2010 | Thomas' Work Space

LRC Outlook/Exchange 2010 Calendaring: What happens after the meeting request? Automated or manual responses and reminders

2011/08/30 plagwitz 3 comments

If you have been invited to a meeting, e.g. a co-taught class in the LRC, you will see in your inbox an email-like meeting request with pre-set answer options:

Wait, there is more: Proposing:
If you followed the instructions in TBA:request meeting, you should immediately get an acceptance response from the resource:
If something went wrong, read the denial response for how to overcome the issue:

there are resource specific policies, like maximum booking duration, listed here: TBA: list resources
if there is a conflict with a prior booking of the resources, please go back to the meeting request scheduling assistant and find a time when the resource is available.
if you requested a recurring/repeating meeting, like for a weekly class meeting in the LRC, there may be individual conflicts. Note that we have set the resource scheduling options for the non-conflicting instances of your request to be accepted (in most cases). For how to deal with the conflicting instances, study the conflict information in the denial response.

Note that the LRC calendars are set up so that the LRC staff is copied (as delegates) on LRC resource requests (as a backup for issues and paper trail for reporting):
If you find you get too many meeting reminders that you do not need, when requesting a meeting, turn the default reminder option off:

The reminder can also be set to off as default in the calendar settings for a resource.

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-students, e-infrastructure, service-is-library Tags: 2007, 2010, 2011, calendaring, live@edu, ms-exchange, outlook, outlook-live, resources, scheduling

Room and Equipment handling using MS-Exchange Resource Mailboxes: Configuration with OWA instead of PowerShell

2011/08/30 plagwitz 1 comment

As once can easily find documented for MS-Exchange 2007, if you are the owner of the mailbox, you can use the OWA-feature “open other mailbox”.
As impersonated user for this mailbox , you can access the “Options / Settings”:
for the “resource” scheduling
for its “calendar”
This is maybe not as much fun as PowerShell’s Set-MailboxCalendarSettings and set-CalendarProcessing (click as you go, no batching), but easier on your MS-Exchange admin and especially practical for quick modifications and tests,

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, documentation, e-infrastructure, service-is-library Tags: 2007, 2010, 2011, calendaring, exchange, live@edu, ms-exchange, outlook, outlook-live, resources, scheduling, setcalendarprocessing

LRC Outlook/Exchange 2010 Resource Calendaring: LRC resources in the Global Address List (GAL)

2011/08/30 plagwitz 3 comments

Open the GAL for resources by clicking on “Resources” in a meeting request, like here:

You will find an equivalent of the LRC bookable resources list in Outlook’s/O’WA’s Global Address List.
In the GAL,you can filter by recipient type:
1. the result, in outlook:
for LRC resources, especially other than rooms, it is easier to filter by name(all LRC resource names start with “LRC”) – the result,
1. in Outlook:
2. in OWA you will see the GAL as part of the address book

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, service-is-library, training Tags: 2007, 2010, 2011, calendaring, live@edu, ms-exchange, outlook, outlook-live, resources, scheduling

LRC Outlook/Exchange 2010 Resource Calendaring: How to cancel meetings in OWA

2011/08/30 plagwitz 4 comments

View instead a short screencast how to cancel meeting requests in OWA.
Or: You start out with a meeting request conversation like this, showing:
1. a request send from account LRC help (example)
2. an accepted meeting response from the resource (e.g. the room) account
to cancel that meeting, you can go to your (!) calendar in OWA,
1. select (click on) the meeting and choose “delete”
  1. either from the context menu after right-click the meeting
    1. or from the ribbon after selecting the meeting
  2. if the meeting was repeating/recurring, you will be given the option to
you can also just open the meeting and choose from the top menu the “Cancel meeting” button, then press menu button: “Send update”:
1. 1. Again, for recurring/repeating meetings, you will be asked to confirm what exactly you want to cancel, the individual occurrence or the entire series of meetings:
2. You have the opportunity to include an informative note in your update before sending.
After the cancellation has gone through, this is how the results will look like in the e-paper trail:
1. “sent items”
2. a cancelled meeting conversation in your “inbox” in “conversation view”:
3. Here is a complete icon legend:

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, Screencasts, service-is-library, training Tags: 2007, 2010, 2011, calendaring, cancelling, live@edu, ms-exchange, outlook, outlook-live, resources, scheduling

LRC Outlook/Exchange 2010 Resource Calendaring: How staff view resource “Calendars from your organization” in OWA

2011/08/30 plagwitz 6 comments

Note: Students that have not been specifically invited to share a calendar, must use (staff may also) this approach to view calendars, to avoid a permission problem .
Staff can load resource calendars, but as somebody who books the resource (except where you still cannot book/schedule/sign up: Tutors), you normally neither need nor want to (unless you manage the resources).
1. To preview the free/busy schedule of the resource, use the scheduling assistant instead.
2. To make sure that you have booked the resource, load your OWN calendar instead: Since it is you who “meets” with the resource, your meeting will be reflected on there. If you also loaded the resource’s calendar, you would see your “meeting” twice. A meeting always appears in the calendar of all “participants” – only that, other than for resource calendars, you normally do not view the calendar of the other participants who are “human resources”(or maybe you are, at least in the scheduling assistant, but not with details beyond “busy”).
3. You may want to load the resource calendar to learn details about the other “meetings”of the resource (e.g. which conflicting meeting organizer you can contact in an emergency, or to know how many tentative meeting requests are already pending for a tutor). Below is how:
Similarly to in Outlook (desktop): , in OWA, click on the lower left “Calendar-icon” to unfold the “My Calendars” list in the left pane, then right-click on “My Calendars”, choose “Add Calendar” .
put (part of) the name, click “ok”
if there are multiple matches, select the correct one (you can only select one at a time)
press “OK” again: .
As explained above, there is little reason to go overboard and add too many calendars, unless you have to manage:
However, you can also easily remove calendars, through the context menu item “Remove shared calendar”

Room and Equipment handling using MS-Exchange Resource Mailboxes: What the parameter AddNewRequestsTentatively means

2011/08/22 plagwitz 1 comment

It is an instruction to the calendarattendant, that seems to be conjured up by automateprocessing: autoupdate, but also, now together with, but still separate from, the resource booking assistant, by automateprocessing: autoaccept
It is an instruction relating only to meeting requests, not to meetings. But it is not the calendarattendant, but rather the resource booking assistant that decides what is to remain a request and what not (= what is to be accepted or denied, and thus to stop being a mere request and be promoted to a meeting). if there are no (mere) requests (since all requests, for whatever other settings, are either auto-accepted or auto-denied, so effectively automatically rendered into non-(not anymore) requests, the AddNewRequestsTentatively will have no effect on the calendar. It is these other settings, that may allow requests to remain requests. Even though the parameter name may sound like it is doing this, it is NOT AddNewRequestsTentatively that will turn off/override these other settings to make all incoming requests remain requests. It is rather automateprocessing: autoupdate (or a combination of automateprocessing: autoaccept and allbookinpolicy: $false and Allrequestinpolicy: $true (and even more so AllRequestOutOfPolicy: $true) that would do that.
However, the latter is the combination if have for pseudo-rooms where it is important that the delegate can collate requests in a calendar-format when deciding which to accept/deny, instead of having to cobble together a picture from forwarded meeting request messages.
Organizer can make a request (out of policy: maxduration), and it appears on the organizers calendar
It appears on the room calendar for the delegate as tentative
It appears in the scheduling assistant as tentative, for others to see

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, e-infrastructure Tags: 2010, AddNewRequestsTentatively, calendaring, ms-exchange

Room and Equipment handling using MS-Exchange Resource Mailboxes: What the parameter AllowConflict means

2011/08/22 plagwitz 1 comment

NOT TRUE HERE? More info here, search “AllowConflicts”.
Is required for a practically very desirable feature in handling of recurring meeting requests: A conflict exception still allows the basic recurrent meeting go through I found a helpful flowchart , see bottom left for effect of Allowconflicts.
what will the effect be on non-recurring meeting requests? Will conflict in.stances (there are only instances with non-recurring meeting requests) still be denied? From the flowchart and when allowconflicts comes into play (only after automateprocessing: autoaccept (it does not come into play with automateprocessing:autoupdate) immediately before thresholds ) and that it still does not allow actual conflicts, it appears to me that allowconflicts should have been called “allow-a-recurring-meeting-request-to-be-not-outright-denied-if-it-has-conflict-instances-that-have-to-be-denied-(always-by-the-autoaccept-agent)-as-long-as-not-the-ConflictPercentageAllowed-and-MaximumConflictInstances-numbers-are-also-exceeded”. it was, however, with good reason not called: “allowdoublebooking” J
That much about the theory. Now the Test results for AllowConflicts $true
1. What works: Allowconflicts does not prompt the autoprocessing: autoaccept (calendar booking assistant) to allow actual conflict instances (double bookings)) from recurring meeting requests.
2. What does not seem to work, but is not important right now: thresholds for conflict amounts are ignored, even if both are crossed
  1. MaximumConflictInstances= 5
  2. ConflictPercentageAllowed= 25% guides the calendar booking assistant in deciding whether a recurring meeting request gets
  3. (10 conflict instances out of 20) still get accepted,

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, e-infrastructure Tags: 2010, AllowConflicts, calendaring, ms-exchange

Our Office 2010 & Office365/Live@Edu/Live not yet @Edu/Ninermail Upgrade: A running log

2011/08/11 plagwitz 1 comment

Just logging some notes, observations, issues, step-by-step instructions…
Office 2010ff install (office2010-full-install-labadmn.wmv [all links are to the folder only, choose screencast by name):
1. 0:00-2:00: you can easily install Office 2010 from the ISO file without physical CD media, if you first install the free Magic Disc, then from the system notification tray, mount the ISO file to the , open the pseudo-drive from Explorer, which starts the installer through Autorun
2. 2:00-4:00: since we do not want frozen imaged lab computers to ask for the installation media “on first run”of Office features, we choose button:customize, tab:installation options: “run all from Computer” (top – level selection is sufficient, rest of video is looking around), then button:upgrade
3. Lots of waiting ensues…
4. At the end, 28:55, “Microsoft office professional plus 2010 encountered and error during setup”, also the installer complains once about another instance running, then 38:12 asks for rebooting,
Office 2010 first run (office2010first-run-excel-web-app-test.wmv):
1. after reboot, the installation seems to have completed
2. changing Office update policies seems to be not allowed
3. file /save&send / save to web / windows live / log in / browse to a folder / give a filename:
4. type something, save and exit
5. in web browser, open windows live:
  1. log in, go to menu:SkyDrive, browse to the folder, find the file, click on it to view in browser,
  2. from top menu, choose edit in browser, type something, save,
  3. from top menu choose edit in excel, wait for download to open, type something, save&close,
  4. go back to web browser, open the update document from the right users (lab staff).
sharing with windows live
Natural language features testing in MS-Office 2010 is being logged here.