups. Select one of them by clicking the name. Choosing “No Calendar Group” causes your default (individual) calendar to be displayed. “No Calendar Group” is the default setting.

> If you choose to display a group after logging in, be sure to set the default view to one suitable for viewing your group, such as the Comparison view. (However, you can display a group in any of the views.)

> - Group Invitations

> When you create a new event while displaying a group calendar, the default system behavior is to populate the attendee list with all the members of the group. You can choose to disable this option and have only your own calendar ID appear in the attendee list when the Edit Event window opens.

> The default is for this option to be enabled (the checkbox has a checkmark already in it). Deselecting the checkbox (turning off the checkmark) disables the option.

> - Date

> You can choose how calendar dates are formatted. There are two choices to be made for the date:

> - The order in which the three parts of the date (day, month and year) should appear.

> For example, if you live in the United States, usually the date is displayed as Month, Date, Year, but in Europe the date is usually displayed as Date, Month, Year. So in the United States, you will typically see the date for the sixth day of September written as: 09/06/01, while in Europe you might see it written as 06/09/01.

> Clicking the box reveals a list of the date order possibilities. Select your choice by clicking it.

> - The character that separates (delimits) the three parts of the date.

> This character is called a separator or delimiter. The separator you are currently using shows in the box. A commonly used separator is the forward slash (/), as seen in the date order example, but you can use any keyboard character as the separator.

> - Time

> Calendars can display time in either 12-hour or 24-hour format. The military commonly uses 24-hour format. For example, midnight would be 12:00am in 12-hour format, but 24:00 in 24-hour format. Notice that the 24-hour format does not list “am” or “pm” next to it.

> Choose the way you want time displayed by clicking the circle next to your choice.

> - Day

> In the Day, Week, and Comparison calendar views, the day is split into time periods, such as hours. You can control how many hours of the day are displayed and what size the time periods are. For instance, you can set your calendars to display only the hours between 9:00am and 6:00pm, split into 30 minute time periods.

> For each of the time settings, clicking the box reveals a list of choices. Click your choice to select it.

> - First Day of the Week

> You can choose which day of the week is used as the first day of the week in calendar views. Traditionally in the United States, calendars start with Sunday.

> Clicking the box reveals the list of days of the week. Click one to choose it.

> If you do not want to include Saturday and Sunday on the Week and Month views of your calendars, you can choose to suppress the display of Saturday and Sunday by selecting the checkbox in this Option. The checkbox has no effect on the display of the Overview and Day views (you can’t suppress Saturday and Sunday on the Overview and Day views).

> - Time Zone

> Each calendar displays times and dates in a particular time zone. You can specify which time zone you want as your default for viewing all of your calendars. Clicking the name of the time zone causes the Change Default Timezone window to appear, where you can choose the time zone you want to use. In this window, the world’s timezones are broken up into three general areas: North/South America, Europe/Africa, and Asia/Pacific Rim. There are three tabs corresponding to these areas. Click one of theses tabs to select the list of time zones in that area, then click the circle next to the time zone you want your calendar set to.

> Other calendars you might subscribe to could have different time zone settings. You can choose to display those calendars with times adjusted to your time zone, or to keep them in their original time zones. In addition, when displaying calendar groups, you can choose to have a time scale displayed in the Day and Comparison views for each of the other time zones represented in the group.

> For a list of standard time zones, see Standard Time Zones. For more information on time zones, see Working with Time Zones.

> - Event & Task Reminders

> You can choose to set up automatic generation of event and task reminders, and have them sent to one or more email addresses. You might choose to do this to save yourself time when creating events and tasks, since you would not have to set up a reminder for each event and task separately.

> For events in your Invitations List, you must accept the invitation before you will get an event reminder.

> The checkbox must be selected to have the event reminder turned on.

> For further information on reminders, see Event and Task Reminders.

> - Event Notification

> If you wish to receive an email notification whenever an event is scheduled to your calendar, you can set it by selecting the Event Notification checkbox.

> Using this option might be especially useful if you don’t look at your calendar frequently during the day. Someone could schedule a last-minute event on your calendar and, not knowing it was there, you might miss it. Conversely, if your calendar is very busy and there are a lot of events and tasks on it every day, you might not notice a new one. This would be especially true if you are not in the habit of replying to event invitations; you might not realize your invitation count just increased by one.

> This option can be turned off by your administrator. If you don’t see it on the Options tab, it may be disabled for your installation.

> ## Import

> Calendar Express lets you import files into your calendar from Calendar Express calendars that you have access to. For example, if you want to transfer data from one calendar to another, you can export if from one and import it into the other. This can be useful for restoring calendar data from a backup file (previously exported).

> ## Export

> Exporting allows you to export data from any calendars you own or have subscribed to. You can indicate which calendars you want to export data from. This is also useful if you want to back up your existing calendar, and then restore it (via importing) to the current location.

> Only an owner of a calendar (primary owner and co-owners) can export Private events. Confidential events can be exported by others, but they will only see the date and time, no details.

> # The Difference Between Events and Tasks

> You can create both events and tasks on your calendar. Tasks have many of the same properties as events and are created in nearly the same way. You can set reminders for both events and tasks. Both events and tasks can be made to repeat on a regular basis.

> Events are for scheduling things at specific times on your calendar. You can invite people to events, such as a business meeting, and people can invite you to events. In a corporate environment, you can use an event to schedule the use of a resource, such as a conference room, or a projector.

> Tasks also appear on your calendar, but you can’t invite people to them. You can see a list of your tasks and mark them completed, or delete them. For example, a task might be to pick up the dry cleaning on your way home from work, or to write a report due on a certain date.

> Events can last all-day, but they occupy a definite period in time. Tasks can be specified with no due date or time, or they can have a due date but not a specific time.

> Once you reply to an invitation, it is removed from your Invitations list. Whereas, a task persists in the Tasks list until it is deleted. You can see a list of all tasks on your calendar by checking the Tasks list, but you can’t see a list of all events in the Invitations list.

> # Working with Events

> An event can be any scheduled item that you put on a calendar. Your events might include business meetings, birthday reminders, appointments, social engagements, or anniversaries.

> ### Event Titles

> Events have titles. When an event is placed on your calendar, you see the title and the time of the event. Clicking the title opens the event so you can see the details. If you do not provide a title, “Untitled Event” will be the default title. All event titles are in bold type.

> ### Quick Delete Icon

> The icon that looks like a red “X” inside a circle is the Quick Delete icon. It is located immediately to the right of the event title. You can only see this icon if you have Delete permission for this calendar. (If its your calendar, or you are an owner of this calendar, you automatically have all permissions.) You can click the icon to delete the event. If it is a repeating event, you can choose to delete just the one instance, or all occurrences of the event.

> If you are viewing a group calendar, the Quick Delete button appears only in Comparison view.

> For instructions on using the Quick Delete icon, see Method 1 under Deleting an Event.

> ### Placing Events on Calendars

> To place an event on one or more calendars, fill out the fields in the Edit Event window. You open this window by clicking the New Event icon. People you invite will have the event placed on their calendars.

> ### Who is the Organizer of the Event?

> The calendar selected in the Calendar pull-down menu on the Edit Event window is the organizer of the event. When you first see the Edit Event window, a calendar is prefilled into the Calendar pull-down menu. This is normally the calendar currently being displayed. However, if you do not have permission to place an event on that calendar, the system puts your default calendar in the Calendar pull-down menu instead. The organizer of an event “owns” it. That is, the owners of that calendar can change the details of the event. Attendees do not have the right to change the details of an event, unless they are an owner of the organizer’s calendar.

> ### Choosing A Different Organizer for Your Event

> If you do not want the calendar currently displayed in the Calendar pull-down menu in the Edit Event window to be the organizer, select a different one from the Calendar pull-down menu. This selection is propagated to the Current Calendar pull-down menu in the View tab. That is, when you are finished creating this event, the calendar you selected from the Calendar pull-down menu is now the current calendar being displayed in the main view.

> ### Current Calendar Pull-down Menu versus Calendar Pull-down Menu

> There are two differences between the Calendar pull-down menu in the Edit Event window and the Current Calendar pull-down menu on the View tab. One is that only calendars that you own, or for which you have Modify permission, will be displayed in the Calendar pull-down menu. The Current Calendar pull-down menu, on the other hand, contains all of the calendars from your Calendars list (from the Calendars tab), regardless of the permissions you have for them. The other difference is that the Current Calendar pull-down menu also contains your groups.

> For more information about the Calendars list in the Calendars tab, see Naming Your Calendars, Subscribing to Calendars, and Working with Subscribed-to Calendars. For more information about permissions, see Controlling Access to Your Calendar.

> ### Adding Attendees

> When creating the attendees list, if you do not remember (or know) the user ID or calendar ID for the person you want to invite, you can use the search feature to locate them. Clicking the Search button in the Edit Event window causes the User Search window to open where you can find other calendar users. For further information on searching for users, see Using the Search Tools. For more information on inviting attendees, see Inviting Attendees.

> ### Email Notification of Attendees

> If the person you want to invite is not a calendar user, you can still invite the person to the meeting by sending an email notification. To send an email notification, you need to enter “mailto:” and then the email address of the person in the User input field.

> Sometimes you might enter a valid ID in the User input box, but the system substitutes “mailto:” and their email address instead. This means they either do not have a calendar, or they have never used their calendar and it is not yet set up in the system.

> You can add a user to the attendee list and then also add the same user as a “mailto:” on the attendee list. The event is scheduled on the user’s calendar, and an email notification is sent to the user.

> ### Checking Availability of Attendees Before You Schedule

> In many cases, you will want to check the calendar availability of one or more of your attendees before actually scheduling the event. To do this, you must first put the calendar IDs of those you wish to check into the attendees list, and then click the Availability tab to see a free-busy representation of those attendees’ calendars. (Note, that only those attendees with calendar IDs will appear on the Availability tab, not those who are in the attendees list as “mailto:” + email addresses.)

> If a time period is already scheduled on a calendar (busy), it will be shaded or colored differently than the unscheduled time (free). Time periods that are free for all listed attendees have an icon at the top. Clicking the icon adjusts the event time to match that time period. If the date you have chosen doesn’t have any free time open, you can move forward and backward in time to find an appropriate date for the event. To do this, change the date in the date field above the free-busy calendar. You can enter a new date directly, or click the Jump To icon. For instructions on how to use the Jump To tool to change dates, see Using The Jump To Icon.

> ### Show Availability Button

> If you are searching for a date that fits all your attendees’ calendars, every time you change the date, you must click Show Availability to get the calendars in the window to reflect the new date. That is, when you first open the Edit Event window and have set a date for the event and have entered the attendees you want at the event, a free-busy representation of the attendees’ calendars for that date are displayed in the Availability tab. If you find that there are no times available on that date for your attendees, you can change the date in the date field at the top of the Availability tab window. However, the attendees’ calendars do not automatically adjust to display the availability for that new date until you click Show Availability.

> ### Public, Private, and Time and Date Only Events

> When you are creating an event, you can choose whether the event is public, private, or time and date only. If an event is public, anyone with Read permission to your calendar can see it. If an event is private, you and any other owners of your calendar can see the event, but no one else can see the event. If the event is time and date only, you and any other owners of your calendar can see the event details, but anyone with Read permission to your calendar will see only an “Untitled Event” on your calendar and the title is not an active link. That is, clicking the title does not open the event. Non-owners who have modify or delete access to a calendar will not be able to write or delete confidential events.

> When you have attendees on a private event, the attendees will be able to see the full event details, but anyone looking at their calendars will not see the event. Likewise, when you have attendees on a time and date only event, the attendees can see all the event details, but someone with Read permission to their calendars will only see the “Untitled Event.”

> Note that you can only schedule a private event directly on calendars you’ve created or on calendars where you are a co-owner (thus making them the originator of the event). However, you can invite others to a private event you are scheduling where you are the originator without having to be a co-owner of their calendars. You only need Invite permission to the attendees’ calendars.

> ### Repeating Events

> You might want an event to occur on a regular basis. To do this you schedule a repeating event. Any changes you make to the event can automatically be made to all occurrences of the event. If necessary, changes can be made to individual events without effecting the others. For example, if you need to attend a weekly meeting, you can schedule a repeating event on your calendar.

> You might want an event to last more than one day. To do this, schedule the event to repeat daily for as long as the event is to last. Any changes you want to make to the event can automatically be made to all the days of the event. If necessary, changes can be made to individual days of the event without effecting the others. For example, if you want to schedule a five day vacation, schedule an all-day event that repeats daily for a total of five times. If you have to cancel one of the days, you can delete the one day without deleting the whole event.

> You can also schedule an event for the last day of the month by selecting it to repeat on the 31st of the month. The actual day of the event will vary depending on the month. For example, it will be scheduled for January 31st, February 28th (29th on leap year), March 31st, April 30th, and so forth.

> For more information about how to schedule repeating events, see Repeating Events and Tasks.

> ### Resources

> If you need to schedule an event in a conference room (resource) that is on the calendar system, add the name of the conference room to the attendee list. Check the availability of the conference room as if it were one of the attendees. When the event is scheduled, it will be written to the conference room’s calendar thus reserving the time for your meeting.

> Sometimes equipment that needs to be reserved can be a resource also. For instance, you would enter the name of a projector or other device that you want to reserve for your meeting as an attendee, making sure it was available for your meeting time.

> ### Email Reminders

> You can set reminders for an event by clicking the Reminders tab in the Edit Event window. You can set a reminder for yourself by entering one or more email addresses and a message. If you enter multiple email addresses, separate them with either a comma (,) or a semi-colon (;).

> For more information about setting reminders, see Event and Task Reminders.

> ### Email Notification

> In the Options tab, you can choose to receive an automatic email notification at the time an event is scheduled on your calendar.

> The last heading on the Settings page is Event Notification. (You may have to scroll to see it.) If you select this checkbox, the system will email you whenever anyone invites you to an event. You can enter any email address you want in the input field, but you can only enter one email address.

> ### Making Changes to An Event

> If you need to make changes to an event you have created after it has been scheduled, you can edit it by clicking the title in your calendar. Changes will be propagated to the attendees’ calendars. If you remove an attendee from the list, the event will be removed from that person’s calendar.

> When working in your own calendar, you can only edit events you have created. If you are working in one of your subscribed-to calendars, you can edit the events originated by that calendar, but you must have modify permission or be an owner to do it.

> ### Replying to Invitations

> When you have been invited to an event, it will show up on your calendar and in the Invitations List. (See the Invitations List by clicking Invitations in the Action Items box.) You can reply to an invitation, indicating that you will or will not attend. There are three choices: “I will attend”, “I will NOT attend”, or you can leave it as “I will confirm later” if you don’t know yet. Your response updates the organizer’s attendee list, changing the question mark (?) by your name to a plus sign (+) for “I will attend”, or a minus sign (-) for “I will NOT attend.”

> Once you have responded to an invitation, you can go back and change your reply. For instance, if you reply “I will attend”, but then find out you have a conflict and will not be able to go, you can change your reply to “I will NOT attend.” However, you can’t revert to “I will confirm later.” That choice no longer appears.

> Viewing Attendee Reply Status

> The attendee is given the choice of replying: I will attend, or I will not attend. The reply status shows next to the attendee’s name as either a plus (+) if they are accepting the invitation, a minus (-) if they are declining the invitation, or a question mark (?) if they have not yet replied.

> The organizer, or anyone with proper permissions, can view attendee’s responses in two ways:

> - By clicking the event title to open the event. The Preview tab contains a summary of all details and shows the reply status for each attendee.
> - By holding the mouse pointer over the group icon (looks like a group of people) next to the event title in the calendar.

> # Working with Tasks

> Calendar Express lets you create and work with a task list. (To see your tasks list, click the Tasks link in the Action Items box in the View tab. If there are no tasks, you will see No Tasks instead of a link.) You can add, mark as complete, and delete tasks from the list. Tasks can be independent of any date. Tasks with due dates are tracked by the system. If any become overdue, you are notified on the calendar.

> ### What is a Task?

> A task is an action that you need to take. For example, it might be a project deadline, or it could be an errand you need to run. You can keep track of tasks in the same way that you schedule and manage events, even assigning a due date and time to your task. Unlike events, the system keeps track of your task due dates and lets you know which are overdue for today’s date, not for a future date you may be displaying. For example, if a task is due next week, it is not currently overdue. If you change the dates on your calendar to view next week, it will not show the task as overdue. You can manage all your yet-to-be-completed tasks in the Tasks List.

> ### Adding Tasks To Calendars

> When you create a task (click the New Task icon to get started), it is placed on your main calendar, or another calendar you select in the Calendars tab on the Edit Task window. The task will also appear in the Task List. Tasks can be managed from the Task List, where you can mark a task complete, or delete the task.

> You can view task details by clicking the title. This is true for both tasks you see on your calendar and tasks in the Task List. Task titles are blue. Completed task have a horizontal line through them (the title is crossed out), unless it was a task with no due date, see Peculiarities of Completed Tasks that follows.

> If you decide to make a task with no due date, don’t also make it a repeating task. A “Not Due” task appears daily until it is completed, If, in addition, you make it repeat, multiple copies of the task appear on your calendar daily. The number of copies that appear is the system maximum number (default is 60).

> ### Quick Delete Icon

> The icon that looks like a red “X” inside a circle is the Quick Delete icon. It is located immediately to the right of the task title. You can see this icon only if you have Delete permission for this calendar. (If this is your calendar, or you are an owner of this calendar, you automatically have all permissions.) You can click the icon to delete the task. If it is a repeating task, you can choose to delete just the one instance, or all occurrences of the task. For instructions on using the Quick Delete icon, see Method 1 under Deleting a Task.

> ### Peculiarities of Completed Tasks

> When you mark a task complete, you may notice that sometimes the task shows up on your calendar with a line through it and sometimes it just disappears from your calendar altogether.

> Only tasks that have a specific date and time will persist on your calendar after they are completed.You see them with a line marked through the title to show that they have been crossed off your list (completed). Any task marked as “no date”, or “no time” will just disappear off the calendar when completed. However, they will all still appear in the Tasks list until they are deleted.

> ### Permissions Considerations for Adding Tasks to Other Calendars

> You must have Modify permission or be an owner to add a task to another person’s calendar. Tasks differ from events in that you can’t invite people to them. For events, you have two options: add the event by inviting, or add the event directly. To add an event by inviting, you need only Invite permission, but you need Modify permission (or be an owner) to add an event directly to another person’s calendar. For tasks, you have only one option: add the task directly, which requires Modify permission (or being an owner).

> ### Email Reminders

> You can set reminders for a task by clicking the Reminders tab in the Edit Task window. You can set a reminder for yourself by entering one or more email addresses and a message. If you enter multiple email addresses, separate them with either a comma (,), or a semi-colon (;).

> For more information about setting reminders, see Event and Task Reminders.

> ### Public, Private, and Time and Date Only Tasks

> When you are creating a task, you can choose whether the task is public, private, or time and date only. If a task is public, anyone with Read permission to your calendar can see it. If a task is private, no one other than yourself can see it. If the task is time and date only, anyone with Read permission to your calendar will see an “Untitled Task” on your calendar and the title is not an active link. That is, clicking the title does not open the task. Non-owners who have modify or delete access to a calendar will not be able to write or delete confidential tasks.

> Note | You can only schedule a private task directly on calendars you’ve created or on calendars where you are a co-owner.

> ### Repeating Tasks

> You might want a task to occur on a regular basis. To do this you schedule a repeating task. Any changes you make to the task can automatically be made to all occurrences of the task. If necessary, changes can be made to individual tasks without effecting the others. For example, if you need to make a weekly status report and you want to be reminded of it, you can schedule a repeating task with a reminder.

> Do not use the Repeat feature on tasks that have no due date. “Not Due” tasks appear on your calendar daily already. If you use the Repeat feature in addition to no due date, you will get multiple copies of the same task on your calendar every day. This is probably not the result you want.

> For more information about how to schedule repeating tasks, see Repeating Events and Tasks.

> ### Managing Tasks with the Task List

> In the Action Items box, you see the link “Tasks (#)”, where # is the number of tasks. Clicking the link opens the Task List window. Tasks appear in the Task List sorted by due date. If any are overdue, it will be noted next to the count. For example, if you have six tasks in your list and two of them are overdue, you will see: Tasks (6) 2 overdue. Tasks without a due date appear at the bottom of the list in no particular order.

> From the Task List, you can mark a task as complete, or delete it. You can also manage tasks by editing them individually. In the Edit Task window, you can also mark it complete, or delete it.

> ### Making Changes to a Task

> To change any of the details of a task you have created, to assign it to another person by placing in on their calendar, to mark a task complete, or to delete it, open the task by clicking the task’s title either in the calendar or in the Task List. The Edit Task window opens, allowing you to change it.

> When working in your own calendar, you can only edit tasks you have created. If you are working in one of your subscribed-to calendars, you can edit the tasks originated by that calendar, but you must have Modify permission or be an owner to do it.

> # When Errors Occur

> Sometimes errors occur when the system is trying to schedule events. For example, there could be problems sending email notifications or reminders. If this happens, the errors are noted in the Errors List, accessible from the Action Items box.

> Clicking the Errors link opens a list of the errors and a link to the event that caused them. You can open the event that caused the error and attempt to fix the problem. Sometimes its as simple as filling in a missing field. When the error is fixed, the event will be completed and the error disappears from the errors list.

> If the error is not something you can fix, you can delete the damaged event, which also removes it from the errors list, your calendar and (for events) all the attendees’ calendars. In this case, you will have to re-do the event.

> Events can be deleted from your Errors List in two ways. You can delete them directly from the Errors List by selecting the Delete checkboxes and clicking OK. Or you can open the event and click the Delete button found at the bottom left of the Edit Event window. In both cases you are asked to confirm the deletion.

> If the event is a recurring event, it is possible that only one or two instances are damaged. The calendar system removes only the instances that have the error. This usually results in the entire series being deleted, since all of the instances are likely to have the same error. However, you should check your calendar to be sure that the recurring event is totally removed before rescheduling it. Otherwise you will end up with duplicate events scheduled for the dates that had instances that were not deleted. You can use the search tool on the View tab (Search icon) to look for events.

> # Inviting Attendees

> You can enter multiple email addresses, calendar IDs, and user IDs, at one time (or mix them) by separating them with a semi-colon. For example, you can enter: jdoe@sesta.com;jsmith@sesta.com, or jdoe;mary, or jdoe@sesta.com;jsmith.

> ### Quick Invite

> The Quick Invite pull-down menu contains a pre-qualified list of calendars taken from your Calendars list in the Calendars tab. That is, you have at least Invite permission for all of the calendars in the Quick Invite list.

> The Quick Invite also lists the groups you have created, which are listed in the Groups tab.

> ### Use Groups to Save Time Creating Attendee Lists

> Once you create an event, the attendee list is gone. That is, you can’t save the list to reuse at a later date. However, you can create a group in the Groups tab and then when you are creating an event, invite the group by choosing it from the Quick Invite pull-down menu. The group will be expanded and all members of the group will appear in the attendee list.

> Using groups to store common attendee lists will save you having to enter the users one at a time every time you create an event. Even if the group doesn’t match your desired attendee list exactly, you can edit the attendee list once the group is expanded, removing users you don’t want to invite this time, and adding others individually.

> ### Group Expansion in the Attendee List

> When you use the Quick Invite feature to add a group of people to your attendee list, the system checks the group members and pre-qualifies the calendars before putting them in the attendee list. That is, only calendars that are active in the system and for whom you have Invite permission will have their calendar ID entered in the attendee list. Any calendars you do not have Invite permission for will result in “mailto:” entries being generated instead. Those people will receive an email notification of the event but the event will not be scheduled on their calendars. If there is an entry in the group that no longer has a valid calendar ID, or the calendar is not active, the system gives you an error message: “Invitee Error: calendar not found - calid“, where calid is the invalid group member.

> ### Creating an Event While Displaying a Group

> If you were displaying a group when you clicked the New Event icon, the system default is to prepopulate the attendee list with all members of the group. If you do not want this behavior, you can disable it in the Options tab (Group Invitations setting). When the default is disabled, only your own calendar ID is prepopulated into the attendee list.

> ### Public, Private and Time and Date Only Events

> Attendees and co-owners always get the opportunity to reply to an event, no matter if it is public, private, or time and date only. Attendees and co-owners can look at the event details in every case.

> Therefore, keep in mind that even when you mark an event as private, if you invite someone to the private event and that calendar has other owners, those other owners will be able to see all the details, too.

> Note that you can only schedule a private event directly on calendars you’ve created or on calendars where you are a co-owner (making them the originator of the event). However, you can invite others to a private event without having to be a co-owner of their calendars. You only need Invite permission.

> If you schedule an event and mark it Time and Date Only, the attendees and other owners will be able to see all the details, while anyone else will see only “Untitled Event” when they look at your calendar, or any of the attendees’ calendars.

> ### Using Email Addresses in the User Input Field

> If your calendaring system is configured to do this, it is possible to enter an email address for a person on your calendaring system and have it return a calendar ID in the attendee list. If it isn’t set up that way, you will see “mailto:” with the email address after it in the attendee list. For example, if you work at Sesta, Inc. and want to invite a coworker, John Doe, who is jdoe@sesta.com, you can enter his email address in the User input field and depending on how your calendaring system is configured, you will see either his calendar ID (jdoe) or “mailto:jdoe@sesta.com” in the attendee list.

> If you really want to make sure John Doe will get an email invitation instead of putting it directly on his calendar, enter the “mailto:” part in the User input field. For example, if you want to mail John Doe an invitation to your daughter’s birthday party, but you don’t want to put it on his work calendar, enter “mailto:jdoe@sesta.com” (without the quotes).

> When your system is configured to do it, and you enter an email address without mailto: in front of it, the calendar system converts the email address to the person’s default calendar ID, the event is placed on the person’s calendar. The person does not receive an email notification of the event unless they have set the option in their own Options tab. (Whether you see this option is configurable by your calendar system administrator.) This person’s default calendar will be used to figure availability for this event.

> When you enter “mailto:” before an email address, or the calendar system creates a mailto: entry in the attendee list, the person receives an email notification instead of the event being automatically scheduled on the person’s calendar, and the person’s calendar will not be used to figure availability for this event. The person receives an iCal-formatted (.ics) file in the email that can be imported into his iCal-compliant calendar system.

> For example, if John Doe is a member of your calendar system (and your system is configured to do it), entering jdoe@sesta.com will result in John Doe’s calendar ID being put in the attendee list, his calendar being used to figure availability, and the event being scheduled on his default calendar. However, if you enter mailto:jdoe@sesta.com, only an email notification is sent (it won’t automatically appear on his calendar), and his calendar will not be used in figuring availability.

> ### Unexpected Mailto: in the Attendee List

> It is possible for you to enter a valid user name in the User input field, only to see “mailto:” with an email address appearing unexpectedly in the attendee list. This can happen for two reasons:

> - The person has never used the calendar.

> A calendar is not fully activated until the first time the person logs into Calendar Express. Until then, you can’t schedule anything on the person’s calendar and so an email will have to be sent to invite the person to the event.

> - The person has not given you Invite permission to the calendar.

> For more information about permissions, see Controlling Access to Your Calendar.

> ### Email Notification

> Whenever you enter the mailto: with an email address, you can be sure it will be sent as an email notification. If you want to be sure the people on your attendee list get an email notification, add them to your attendee list twice, once with the calendar ID and once with a mailto:.

> Depending on how your calendar server is administered, typing the mailto: in front of the email address could be optional. If you enter an email address without mailto: in front of it, the person’s calendar ID might appear in the attendee list instead of the email address. In this case, you must type mailto: in front of the email address in order to get an email notification sent.

> ### User Groups

> If you want to invite a group of users that has been defined by your calendar system administrator, you can do it, but you can’t enter the group name directly into the User input field. You must use the User Search tool to locate the group and then select it for the attendee list. (In the Edit Event window, click Search to bring up the User Search window.) When you select the group from your search results and click Invite, it is expanded so that calendar IDs of all the individual members of the group will appear in your attendee list. For further information about User Search, see Searching for Users.

> # Repeating Events and Tasks

> When you want an event or task to repeat on a regular basis, you can schedule all occurrences at the same time by choosing the Repeat feature in the Edit Event or Edit Task window. This saves you from having to enter each occurrence separately.

> Another advantage is that any changes you need to make to the event or task can be propagated to all occurrences. You are given the choice of making changes to just the one event or task or to all of them. For example, if you have a weekly meeting on your calendar, but find that you need to cancel one of the meetings, you can cancel the one meeting without disturbing the others.

> If you are trying to schedule a multiple day event, such as a vacation, schedule the event to repeat daily for as long as the event is to last. Again, if necessary, changes can be made to individual days of the event without effecting the others. For example, if you want to schedule a five day vacation, schedule an all-day event that repeats daily for a total of five times. If you have to cancel one of the days, you can delete the one day without deleting the whole event.

> ### Recurrence Window

> There are two links in the Edit Event and Edit Task window for repeating meetings. You can either click the circle next to Repeat, or click the Change Repeat Pattern link. Both cause the Recurrence window to open.

> In the Recurrence window, there are four checkboxes: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly. The window opens with the Weekly checkbox selected and the repeat pattern choices displayed in the box to the right. You can set the repeat pattern in only one time period. That is, the last checkbox you click is the one that “takes.” You can’t combine the effects of the checkbox selections. So think about how you want the event or task to repeat and choose a time period. You can move back and forth through the checkboxes to find the pattern you want to choose, but remember that the last selection you make is the one that is used for the event or task.

> If you want to schedule an event or task for the last day of every month, it can be done from the Monthly checkbox by specifying that it repeat on the 31st day of the month. This will be correctly adjusted for months that have fewer days, such that the event or task will always be on the last day of the month, no matter what the number of the day is. For example, January 31st, but February 28th, or April 30th.

> ### Tips for Getting it Right

> The following are some tips on scheduling or editing a repeating event:

> - The system will not schedule an event for the start date if it does not match the pattern you choose. For example, if you want to schedule an event or task to repeat every Tuesday, starting tomorrow, but today’s date is Monday and the start date says Monday when you create the event or task, you will not get an extra occurrence scheduled for today. The event will begin on Tuesday.
> - If you choose to repeat a yearly event or task, be aware that your calendar system might not extend many years into the future. The system will only schedule events and tasks as far as it can. It does not warn you if one of your end dates is past its limit.
> - If the number of instances you want to schedule exceeds the system configured maximum number of occurrences per event or task, the system will schedule as many events and tasks as it can using the pattern you select, but will not warn you if it can’t honor your pattern fully.
> - The only exception to this is the warning that comes up if you try to enter a number greater than the configured maximum into the input box for “Create ## events” or “Create ## tasks”, where ## is the number you enter. The error message says: “Please provide a number that is less than or equal to ##,”, with ## being the maximum number allowed.
> - The maximum number is configurable by your calendar system administrator, and is displayed in the text note at the bottom of the window.
> - One instance of a repeating event cannot skip over another. For example, if you attempt to change the date of one instance of a repeating event to occur after the end date of that event, you will receive an error message.
> - Multiple instances of a repeating event cannot occur on the same day. For example, if you attempt to change the date of one instance of a repeating event to occur on the same day (with a different time) as another instance of that event, you will receive an error message.

> ### Changing Your Mind

> If you select the Repeat checkbox by mistake and the Recurrence window comes up. Click Cancel to return to the edit window.The Repeat checkbox is no longer selected.

> If you change your mind after clicking OK, or click OK by mistake, you can undo the Repeat by selecting the checkbox again. The checkmark is removed and the event or task is no longer a recurring one.

> Once you click OK in the Edit Event or Edit Task window, however, you can’t change the event or task to be non-recurring. If you bring the window up again by clicking the event or task title, the checkbox is no longer there. You can change the repeat pattern, but the only way to make the event or task non-recurring is to delete it and recreate it.

> ### Deleting Repeating Events and Tasks

> Repeating events and tasks can be removed from your calendar at any time by locating the next instance of the event or task and deleting it. You will be offered the choice of deleting only the one instance or all occurrences of the event or task.

> # Event and Task Reminders

> Reminders are email notifications of events and tasks. Reminders can be set for you in different ways:

> - In the Options tab.

> You can change your Settings options to have automatic reminders sent to you for every event you organize or invitation you have accepted, and every task on your calendar. This option is labeled “Event and Task Reminders.”

> If you change the email address in the Options tab, all reminders for events created thereafter will contain the new address, but any events and tasks created before then will still have the old email address. The change is not propagated to previously scheduled events and tasks. For example, if I scheduled an event for next week and then changed my reminder email address, the event for next week will still have the old email address in it.

> If you want to correct these events and tasks, you must bring them up individually and set a reminder in each of them with the correct email address.

> For instructions on setting reminders in the Options tab, see Event and Task Reminders.

> - When you create a task or event.

> You can set up a reminder for yourself in the Reminders tab.

> For instructions on how to set up a reminder, see Setting Reminders for Events and Tasks.

> - When others create events for you.

> An event organizer can set reminders for one or more persons, such as the attendees.

> If no email reminder was set by the organizer, your default email reminder set in the Options tab will be triggered, once you accept the invitation.

> If you do not have the default reminder option set, or you do not want to reply to the invitation, you can set a reminder for yourself in the Reminders tab of the Event Summary.

> - When others create tasks for you.

> When a task is created, reminders can be set for one or more persons. For example, if several people are contributing to completion of the task, they can all be sent reminders.

> If the task creator did not set a reminder for you, you can set one for yourself in the Reminders tab of the task.

> For instructions on how to set up a reminder, see Setting Automatic Reminders for Events and Tasks.

> # Event Notification

> This is a Settings option (Options tab) found at the bottom of the window. (You might have to scroll down to see it.) Since this option can be turned off by your calendar system administrator, if you do not see it in your Settings options, it has been disabled for your calendar installation.

> If this option is enabled (you can see it), you can choose to have an email notification sent to you whenever anyone schedules an event on your calendar.

> This is different than the Event and Task Reminders Settings option. Those email reminders are sent to you immediately preceding the event or task as a reminder of it. This Event Notification is sent only for events, not tasks, and is sent at the time the event is created and put on your calendar, which could be weeks or even months before the actual event takes place.

> Sometimes the person scheduling an event will send you an email notification as part of the attendee list they create. If this happens, you will not get duplicate notifications. The system knows not to send you two notifications of the same event. If you want to ensure that you will always get an email notification of all events placed on your calendar, select the checkbox to turn this option on.

> # Controlling Access to Your Calendar

> You can choose how much information, if any, other people can see on your calendars. You do this by setting permissions in the Edit Calendar window. (In the Calendars tab, click the Edit link next to the calendar name.) For example, if you do not want anyone to see or know about your calendar, you can refuse permissions to Everybody (all users). On the other hand, if you want your calendar to be freely viewed by all users, you must give Everybody Read permission.

> You can give specific users permissions that you don’t give Everybody. But, you can’t deny permission to specific users that you give Everybody; you can only add permissions for other specific users. For example, if you give Everybody permission to Read, all users can see the details of public events on your calendar. You can’t add a user and give only Availability permission in an effort to deny that person Read permission. Everybody permissions override it.

> The best guideline is to give Everybody the least amount of permissions and to add users to give additional permissions.

> ### Default Permissions

> When you first use your calendar, default permissions are set by the system for it (and any other calendar you create). While this is configurable by your calendar system administrator, the usual set of permissions for Everybody are Availability and Invite. With these permissions set, all users will be able to find your main calendar when subscribing, and they will be able to schedule events on your calendar. However, they will only be able to see a free-busy representation of your calendar. They can’t see the details of events and tasks. No one will be able to add a task to your calendar with these default permissions. (You have to give them Modify permission or make them an owner.)

> You can change permissions for any of your own calendars at any time.

> ### Permission Definitions

> Use the following information to help you decide which permissions to give to others:

> #### Availability

> Availability permission gives the least amount of information to other calendar users. With only this permission set, the calendar can be searched for and subscribed to, but can only be seen in the Comparison view. All other views will display an empty calendar. And, in the Comparison view, only a free-busy representation will be shown.

> Even if you have other permissions set, you must have this permission set also in order for others to see it in the Comparison view. For example, if you only have Read permission set, and not Availability, an error message will appear instead of the free-busy representation when in Comparison view.

> #### Invite

> Invite permission allows others to schedule events and tasks on your calendar. Without this permission, others will get an error message when they try to invite to an event, or put a task on your calendar.

> #### Read

> Read permission allows others to search for and subscribe to your calendar. They can see and read the details of all public events and tasks on your calendar. For confidential events and tasks, that is, those you specified as Time and Date Only, the title will display as “Untitled Event” or “Untitled Task”. Read permission does not entitle anyone to see any of your private events or tasks.

> You must have both Availability and Read permission set in order for people to be able to view details of your calendar in the Comparison view. Without Availability permission set, in Comparison view, people will get an error message instead of seeing your calendar. Without Read permission, in Comparison view people will see only the free-busy representation of events.

> #### Delete

> Delete permission allows others to delete events and tasks off your calendar.

> #### Modify

> Modify permission allows others to change the details of events and tasks on your calendar.

> ### Combining Permissions

> Certain permissions are useless by themselves. They need to be given in conjunction with other permissions to make them useful. For example, while it is possible, it doesn’t make sense to give a user only Modify permission. The user will need Read permission also to be able to see the details of events and tasks. Likewise, it does no good to give Delete permission to any user if they do not have Read permission.

> You must set both Availability and Read permission in order for people to see your calendar in the Comparison view. Read permission alone is not adequate. If you only have Read permission set, people will get an error when trying to view your calendar in Comparison view.

> Here are some common possible combinations and scenarios:

> - You want your calendar to be public, that is, anyone can look at the public events and tasks, and you want anyone to be able to invite you to an event, or place a task on your calendar. Click the Availability, Invite and Read permissions for Everybody.
> - You want your administrative assistant to be able to manage your calendar, but you want to retain the right to have private events that even your assistant can’t see. Add the administrative assistant using the Add User button and then click all permissions. (Do not make the administrative assistant an owner.)
> - You want all users to be able to schedule events and tasks on your calendar, but you don’t want them to be able to read the details of other events and tasks on it. Click the Availability and Invite permissions for Everybody.
> - You do not want anyone to be able to see this calendar except your accountant, John Doe, who has permission to see the details of all your public events. Uncheck all permissions for Everybody. Add John Doe (user ID is jdoe) with the Add User button. Click Availability and Read permissions for jdoe.
> - You are creating a calendar for a group of people to use. You want all of them to be able to read, add, delete and modify events and tasks on the calendar. Add these people as other owners. (See Other Owners that follows.)

> ### Limitation to Number of Users You can Add

> You can only add up to 75 individual user permissions. If you attempt to add more than this, the list will be truncated to 75.

> ## Other Owners

> By adding users in the Owners Tab of the Edit Calendars window, you can specify other people to be co-owners of your calendar. Co-owners can do anything to the events and tasks on your calendar that you can do. However, co-owners do not have the right to change the properties of your calendars, such as permissions, or adding or deleting other owners.

> Some of the rights co-owners have are:

> - All permissions found on the Permissions tab.
> - Viewing private events and tasks on your calendar.
> - Viewing the details of confidential (time and date only) events and tasks.
> - Creating private events and placing them on your calendar.

> Other users, even those with full permissions, can’t do that.

> - Co-owners can delete events from your calendar and the events will disappear from other attendee’s calendars.

> This is different than Delete permission, which only gives the user the ability to delete things off your calendar, but not off the attendees’ calendars.

> For example, if you are a manager and you want your administrative person to schedule meetings for you, you can add the person as a co-owner. A team calendar is another example of how adding co-owners can be useful. For this example, all members of the team are added as co-owners so they can all update and maintain the calendar at will.

> # Naming Your Calendars

> Each calendar is identified by a unique name called a calendar ID.

> In most cases, your default calendar ID is your user ID. For example, if my user ID is “jsmith”, then my default calendar ID is “jsmith”. For calendars you create, the complete calendar ID will be:

> userid:calendar

> where “userid” is your user ID and “calendar” is the name you gave the calendar when you created it. (For instructions on how to create a new calendar, see Creating a Calendar.)

> Calendar IDs are case sensitive. For example, JSMITH is not equivalent to jsmith. (This distinction differs from email addresses, which are not case sensitive. For example, jsmith@sesta.com is equivalent to JSMITH@SESTA.COM.)

> ## Valid Characters for a Calendar ID

> A calendar ID cannot contain spaces (blanks), but can include the following characters:

> - Alphabetic (a-z, A-Z)
> - Numeric (0-9) characters
> - Special characters: period (.), underscore (_), hyphen or dash (-), apostrophe (‘), percent sign (%), slash (/), or exclamation point (!)

> When you create a new calendar, the new calendar ID is a combination of your user ID in front of the new calendar’s name, with a colon separating them. For example, if your user ID is jdoe and you create a calendar with the name newcal, the full calendar ID of the new calendar is jdoe:newcal.

> Some examples of other valid calendar IDs are: jdoe, jdoe:new-cal, jdoe:private_calendar, jim_o’conner.

> # Subscribing to Calendars

> You may find it advantageous to subscribe to some calendars in order to have them instantly available to you in your Calendars list, and to put them on your Quick Invite and Quick Add lists. Clicking the Subscribe icon on the Calendars tab (looks like a magnifying glass) opens the Calendars Search window where you can find the calendars you want to subscribe to.

> The calendars you are subscribed to can be viewed in two ways: from the Calendars tab, or in the Current Calendar list in the View tab. They also appear in the Quick Invite and Quick Add lists.

> Subscribing to a calendar does not imply any set of permissions, except that you must at least have Availability permission to find it with the Calendars Search tool.

> For more information on the Calendars Search tool, see Searching for Calendars in this Concepts Guide, or for how-to instructions, see Subscribing to a Calendar (Calendars Search).

> # Working with Subscribed-to Calendars

> There are two important concepts to remember when working with subscribed-to calendars:

> - While a calendar you have subscribed to is being displayed in any view, events and tasks you create will automatically be put on the subscribed-to calendar (if you have Modify permission for the calendar) and NOT your own.

> To have an event put on your own calendar in addition to this one, you must invite yourself. To have the event or task put on your calendar instead of the one being viewed, click the Calendar pull-down menu on the Edit Calendar window and choose your calendar instead of the one you are viewing.

> - The kind of things you can do and see on a subscribed-to calendar depends on the permissions that calendar’s owner has given you.

> You can only add or change events and tasks if you have Modify permission to the calendar. You can only delete events and tasks if you have Delete permission.

> If you are an owner, you can do anything you want to the events and tasks on the calendar. All permissions are given to you.

> If you are viewing a calendar to which you have only Availability permission, all events are listed as confidential events. That is, you can see times and dates that are already scheduled, but no details. This allows you to use the calendar for scheduling but does not give you any information about the nature of the scheduled times.

> # Using Calendar Groups

> You can create calendar groups in the Groups tab. A calendar group is just a named collection of individual calendars. You can think of a calendar group as a folder that holds more than one calendar. Each calendar has a separate name, and can have different permissions, and different option settings. Putting them in a group, however, allows you to have all of the calendars’ events and tasks merged together when displayed in the Overview, Day, Week and Month views. In the Comparison view, the group is displayed with each calendar having its own row of time slots so you can compare them. You can’t display a group in the Year view.

> For example, if you have three calendars, jdoe, jdoe:personal, jdoe:sports, and you want to combine all of them to manage your time commitments, you can create a group and include all three calendars in the group.

> If you commonly invite the same list of people to events (or even if its just mostly the same), you can save yourself time by creating a group with the most commonly invited calendars in it. When you create an event, choose a group from the Quick Invite list. The group will be expanded and all the names in the list will appear in your attendees list.

> If you would prefer to have a calendar group, rather than your default calendar, displayed when you first log in, you can specify that in the Default Calendar Group setting in the Options tab.

> ### What You Can’t Do with Calendar Groups

> You can’t enter a calendar group name into the User input field. Nor can you enter the calendar group name into the User Search input field (as you can with user groups that are defined by your administrator). To use a calendar group to populate the attendee list for an event you are creating, you must choose it from the Quick Invite list.

> ### Calendar Groups vs. Availability Tab

> When you are creating a new event, the availability tab allows you to get a free-busy comparison view of all attendees’ calendars. In this way, it does function similarly to a calendar group. That is, both allow you to compare the schedules of multiple people at once. However, the attendee group of calendars goes away as soon as you click OK to dismiss the Edit Event window.

> Calendar groups allow you to compare multiple calendars any time you wish. The group persists indefinitely. This is useful if you need to check the schedules of the same group of people from time to time.

> ### Creating a New Event While Displaying a Group

> If you create a new event while you have a group displayed as the Current Calendar on the View tab, the system prepopulates the attendee list with the calendar IDs of all group members. If you do not want this behavior, you can disable it by deselecting the Group Invitations checkbox in the Options tab. With the option disabled, the system prepopulates the attendee list with your calendar ID only.

> # Finding Home

> To return to home (your home page), click the home link located at the top right side of the Calendar Express window.

> Home, or your home page, is defined as:

> - Your default calendar.

> No matter how many other calendars you create, you have only one default calendar. This is the calendar that displayed the first time you logged into Calendar Express. It has a simple calendar ID, which is the same as your user ID. For example, if you are John Doe with a user ID of “jdoe”, then your default calendar ID is “jdoe”.

> - Today’s date.

> No matter what date you were previously displaying, clicking home will take you back to today’s date.

> - The default view.

> The default view is defined in the Default Initial View option in the Options tab. You can change this setting at will. For how to set the Default Initial View and other options, see Settings Options.

> # Exiting Calendar Express

> To exit Calendar Express, click the logout link located at the top right of the Calendar Express window.

> # Changing Dates in Your Calendar View

> There are several ways to change the dates being displayed on your calendar: right and left arrows, miniature month calendar, Jump To icon. Because your calendar is browser based, each click causes the browser window to be repainted on the screen. Since this takes time, you will want to change dates with the fewest clicks possible. Each method of changing dates is optimal for specific date ranges. The descriptions of each method that follow explain how to change the date and when to use the method.

> Note that the calendar system only accepts dates between Jan. 1, 1970 and Dec. 31, 2036. A window appears with an error message if you attempt to change to a date outside this range.

> ### Left and Right Arrows

> In the date heading at the top of your calendar, you see a left and right arrow. Clicking these will change the date being displayed by one day, week, month, or year, depending on which calendar view you are in. For example, if you are viewing a calendar in the week view, clicking the left arrow will take you to the previous week and clicking the right arrow will take you to the next week. When viewing the overview, day, and comparison views, clicking the arrows moves you one day either way.

> Left and right arrows are found in other places, too: the miniature month calendar, the Availability tab in the Edit Event window. The arrows always work the same, that is, they always take you one unit of time forward or backward.

> Using this method to change dates is best when you want to go forward or backward only one unit of time. If you want to jump to a date that is further way, you can use the miniature month calendar for dates within the current month or one month prior to or after today’s date. For other dates, use the jump to icon.

> ### Miniature Month Calendar

> The miniature month calendar has four ways to change the date: click the left and right arrows to move one month back or forward, click any day of the month to view that day or week, click the “Today is:” date to return your calendar to today’s date, enter a date into the date input boxes and click the Quick Jump icon.

> ### Jump To Icon

> The Jump To Date window opens when you click the Jump To icon. This icon can be found in several places: on the View tab, in the Edit Event window, in the Edit Task window.

> In the Jump To Date window, you can set the date either by entering the desired date into the input boxes directly and clicking OK (which is the fastest way to do set a date), or by clicking the desired month, then clicking the desired day, and finally, if needed, by clicking the arrow keys to select a different year. Each click causes the Jump To Date window to be repainted, which takes time, but is quicker than waiting for the entire browser window to be repainted.

> Using this method to change dates is best if you want to move to a date that is not one click away with the other two methods.

> # Using the Search Tools

> There are three separate search tools used by Calendar Express. One is used to search for events and tasks in the calendar currently being displayed. Another is used to search for calendars to subscribe to. The other is used to search for users to invite to an event. Each search tool operates differently.

> ## Searching for Events and Tasks

> To search for events and tasks in the current calendar, click the Search icon in the View tab. The Search window opens allowing you to find all events and tasks that contain the character string you enter in the input box. You do not need to enter a complete word, and the search is not case sensitive. You can specify whole phrases also. The search looks for matches in the entire event, not just the title.

> For example, if you were searching for all the events and tasks mentioning Uncle John’s birthday, you could enter “birthday”, or “Uncle John’s birthday”. If you used just “birthday”, you might get several other people’s birthdays in your results list. If you enter “Uncle John’s birthday” you will get only those events and tasks with that exactly match the string “Uncle John’s birthday.”

> ## Searching for Calendars

> You can use the Calendars Search tool for two things: when you want to add a calendar to your Calendars list (by subscribing to it), and when you want to create a new group or add calendars to an existing group.

> ### Subscribing to Calendars

> To use the Calendars Search tool to subscribe, click the Subscribe icon (magnifying glass) on the Calendars tab.

> You can search for calendars by entering either the name of the calendar, the calendar ID, the Display Name of the calendar, or the user ID of the primary owner. The search is not case sensitive. For example, if you are looking for a calendar whose primary owner’s user ID is jdoe, his calendar name is sports, the calendar ID is jdoe:sports, and the Display Name is Chicago Bulls, you can find this calendar by entering any one of the following: jdoe, sports, jdoe:sports, chicago, chicago bulls. You might get more than one search result. All calendars that match what you enter will be presented in the search results.

> You must have at least Availability or Read permission in order to subscribe to a calendar. Otherwise, the search results will say “No Match Found.”

> You can also search by fragments of the names or IDs. For instance, in the example above, you could enter “chi”, or even “ago” and still find the calendar. If the system has a very large database of calendars, searching with a small fragment can take a long time and return too many search results. The more precise you are the fewer search results you’ll have to scroll through to find the calendar you want and the faster it will be.

> You subscribe by checking the calendars you want and then clicking Apply or OK. Choosing Apply allows you to keep the search window open and perform another search while preserving your selections from the last search. (Actually, your selections are saved whether you click Apply or not.) If you change your mind, you can uncheck the calendar ID in the Already Selected Calendars list. Even though it still looks checked in the Search Results list, it will not be transferred to your Calendars list on the Calendars tab. When you click OK, the checked calendars are added to your Calendars list on the Calendars tab.

> ### Creating a New Group, or Adding Calendars to an Existing Group

> When you open the Calendars Search window from inside the Edit Calendars Group window, it looks and acts the same as the Calendars Search tool that comes up when you are subscribing to a calendar in the Calendars tab. The only difference is that when you click OK, the calendars you have checked are added to your group in the Groups tab, and you are not automatically subscribed to those calendars. If you want to subscribe to any of these calendars, you must subscribe using the Subscribe icon as explained in the preceding section, Subscribing to Calendars.

> For instructions on how to create a group, see Creating a Calendar Group. For instructions on how to subscribe to Calendars, see Subscribing to a Calendar (Calendars Search).

> ## Searching for Users

> When you want to add attendees to your event, but you don’t know their user or calendar IDs, you can search for them using the User Search tool. To reach the tool, from the Edit Event window, click Search. The User Search window opens.

> You can search for users, groups of users, or resources (objects that have calendars, such as conference rooms, or projectors). You can enter a first or last name, or a user ID. For example, if you are looking for John Doe’s calendar, you can enter John, Doe, or jdoe.

> You can perform multiple searches and accumulate the results without having to leave the search window. After you have successfully found the first user, resource, or group you were searching for, click the checkbox next to it to select it. If you want to continue searching for other users, click Apply to save your current selection in an Already Selected Users list. You may then continue searching and adding users until you are finished.

> The User Search window stays open until you click OK. Clicking OK closes the User Search window and puts the selected user’s calendar ID, or resource ID, into the attendee list in the Edit Event window. For user groups, the system populates the attendee list with the calendar IDs of all group members.

> Note that the search results also include the user’s email address where available. You might want to put the email address in the attendee list so that the person receives an email notification (the event will not appear on the person’s calendar). You might need to use this method of notification if you do not have permission to schedule an event on the person’s calendar.

> ### User Groups Not the Same as Calendar Groups

> The groups of users that you can search for are not the same as the calendar groups you create in the Groups tab. The groups you create in the Groups tab are groups of calendars, not users. You can’t search for your own calendar groups in the User Search window. User groups have to be defined and created by a system administrator.

> ### When You Don’t Know How to Spell the Person’s Name

> If all you know about the person is the name, but you don’t know how to spell it, you can search using a fragment of the first or last name. This only works for names and not for user IDs. You can also search for resources using only a fragment of its name.

> For example, if you are looking for a person whose last name is Stephenson, but you aren’t sure how its spelled, you could enter just “ste” or “steph”. The more of a name you can enter, the faster the search will be and the fewer the search results. For instance, there might be hundreds of names beginning with “ste” but only a dozen that contain “steph”.

> If you have too many search results for the system to display, it will list as many as it can, but the list you see will be truncated (incomplete).

> ### A Special Case, Entering Fewer Than Three Characters

> If you enter fewer than three characters, your search results could be incomplete. The system does wild card searches for all strings of at least three characters. That is, it will find all the names that contain those three characters. However, if you enter less than three characters, you might not get a wild card search. Depending on how your calendar system administrator has configured the system, entering one or two characters could return nothing. This is because the system can be configured to do either an exact search or a wild card search for numbers smaller than three.

> For example, if you were looking for Fred Wurtz and entered “Wu”, and the system was configured to do only exact searches on less than three characters, then all you would see in the search results would be a list of all the users with the exact name “Wu”. You might think Fred isn’t in the directory, but actually its the way the search is configured in your system that makes the search results incomplete for two characters.

> The best practice, then, is to always enter at least three characters of the name you are searching for, unless it has only two characters, such as our example of Wu.

> # Working with Time Zones

> When a calendar is displayed, the times shown reflect a particular time zone, such as America/Los Angeles, or Europe/Paris. When you create a calendar, you can choose to give it a specific time zone. If you do not give it a time zone, then it will always display in the default time zone set in the Options tab.

> If a time zone has been set for a calendar, you can choose to view it in its own time zone, or in your default time zone. The default setting is to view all calendars in your own time zone. If you want to view a calendar in its own time zone, you must set the Time Zone option, by clicking the check box that says “When displaying a single calendar, use its time zone.”

> For example, you live in Los Angeles and you need to set up a teleconference with a colleague in Paris. You want to see what time of day it is in Paris as well as Los Angeles when you compare the two calendars in order to find a time that will suit both of you. If the Paris colleague’s calendar has the Europe/Paris time zone set, and you have the Time Zone option set to use its time zone, then you can view his calendar in his time zone while still viewing your calendar in your own time zone. If you create a calendar group consisting of the two calendars, and view it in the Comparison view, you will see a time scale for both time zones. Using the Comparison view will make it easier for you to find a time for your teleconference.

> For instructions on how to set the default time zone in the Options tab, see Time Zone. For instructions on how to set a time zone for a specific calendar, see Step 10 in Creating a Calendar.

> ### Potential for Confusion with Time Zones

> If you are scheduling events for calendars that are on different sides of the International Date Line, confusion can occur. For example, when it is Monday afternoon in Los Angeles, it is early Tuesday morning in Calcutta, India. Be very careful when you schedule events and tasks for calendars on opposing sides of the International Date Line.

> Also, if you have set the Time Zone option to see all calendars in their own time zones, and you switch between calendars, it will take you to the next or previous day in the other time zone, depending on its relative offset. For example, if you are looking at your own calendar in the America/Los Angeles time zone for today, which is Monday, and then switch to looking at a calendar from the Asia/Calcutta time zone, you will see Tuesday, because “today” in Calcutta, India is Tuesday.

> If you have not set the Time Zone option to see all calendars in their own time zones, then all calendars will be seen in your default time zone. In our example, when you went from Monday in your calendar in Los Angeles to the Indian calendar, it would still display Monday, because the times are not being adjusted.

> If a calendar does not have its own time zone set, then it will always display in your default time zone.

> ### Groups of Calendars

> You can set a time zone for a group. If you have selected the checkbox option (“When displaying a single calendar use its time zone.”) under Time Zone in the Options tab, all of the times for the calendars in the group will be adjusted to the group’s time zone. Even if none of the calendars belongs to that time zone, all the calendars in the group will display in that time zone. For example, if you have a group whose calendars are in the America/Los Angeles and Asia/Calcutta time zones, but you set the group time zone to America/Denver, the calendars will display with all the times adjusted to America/Denver.

> If you do not set a time zone for the group, and you have not checked the Time Zone option, the calendars will display in the default time zone set in your options.

> ### Time Scales

> A second Time Zone option is “Show time scale for each displayed calendar time zone.” If you are displaying a group of calendars with differing time zones and you have checked this option, a time scale will appear for each time zone represented in the group.

> No correlation is made between the time scales and the calendars they come from. For example, if you have calendars in America/Los Angeles, America/New York, and Asia/Calcutta, you will see a time scale for each, but it doesn’t tell you which of the calendars belongs to each of the time scales.

> The time scales feature can be very useful when you want to schedule an event for people in varying time zones. For example, you probably don’t want to schedule a meeting for someone at 3 am their time. So you would look for a time that is convenient for both you and the other people by referring to the time scales.

> For a list of the standard time zones, see Standard Time Zones.

> # Standard Time Zones

> When you set the time zone for a specific calendar, or the default time zone, a set of standard time zones is available. They are grouped into three global areas for convenience: North/South America, Europe/Africa, Asia/Pacific Rim.

> ## North/South America

> America/Adak
> America/Anchorage
> America/Buenos_Aires
> America/Caracas
> America/Chicago
> America/Costa_Rica
> America/Cuiaba
> America/Denver
> America/Godthab
> America/Grand_Turk
> America/Halifax
> America/Havana
> America/Indianapolis
> America/Los_Angeles
> America/Miquelon
> America/New_York
> America/Phoenix
> America/Port-au-Prince
> America/Santiago
> America/Sao_Paulo
> America/St_Johns
> Atlantic/Azores
> Atlantic/Cape_Verde
> Atlantic/South_Georgia
> Atlantic/Stanley

> ## Europe/Africa

> Africa/Cairo
> Africa/Casablanca
> Africa/Johannesburg
> Africa/Lagos
> Africa/Tripoli
> Africa/Windhoek
> Europe/Bucharest
> Europe/Istanbul z
> Europe/London
> Europe/Minsk
> Europe/Moscow
> Europe/Paris
> Europe/Riga
> Europe/Samara
> Europe/Simferopol
> Europe/Warsaw

> ## Asia/Pacific Rim

> Asia/Alma-Ata
> Asia/Amman
> Asia/Anadyr
> Asia/Aqtau
> Asia/Aqtobe
> Asia/Baku
> Asia/Bangkok
> Asia/Beirut
> Asia/Bishkek
> Asia/Calcutta
> Asia/Dacca
> Asia/Irkutsk
> Asia/Jerusalem
> Asia/Kabul
> Asia/Kamchatka
> Asia/Karachi
> Asia/Katmandu
> Asia/Krasnoyarsk
> Asia/Magadan
> Asia/Novosibirsk
> Asia/Rangoon
> Asia/Riyadh
> Asia/Shanghai
> Asia/Taipei
> Asia/Tehran
> Asia/Tokyo
> Asia/Ulan_Bator
> Asia/Vladivostok
> Asia/Yakutsk
> Asia/Yekaterinburg
> Asia/Yerevan
> Australia/Adelaide
> Australia/Brisbane
> Australia/Darwin
> Australia/Hobart
> Australia/Lord_Howe
> Australia/Sydney
> Pacific/Apia
> Pacific/Auckland
> Pacific/Chatham
> Pacific/Easter
> Pacific/Fiji
> Pacific/Gambier
> Pacific/Guadalcanal
> Pacific/Honolulu
> Pacific/Kiritimati
> Pacific/Marquesas
> Pacific/Norfolk
> Pacific/Noumea
> Pacific/Pitcairn
> Pacific/Rarotonga
> Pacific/Tongatapu

> # For Systems Configured to Both Invite and Inform

> Your calendar system administrator can configure your system to have an Inform button as well as an Invite button in the Edit Event window. This allows you to distinguish between inviting and informing event attendees.

> ### The Difference Between Inviting and Informing

> When you create an event, you have the opportunity to invite and inform other people. The difference between inviting and informing is that invitees can reply to your invitation, while people you inform can’t reply to the event. That is, for invitees, an invitation is placed in their Action Items Invitations list. For people on your inform list, there is no entry made in the Invitations list. In addition, invitees see a Reply pull-down menu on the Event Summary, whereas attendees on your inform list do not.

> Both those invited and informed are called attendees. Both lists are used to figure availability.

> # Glossary

> Appearance From the Options tab, allows you to change the color scheme and of the interface elements, as well as the size and style of fonts.

> availability tab From the new event icon, allows you to check when a user has free time on their calendar.

> calendar ID See calendar name.

> calendar A collection of events and tasks.

> Calendar Express Name of the calendar product.

> calendar group A collection of several calendars. A calendar group can be thought of as a folder that holds many calendars. An example calendar group might be called Work Group that contains your work schedule calendar, your team’s group calendar, the company holiday calendar, and company payday calendar. You create a new calendar group from the Groups tab.

> calendar icons The main Calendar Express icons are: New Event, New Task, Group View, Jump To, Printable. The Calendars tab icons are: New Cal, New Group, Current Group, and Search. See also Links.

> calendar name Also known as the calendar ID, this is a unique identifier for a particular calendar.

> Calendars tab Allows you to create new calendars, create or modify calendar groups, view a calendar, search for a calendar, and edit calendar properties such as permissions.

> default calendar This is the calendar you see when your first log into Calendar Express. It is your main calendar, and most users will want to schedule with this calendar. Usually, your calendar id is the same as your user id.

> details tab From the New Event icon, allows you to add more information about an event.

> event An occurrence such as a meeting, appointment, or birthday or any item with an associated date and/or time. An all day event has no specific time associated with it, such as a birthday or holiday. A recurring event can span more than one day such as weekly meetings or trade shows. See also recurrence.

> Export From the Options tab, allows you to move data (export) from one calendar to another. See also Import.

> groups see calendar group

> Groups tab This tab allows you to create, modify, or delete calendar groups.

> iCal An internet standard file format for calendar schedules.

> Import From the Options tab, allows you to bring in (import) files into your calendar. See also Export

> links Items that when clicked cause the calendar to change, or cause other windows to appear.

> notifications Invitations (calendar events placed on the calendars of those you invite), or email sent to those you invite.

> Options tab This tab allows you to change the appearance of your calendar, modify the behavior of Calendar Express, and import, and export files.

> overview link This link displays the overview of your current calendar group or calendar. You can access the day, week, month, and year view of your calendar. See also Views. The large portion at the top shows events and tasks for the current day, and the bottom portion shows events and tasks for the week ahead.

> permission You can control access to your calendars by setting permissions. For example, you can allow one or more users to view, schedule, modify, or delete events and task s on your calendars, or you can allow users to have co-ownership of your calendars.

> preview tab From the New Event or New Task icon, allows you to preview your event or task in a simple form before scheduling it.

> privacy setting Individual events and tasks can be assigned a privacy setting that controls whether or not the event or task can be seen, or read. The event or task can be either public, private, or time and date only. For public events and tasks, users who have read permission for your calendar will be able to see the event or task and all its details. For private events or tasks, no users or co-owners can see them. For time and date only events and tasks, users with read permission for your calendar will see the event or task marked on the calendar at the appropriate time and date, but will not be able to read any of its details, including the title. Non-owners who have modify or delete permission to a calendar will not be able to write or delete confidential events/tasks.

> public access See public calendar.

> public calendar A calendar with read permission set for Everybody.

> Quick Add A pull-down menu in the Edit Calendar Group window, which when clicked enables the user to choose calendar IDs or other calendar groups to be added to the group.

> Quick Delete An icon, a red “X” inside a circle, which allows the user to delete events and tasks directly off the calendar.

> Quick Invite A pull-down menu in the Edit Event window, which when clicked enables the user to choose calendar IDs or calendar group names to be added to the attendee list.

> Quick Jump IA date input field with an icon, a right-facing arrow inside a circle, which when clicked, causes the calendar being viewed to display the date entered in the date input field.

> reminders Email messages sent to remind you of an impending event or task. You can set a default email address for all event and task reminders in the Options tab. If you always want event and task reminders to be sent to the same email address, this is helpful since you won’t have to type the email address every time you create an event or task with reminders.

> Reminders tab From the New Task or New Event icon, allows you to set a reminder for an event or task.

> repeating events and tasks You can create events and tasks that repeat in a pattern of your choosing. For example, all occurrences of a weekly meeting can be scheduled on your calendar at once by setting the repeat pattern.

> Settings From the Options tab, allows you to modify the behavior of the Calendar Express, such as changing time zones, day duration, day start/stop time, and setting reminders, the default view, and default group.

> subscribe This gives you access to a calendar. You can subscribe to a particular calendar by using the Search icon on the Calendars tab.

> symbols + = will attend, - = will not attend, ? = no response yet

> task An item to be done. For example, a task is like one item on a To Do list. It can have one of three different states: no due date, a due date only, or a due date and time.

> toolbar From the Options tab, allows you to set Calendar Express to display text or icons only.

> user id Your login identification. This is usually the same as your calendar id.

> views You can look at your calendar with day, week, month, and year views. These are known as calendar views. See also overview tab.

> XML Extensible Markup Language. Calendar Express can be imported and exported in this format.

Contents Index