Creating Additional Calendars in Outlook
Many individuals have expressed interest in having more than one calendar in Outlook. The calendar could hold personal events, or could be used for a project calendar. Because in some cases items marked private on the default Calendar in Outlook can be seen by individuals with permission to read a user's calendar, a second calendar might be desirable for some. Remember in some cases the delegate can read private items and in other cases they can't. The tip for this week will show how to create additional calendars and how to use them to complement the default calendar in Outlook. One very important point to remember is that these additional calendars cannot be shared with other users.
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Creating a New Calendar
Begin in the Calendar Folder. In the Navigation Pane on the left side of the screen, right click in the My Calendars area. This brings up several menu choices. Click on New Folder.
The Create New Folder dialog box will open. "Name" the new calendar, make sure it says Calendar Items in the "Folder contains:" text box, and make sure under "Select where to place the folder:" that Calendar is highlighted. Then click on OK.
Once the OK is clicked, the new calendar will appear under My Calendars in the Navigation Pane. To show the new calendar next to the default calendar, click in the check box next to the newly created calendar.
Below is an example of what the Default Calendar and Personal Calendar look like side by side.
Once concern about using the Personal Calendar in this way is that those folks with whom you have shared your calendar cannot see your Personal Calendar. This can be a problem when person events like dental appointments are during the work day. They won't appear on the calendar that is shared or on the free/busy schedule used when setting up meeting requests.
Once solution to this is to copy the personal item to the default calendar by holding down the CTRL key and dragging the item to the Default Calendar. Then the item can be renamed. Here is an example.
While this may seem like a lot of extra work, if you find that private items on the default calendar are viewable by those with whom you share your calendar, this might be the best way to handle them.
Users can create more than one personal calendar. It three or four are needed, that will work. Also remember to hide a calendar, un-check the checkbox next to that calendar in the "My Calendars" list.
One more item of note is for users who synch a PDA to Outlook. Personal calendars will not synch with the PDA, only items in the main Calendar folder in Outlook.