ms-exchange | Thomas' Work Space

LRC Outlook/Exchange 2010 Resource Calendaring: How LRC staff can group calendars in Outlook 2010

2011/09/28 plagwitz 1 comment

You can save the currently loaded calendars as a preset or “group” from the ribbon in the calendar view of outlook 2010, like so:
The group and its members will be added to your calendar tree, and you can load all members with one click, like so:
Then you can create multiple presets which correspond to your typical workflows: E.g. when you do not have to check the availability of equivalent sets of equipment, you may want to have an easy overview of staffing in the LRC:
Note that – while we have to load individually the calendars of other mailboxes we own –, calendar groups we create in Outlook are automagically mirrored in OWA

But the calendar names get lost in the process? And: the batch select checkbox is missing. And: only up to 5 calendars can be viewed in OWA simultaneously. And: OWA does not support overlay mode for calendars.):
It would be great if calendar groups, with the help of ActiveSync, even worked their way through to mobile devices, but apparently they do not:

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

LRC Outlook/Exchange 2010 Resource Calendaring: How to display a Room/Staff/Tutor calendar aggregate at the reception desk using live@edu

2011/09/28 plagwitz 1 comment

The LRC needs an overview aggregate calendar of its many rooms and services for clients in the entrance area. This should be always on display on the higher one of the reception area dual screen computers when screens are in extended mode
From the calendar mailbox in OWA , these calendars can and have been published to the internet.
1. LRC assistants can load and bookmark multiple (published or shared) calendars in their OWA, but there are limitations
  1. We do not want to clutter LRC Assistants OWA with LRC calendars more than we have to.
  2. OWA displays calendars (currently = 2011) only side-by-side, there is no overlay (=aggregate) mode like in Outlook 2010, and only up to 5 simultaneously, again unlike Outlook 2010 (30) (Students do not have Outlook (although it is being considered installing it on student staffed computers).
2. A standard web browser allows for display of only one (HTML) calendar at a time in a web browser.
3. ICS compatible applications like live@edu

can display many (=aggregate) ICS-based calendars in overlay mode.
In addition, it is easy to change the display color (like in Outlook 2010) and display color (unlike in Outlook 2010, for me at least).
In live@edu, this looks promising:
To display more meaningful/less misleading subjects than “Busy” for pseudo-rooms (“offices” like LRC assistants or language tutors), add a subject (office name “LRC Assistant”or max class-level tutored).
To have LRC assistants easily and consistently load this aggregate calendar view,
1. we need to give tutors the password to uncc-lrc credentials – being “friends” not enough (which makes their own access to SkyDrive which we finally achieved yesterday useless – unless they log in as themselves and as uncc-lrc in 2 different browsers)
2. However, I have not found a way to aggregate calendar ics files and display them without password (ideally in Joomla)
3. Workaround: use a AutoIT auotmation script that runs when LRC Assistant logs in form the All users Startup Folder.

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

How not to book LRC equipment: Scheduling conflicts

2011/09/23 plagwitz 3 comments

Do not send a meeting request to an item for a time when the item has a prior meeting request.
The tab: scheduling assistant within the meeting request you edit is there to tell you when items have prior meeting requests.

A “blocked” timeline denotes a prior meeting request: The item has already been booked (solid block) or requested (hatched block) during the start and end time of your meeting. Do not crash their party.
“blank” timeline means “item is free”. Go ahead: You can request a meeting with this item between your start and end time.
Once you have this overview, you can easily remove, by right-clicking on the resource, extra resources that you cannot book or could, but which you do not need:

Once the university has mail-enabled your cloud-accounts on campus, we will have a computer decline such conflicting requests automatically, and force you to start over with a new meeting request. It will be still worth your while memorizing the above: You can save time and avoid disappointment.

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

Exchange 2010 and Live@edu: How to use resource calendar publishing to implement a help desk timetable and signup sheet

2011/09/22 plagwitz 1 comment

Calendar sharing with students that have only cloud accounts in live@edu requires them to be mail-enabled users in on-premise AD and only works if a users privileged to share shares with individuals through the GUI (in our circumstances: no groups, no PowerShell access).
Workaround to share resource calendar information is: publish calendars to the internet. This needs careful consideration of privacy issues, but Exchange 2010 provides you with a number of helpful options, including “availability only”.
If you publish, you can easily generate the links from the resource mailbox name, and manage large sets of calendars e.g. in an MS-Excel Web app.
As you can see in the below LRCTutor12 calendar subscribed to in either OWA or Windows Live, the Exchange 2010 ICS does not seem to provide the calendar name, users have to update it manually (maybe use the resource mailbox account name from the calendar URL).
2. If you “hack” resource calendars to be a help desk timetable (support personnel, like lab assistants/tutors, one calendar per language, sharing the support role), and have personnel update their availability with late-breaking changes through their Outlook calendars (“cancel this occurrence”) and automatically get these changes pushed out to all users over the internet.
3. You can also “hack” a signup sheet “on steroids”:
  1. enforce a MaximumDurationInMinutes suitable for a sign-up appointment duration)
  2. set the AutomateProcessing option to AutoUpdate,
  3. accept the meeting requests of lab assistants/tutors at term start, so that they appear as solid blocks in the calendar, and advise clients trying to sign-up that only 1 client can sign-up during any given solid block with the office.
  4. Then ignore meeting requests of clients during the term (but communicate the rule to clients: only one client can sign up for support from the “office” during any given time slot. There is in my knowledge no way to set a number in Exchange 2010. Neither MaximumConflictInstances nor ResourceCapacity are applicable). The client meeting requests will remain tentative and appear hatched in the calendar for any other client to see.
  5. It is advisable to publish the calendar not with “Availability” only, but with “Limited Detail”, so that additional information (office hours dedicated to specific support topics/clinics, specific requests by clients) can be passed back and forth between support personnel and clients (and anything is better than “Free/Busy” which is especially misleading for such office calendars). Note that even if OrganizerInfo is included on-premise, it seems not included on calendars published to the internet (option “public”; “restricted” has not been tested), which makes Limited Detail possible in our environment.
4. Publishing the calendar to the internet with “Full details” could be used for passing additional information, like special handling instructions to student workers,
5. Ìt appears that a calendar can not simultaneously be published "public" and "restricted" (need to know the obscure URL), let alone with different levels of information included.

Categories: all-languages, audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, e-infrastructure, software Tags: 2010, AutomateProcessing, AutoUpdate, calendars, live@edu, MaximumDurationInMinutes, ms-exchange, organizerinfo, publishing, scheduling, tutoring

Protected: Exchange 2010 Resource Mailboxes: Running Log

2011/09/22 plagwitz Enter your password to view comments.

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors Tags: 2007, 2010, 2011, calendaring, FAQs, live@edu, ms-exchange, outlook, outlook-live, resources, scheduling

MS-Exchange 2010 and OWA: Set Resource Calendar Response messages for Automateprocessing

2011/09/21 plagwitz 1 comment

You do not need your Exchange Admin to manage and change the ResponseMessages that your Resources Mailbox Assistants sent out by your Calendar Assistants.
In OWA, impersonating the mailbox, in the upper right corner, go to “Options” / menu item: “see all options”, and then:

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-infrastructure Tags: 2010, AdditionalResponse, AutomateProcessing, ms-exchange, OWA

Exchange 2010 Internet Calendars Publishing: 404 and Access level restricted

2011/09/21 plagwitz 1 comment

to access a calendar by its friendly URL (with mailbox name) and get error “404 – File or directory not found. The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable”, like here:
Check your calendar publishing settings: They are likely set to “restricted”, as opposed to “public” which results in an obscure instead of memorable URL, like here:
Change the settings to “publish”and “save”, this will update the URLS, like here:

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, Glitches&Errors Tags: 2010, ms-exchange

LRC Outlook/Exchange 2010 Resource Calendaring: How students can view resource "Calendars from the Internet" in web browser and OWA

2011/09/20 plagwitz 5 comments

Want a shorter version?
Students, unless specifically TBA:invited, will encounter a permission problem when trying to view calendars like staff.
Instead, students can use the scheduling assistant to view a basic version of the resource’s calendar. This works “out of the box”.
Students can also view an advanced version of the resource’s calendars (one-time, or bookmark this link in your web browser – hope you know how to synch your bookmarks between all the devices you use…). This requires little work: click on the “view” link in the “student calendar” column of our list of LRC resources that you can book or check out, to see the current calendar in your web browser:
For students who check the calendar of a resource regularly (e.g. to see when the LRC main classroom is available for your self-access/the tutor in your language, for help), it is better to “bookmark” the resources’ calendars in NINERMAIL. Here is how:

Copy the URL for the calendar you just opened, from the web browser address bar:
Go to NINERMAIL, 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” .
In the “Calendar URL” field, paste URL of the calendar you just opened, but replace “html” at the end with “ics”: , click “OK”.
For on-premise users in OWA (seems OWA stirs on-premise users to the superior intranet calendars, which would be good. But what if the intranet calendar has not been shared with this user, but internet sharing is intended?), This may not work as advertised (neither with protocol http and webcal) OR just need a lot of time (~12hours?) to synchronize,while it works (both with protocol http and webcal) when subscribing from Windows Live? . Most importantly for us (as we have now tested), it works for students with accounts in the cloud from NINERMAI.
OWA remembers your internet calendar subscriptions, and you can easily display or hide them, using the checkboxes it provides. To keep an overview over your calendars added from the internet, you need to rename them, by right-clicking on them, like so: