Aug 07, 2017 Hi' Many Mac users are having problems with syncing there Office 365 calendar to Mac OS Calendar App with Mac OS 10.11.6. It stopped working »over the weekend«. Using the Office 365 Calendar; Using the Office 365 Calendar on the Outlook Web App; Using the Office 365 Calendar on the Outlook Web App Last modified: August 15, 2016. Outlook Web App (Win and Mac) Outlook 2016 (Win) Outlook 2016 (Mac) iCal/Calendar (Mac).
We're making improvements to the way shared calendars in Office 365 sync across your applications. This article is intended for IT admins, to help them understand the changes that are rolling out. The improvements are planned only for calendars shared between people using Exchange Online. There are no changes to shared calendars when one person's calendar is hosted in Exchange on-premises. When all the improvements are complete, IT admins and their organization's users can expect:
These improvements roll out over the next year. This article focuses on the changes you can see today and provides details about future plans. For a quick snapshot of schedules, see Timeline of calendar improvements across clients later in this article.
Share a calendarThe first improvement is that users can share their calendar from any version of Outlook and have the same permission options on all versions. The table below shows the current state of the work to make it easier to share calendars.
Accept a shared calendarThe second improvement is that users can easily accept shared calendar invitations from any Outlook application, and see those shared calendars on all their devices. The table below shows the current state of the work to make it easier to accept a shared calendar invitation.
Sync and edit shared calendarsThe third improvement is that users can view all their shared calendars on any device or calendar application. If someone changes a shared calendar, all other people sharing the calendar will see the changes instantly. Users will also notice performance improvements when viewing and editing shared calendars. Using a shared calendar will be as fast and reliable as managing the user's own calendar. Shared calendars sync to all devices
When a user shares their calendar with people today, they will see the improved shared calendar experience after accepting the invitation. However, if they shared their calendar with people before these changes were enabled, they won't see these improvements automatically.
To upgrade existing shared calendars to the new shared calendar experience, ask users to follow the instructions in Upgrade an existing shared calendar to the new model later in this article. After users upgrade to the new model, shared calendars will sync to their mobile phones. In the future, existing shared calendars will be upgraded automatically, but there's no schedule yet for this automatic upgrade process.
Instant syncing
With instant syncing enabled, a shared calendar reflects changes made by others immediately. Currently, not all types of shared calendars support instant syncing. The following sections cover the types of shared calendars and calendar applications that support instant syncing.
![]() Shared calendars that support instant syncing
Instant syncing is enabled only if both users are in the same Office 365 tenant, or if the calendar is shared by an Outlook.com user.
The table below provides more details about the types of configurations that support instant syncing. In the future, instant syncing will be enabled for all calendars shared among Office 365 and Outlook.com users.
Applications that support instant syncing
The table below provides more details about the applications that support instant syncing.
Note: Exchange Web Services (EWS) API will not support instant syncing.
To use instant syncing, the shared calendar must be enabled for instant syncing, and the calendar application must be updated.
If the shared calendar is enabled for instant syncing, and the user is viewing it on Outlook on the web, Outlook for iOS, or Outlook for Android, the new sync experience is in use.
If the user views the shared calendar on Outlook for Mac, they'll see the new sync experience if the calendar was added by accepting a sharing invitation. However, if the user added the shared calendar via File > Open another user's folderor if the user added the account as a delegate account, they'll be on the old sync experience. Changes might appear faster in Outlook on the web, Outlook for iOS, and Outlook for Android.
If the user views the shared calendar on Outlook for PC, they'll see the old sync experience regardless of how the calendar was added. Currently, for the same shared calendar, changes might appear faster in Outlook on the web, Outlook for iOS, Outlook for Android, and Outlook for Mac than on Outlook for PC.
Technical details of the shared calendar improvementsThis section describes how these improvements were accomplished, and what changed in the architecture of shared calendars in Office 365. TerminologyHere are some terms that we'll use in this discussion:
Summary of differences between old and new model of shared calendars
The improvements are only applicable for calendars shared between users in Exchange Online. There are no changes to shared calendars when one of the users is hosted in Exchange on-premises.
For more details, see Functionality differences in new model shared calendars later in this article.
Determine if a shared calendar is the old or new model
Users who accept a new shared calendar invitation from an updated version of Outlook automatically start using the new model of calendar sharing.
The easiest way for a user to check if they have the improvements (meaning the new model of calendar sharing) is to check if the shared calendar appears on their mobile phone. If it does, the shared calendar is already upgraded to the new model.
If you prefer to use MFCMapi, you would need to confirm that the following conditions are true:
Upgrade an existing shared calendar to the new model
For shared calendars to benefit from these improvements, users should re-create the shared calendar by using one of the two options below:
Free Calendar App For Mac
In the future, shared calendars will be upgraded to the new model regardless of which method the user chooses. There is no timeline for this yet, however.
Methods for syncing shared calendarsThis section discusses where and when instant syncing occurs in the current state of our work. The following table shows the types of syncing that exist for shared calendars in the new model.
Sharing within the same tenant
A user can be granted access to a shared calendar in one of the following ways:
Currently, instant syncing is only enabled for direct permissions and for group permissions if the group size is under 100. In the future, instant syncing will be enabled for all three permission types. Additionally, if the user has shared to more than 500 recipients (a person or a group each count as one recipient), instant syncing will not be enabled.
Sharing outside a tenant
Instant syncing for sharing outside your tenant isn't supported currently. While you can share in these configurations, syncing will happen periodically. There are two types of cross-tenant sharing:
Share with users outside Office 365 and Outlook.com
Sharing with a user on an external service such as Gmail is a different kind of calendar sharing. In these scenarios, an Internet Calendar Subscription (ICS) URL is generated that links to the owner’s calendar. Recipients can use this URL to view the calendar in a web browser, or add it to their own calendar service by adding an internet calendar using the ICS URL. With ICS subscriptions, the recipient’s calendar service chooses when to sync the ICS subscription to receive new updates. If the recipient is an Outlook.com user, the sync will happen approximately every three hours. If the recipient is using another calendar service, such as Gmail.com, the sync might not happen as frequently.
Functionality differences in new model shared calendarsShared calendars that use the new model differ from the old model in several areas of functionality, including reminders, permissions, delegated meetings, and third-party clients. Reminders
In the first phase of calendar sharing improvements, recipients will always see “Reminder=None” for shared calendar items, regardless of the true reminder value for an item. If a recipient with edit access tries to change the reminder on an shared calendar item, the new reminder value will be locally saved only for the recipient and not for the owner.
Reminders in the old model: In the old model of sharing, the recipient accessed the calendar owner’s mailbox directly. Therefore, when a recipient viewed a calendar item, they saw the same reminder value that the owner saw. Outlook clients knew how to detect which calendars were shared calendars, so they did not show pop-up reminders for any shared calendar items.
Behavior change in the new model: In the new model of sharing, the shared calendar is stored locally in the recipient’s mailbox. Therefore, when mobile applications sync these shared calendars, they might not always check whether it’s a shared calendar. In those cases, we found that when the true reminder value was synced to a recipient who was using a third-party EAS or REST client, the recipient was flooded with reminders for other people's meetings. We're investigating ways to improve the reminders experience without breaking third-party clients.
The following table provides is examples of how reminders differ in the old and new models of shared calendars.
Simplified permissions options
In the past, there was no consistent set of permission-level options across Outlook clients. As part of these improvements, updated Outlook clients will show a simplified and consistent set of sharing permission levels.
Change permissionsOffice 365 Calendar App For Mac Computer
If the owner uses Outlook on the web, Outlook for iOS, Outlook for Android, or Outlook for Mac to change permissions, the recipient’s copy of the calendar is immediately re-synced to the new permission level.
If the owner uses another application to change the permissions, the calendar will be re-synced sometime in the next few hours, but it will not happen immediately.
Remove permissions
If the owner removes someone’s permissions on the calendar, this action will be detected within a few hours and one of three things will happen:
Delegated meeting messages
Delegates have always been able to view delegated meeting messages from their mobile phone because the invitations are received in their inbox. However, in the past, delegates did not have any indication whether the meeting invitation was for them or for whoever they're a delegate for.
To better support this scenario, Outlook for iOS and Outlook for Android have added UI to make it clear for whom the meeting invitation is intended. For example, note 'Received for Allan Deyong' in the following screenshots, which indicates that the invitation and the mail are for Allan, not for the delegate.
Third-party clients
The new model of calendar sharing differs in third-party mail clients in a few scenarios, which are described below.
FAQ
I don’t want my users’ calendars to sync to mobile phones. What settings can I use to disable this?
We don’t have any plans to allow the shared calendar improvements to be disabled for tenants.
My users are concerned about data usage when shared calendars sync to their mobile phones. What should I tell them?
If you clear the shared calendar option in the calendar list, Outlook for iOS, Outlook for Android, and Windows 10 Mobile will not sync the calendars that aren't selected. Most mobile calendar applications should also follow this behavior.
Does this also apply to resource calendars?
Any calendar that can be shared is eligible for these improvements. If a user shares their calendar, a shared mailbox calendar, or a resource mailbox calendar, and the recipient accepts using Outlook on the web, Outlook for iOS, or Outlook for Android, they will start seeing these improvements.
Office 365 Calendar App For Mac
However, for resource mailboxes in particular, there are some inconsistencies with the way that permissions show in the Outlook permissions list compared to the Admin center’s permissions list. We're working to make the permissions show consistently. However, the shared calendar functionality works as detailed above for resource mailbox calendars, and the recipient will be able to see the resource calendar on their mobile phone.
Do you now support sharing a calendar to Office 365 groups?
Not yet, but it’s high on our list. You can currently only share calendars with individual users or with security groups.
Will these changes make it easier for a single person to have multiple calendar delegates?
These improvements, especially the faster syncing, will make it easier for multiple people to manage the same calendar, but the multi-delegate scenario is not a goal of these initial improvements. For the best experience, only one delegate should manage the shared calendar.
Timeline of calendar improvements across clientsBelow is the summary of the current state of the calendar improvements. Timelines listed below are subject to change.
*Applies only to customers who purchased Microsoft Office on a monthly or yearly subscription basis. **Available starting in Version 1805. ***Available starting in Version 16.23.326.1. Office 365 Calendar App For Mac DownloadRelated topicsShare your calendar in Outlook on the web for business Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |