I have been asked whether we can have a workgroup calendar to coordinate who is on campus when.

We can use the hale-interpreting (http://hale-translation.groups.live.com) and hale-translation groups in Windows Live for this (http://hale-interpreting.groups.live.com).

Remember: Members only! You need to be a member of these groups to have access to their calendars. If you have not accepted my invitation email from a long time ago, you are not a member – and there is no point in digging that email out now, since it will have expired. However, you can go to either of the group’s home pages linked above and ask for being added. Then wait for the confirmation email response.

If you go to your calendar home page (http://calendar.live.com), all events from all “calendars” that you have access to (in the time span which you chose as your default – I use week view) display be default in one and the same “calendar”.

A bit of terminology: Lemma “calendar”, meaning: (1) a web page which looks like a paper calendar. (2) a series of related events (E.g. the MGB-36 events belong in one such “calendar” (2) as they all take place in this room).

Windows Live puts/displays all “calendars” (2) you have access to in one “calendar” (1), and differentiates the “calendars” (2) by giving each “calendar” (2) a distinct colour within “calendar” (1). The colours displayed in the picture below may be different for you – you can choose you own colour scheme from the calendar options –, but you, too, will have different colours per calendar.

You will note that the Monday “Exam” above should be in the (red) MGB-36 calendar, not in the (light blue) interpreting group calendar. That is something you will have to pay attention to when you add an event, now that you have more than one ”calendar” (2) at your disposal (actually, you always had, and the most common initial error was users putting events in their personal ”calendar” (2) (coloured green above), with the result that nobody else but them could see those events).

You can set which “calendar” (2) to add an event to in the dropdown box labelled “Calendar” (framed red below, meaning “Which one?”). Also note the “All day [event]” option which should prove especially useful for a work group leave calendar (If you find a multi-day span option, let me know).

And here is the result, viewable for all users that have access to the hale-interpreting group calendar:

If colouring is not clear enough, filter the calendar (1) for specific “calendars”(2) = display only events from selected “calendars”(2). To do that, in the left menu, uncheck the box next to the calendar to hide all events from this calendar. Result if you view only the interpreting group calendar:

The natural next step is to have better collaboration even when not all workgroup members are in the same location, using instant messaging, including what is called presence. Windows Messenger 4.7 is already installed and ready on our computers (NOT if you have not abandoned Windows 2000 yet – do it now!). Just follow the quick start under my portrait picture at the right of my spaces home page . If you use your Windows Live login, a few things things should just fall into place. If you also want group messaging (multipoint), have the newer Windows Live Messenger installed.