Office 365 Exchange online tenants have the new sharing experience which will sync shared calendars to mobile devices. At this time, it's required to share from Outlook on the web and the recipient needs to accept it using Outlook on the web.
An Outlook user writes:
I need to be able to view other people's Exchange calendars on my iPad. On my iPad I can see one of my Colleagues calendars but all of my colleagues have shared their calendars out to me and given me full owners permissions, but I can't see their calendars.
The reason you can see the one calendar in your mailbox is because you copied the calendar to your mailbox. This is a copy of the calendar as of the day you copied it and it does not sync with the original calendar.
You cannot see other user's calendar's on an iPad (or iPhone, Windows Phone, Android, or BlackBerry) as these devices only sync your own calendars. You will need to copy the calendar to a folder in your mailbox in order to see it on the device.
See How to View a Shared Calendar on a Smartphone for a for a solution that uses published calendars on smartphones and tablets.
The tools below will be able to sync the shared folders in your profile to a folder in your mailbox. i highly recommend using subfolders for the shared folders, preferably in their own top level folder. For example, create a folder called "Shared Folders" then create a calendar in this folder for each calendar you will be syncing.
Tools in the Spotlight
Automatically sync Public Folders calendars (and contacts) from Outlook to business smartphones. CiraSync is a secure, Azure-based SaaS platform that is centrally managed, requires no software to install, minimal no user training, and can scale to thousands of business smartphones. Try the always free Personal Edition, or a free 30-day, 100-user trial for the Enterprise Edition (no credit card/contract needed). | |
Automatically sync Office 365 Public Folders contacts and calendars from Outlook to business smartphones. CiraSync is a secure, Azure-based SaaS platform that is centrally managed, requires no software to install, no user training, and can scale to thousands of business smartphones. Try the always free Personal Edition, or a free 30-day, 100-user trial for the Enterprise Edition (no credit card/contract needed). |
Tools
CodeTwo FolderSync Addin is an Outlook add-in that enables synchronization of folders. The synchronization of data will always take place between selected folders and the user can choose several pairs of folders that need synchronizing. Freeware. | |
Priasoft has created the first, and currently only toolset for synchronizing Public Folders between an on-premises deployment of Public Folders and Office365. This same solution is also able to support cross-forest synchronization between one or more on-premises environments, or between multiple on-premises deployments and Office365. |
More Information
Additional Sync tools can be found at
Synchronizing Exchange Mailboxes and Public Folders
https://www.slipstick.com/exchange/how-to-view-a-shared-calendar-on-a-smartphone/
I created an online petition for MS to bring shared calendar support to mobile devices. If it gets enough signatures, who knows maybe they will pay attention. https://www.change.org/p/microsoft-bring-o365-shared-calendars-to-outlook-for-mobile
It's available now, for office 365 exchange online - i think it is also supported in Outlook.com. At this time, you need to share it using Outlook on the web, and the recipient needs to accept it using Outlook on the web. Once you do this, the calendar is synced as a subfolder of you own calendar. They are working on making sharing work in all Outlook apps - but viewing should work everywhere expect Mac (coming soon).
Hi Diane,
I'm trying to get our office outlook shared calendar synced with my iPhone (and my other colleagues).
The shared calendar was created in Office Outlook 2010, in the calendar view by just adding a new calendar (hence it has no email account connected to it).
What do I need to do?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Is the calendar in your mailbox? If not, it won't sync to the phone. If it is stored in your mailbox, it'll sync to the phone.
Diane
Regarding this:
This is the problem: They would like to access via ipads and iphones as well as their computer.
There are a number of ways to share, but only Outlook or OWA can access the shared calendars.... but what seems to work here is to share or public the calendar and add the ics to OWA - this calendar shows up in the native ios app as read-write but in Outlook (desktop or ios app) as a read-only calendar.
My question: I have my calendars set up as shared mailboxes, no one uses them, they are only active for calendars and I created on the admin for 365 under shared, not mailboxes. So I am not sure how or where to add the ics. And from here does it update or is it a one time share.
You need to open the mailbox in OWA to copy the ics link and open your mailbox in owa to 'open' the ics so it will sync to the phone. See https://www.slipstick.com/exchange/create-rules-and-oof-shared-mailbox/ for the method to open the shared mailbox in outlook so you can publish the calendar then see https://www.slipstick.com/exchange/how-to-view-a-shared-calendar-on-a-smartphone/ for screenshots and the steps to add it to owa.
Are you able to set up "room" accounts (which are disabled user accounts) on an iPhone?
See https://www.slipstick.com/exchange/how-to-view-a-shared-calendar-on-a-smartphone/ - if you can get an ics file, you can add it to OWA and it'll sync to devices. Opening it as a shared mailbox might also work.
Hi Diane,
I work at a college, and we have around 12 Cabinet-level staff members that want a common "Out of office" calendar that can be interacted with on desktop and mobile. So, this does not have to read and sync from each person's personal calendar. It can be a stand-alone calendar (a shared calendar), and each individual would enter manually the days they are out of the office on this calendar. This would be used for emergency issues to see who is in the office that day, and who is not, at a glance.
They would like to access via ipads and iphones as well as their computer.
We have Office 365 hosted at Microsoft, and use Outlook 2013 as our local client in caching mode. These folks use PCs and Macs. We also have OWA.
Any ideas on the best way to accomplish this? Mobile app recommendations if needed?
Thanks!
Bill Vriesema
Calvin College
This is the problem: They would like to access via ipads and iphones as well as their computer.
There are a number of ways to share, but only Outlook or OWA can access the shared calendars.... but what seems to work here is to share or public the calendar and add the ics to OWA - this calendar shows up in the native ios app as read-write but in Outlook (desktop or ios app) as a read-only calendar.
In our office we are using Outlook mail exchange server for emails. I want to see my outlook calendar schedules on my cell phone. I am using samsung galaxy. Diane can you please help me in this regard. Thanks
As long as Active Sync is enabled on your server, you'll set it up on the phone as an exchange account - this will sync the mail, calendar, and contacts. You can turn off mail and contacts sync if you want only the calendar.
Try Peopler to access outlook / exchange shared calendars https://itunes.apple.com/it/app/peopler-pro-check-availability/id954158903?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2
This isn't true on blackberry. When scheduling a meeting from bb with a BES one can see free/busy information on the device. Is anyone aware of analogous functionality on windows phone, android, or ios, specifically with exchange?
Yeah, BES made Blackberry the best for email, by far. Going from it to windows phone was a huge culture shock - WP couldn't do half of what I could do with BES. I understand the new blackberries are as bad as the other phones, because they use activesync, not BES.
I'm not aware of any apps that can read free busy, but I haven't checked out all of the apps. As soon as my android recharges I'll check touchdown.
For what I understand should the new OWA app for mobile(iPhone and Android(this year) solve all this. But it will only work if you have an O365 account as well....
I can't speak for what the app will do, but yeah, the apps Microsoft releases only work with Office365 Exchange, not on-premise.