Sharing calendar and other information

There were two reasons that caused me to abandon [more like regrettably stop using] Eudora® as my e-mail program of choice:

1. Most of my clients used Microsoft® Office Outlook®
2. Eudora is not a complete personal information manager (PIM)

Knowing about the ever-expanding array of Outlook issues and vulnerabilities was helpful, and I can attest to having worked through many of them over the years, but that represented half the battle. The second knarly set of issues came up when it was time to share calendar (and other) information.

Die hard or longtime Outlook users know that it’s been possible for quite a number of years to share calendar information, tasks, contacts, notes and e-mail. But until Outlook 2007, some of this could only be done on a network, with the magic of a Microsoft Exchange Server. I’ve worked in office environments where Outlook was used to the max: proxies were set so I could monitor my bosses’ calendars and e-mail, meeting rooms were added as resources that could be booked, groups were set up, etc. Of course, there were always one or more key IT people behind all of that magic, making it work, or keeping it working.

What of us who find ourselves in non-networked (or non-Exchange) environments, but who still have to share information? Actually, there are many solutions out there.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 offers several ways to share your calendar information, while also allowing you—without the need of a Microsoft Exchange Server—to assign tasks to others, or invite them to meetings. If you have a Windows Live™ ID account (formerly .NET™ Passport), you can publish your calendar to the Internet (and control access to it, which is called setting permissions). Another way to share your Outlook calendar is to simply send it in an e-mail. You set some parameters (the duration of time it covers, for example) and an HTML “Calendar Snapshot” is created in the body of an e-mail message. If the recipient is also a Microsoft Outlook 2007 user, s/he can view or open the snapshot, display it side-by-side with another calendar, or even do a calendar overlay. These are just two of several ways that the new Outlook allows you to share information.

If you create an account with Google, you can access—and share—a Google Calendar. I’m new to doing this, but apparently it has some very cool bells and whistles, including the ability to synchronize with Outlook’s calendar. I haven’t tried that yet—I’m afraid—but it might be worth a whirl one day. The benefits are substantial: once you create or publish a calendar in a secure, online environment, you can allow access to or share it. Move over, Yahoo!® Groups: Google has arrived. And those are just two examples of the huge expanding offerings that Google has for us right now.

In my virtual assistance practice I’ve already used Microsoft Outlook 2007 to share calendar information (at one time, with a client who was using Microsoft Outlook 2003), as well as used Google, and Groove. Speaking of Groove…

AssistU’s Virtual Training Program (VTP) introduced me to Groove Networks’ (at the time) Groove Virtual Office. In a word: wow! This is one of the finest pieces of collaborative software I’ve ever used. In 2005, Microsoft acquired Groove Networks and a little later, released Microsoft Office Groove. While Microsoft Office Groove 2007 actually lacks some of the functionality of version 3.1, it packs a wallop in terms of collaborative tools. One of those is a calendar, and it’s easy to use. With the right permissions, any member of a “workspace” can add or edit calendar entries. And when anything in a shared workspace is updated, all members get notified via Groove’s network. It is very, very cool.

So there’s Outlook, Windows Live, Google, and Groove. And in fact, there are many more programs that allow you to share calendar and other information, either on a standalone basis, or in conjunction with other programs.

ShareO© has been around for quite a while, and works with all versions of Outlook: though I did have some problems when I tried to use it on a Microsoft Windows Vista™-based notebook. And in fact 4Team.biz (the folks who make ShareO) have a number of interesting products. Calgoo©, under the name of Calgoo Hub, has a number of ways that allow us to share information. Though I haven’t checked it out, KeepandShare has four options available for collaboration, starting with their free service that includes calendar, file, photo, and document sharing. If you can put with some ads, get the free version.

How do you share calendar information, or collaborate with your clients or friends or fellow VAs? Send me an e-mail offline if you like, or write a quick reply to this post!

Comments

[Danielle Guerin]

Great post Rob! I've been using Microsoft SharePoint with my clients since 2003. The new version (3.0) is fantastic and allows the same features as Groove for calendar sharing (with Outlook 2007), and many more features such as project management, document sharing, appointing tasks, etc...

[Mimi]

Many thanks, Robb, for this excellent and (as always) informative post!

[Stacy]

Great post, Rob!

I am a confirmed and die-hard Groove fan. So much so, in fact, that all of us at AssistU work in Groove together. My single biggest thrill comes from the fact that we no longer email each other, and as a result, no correspondence ever gets lost or delayed.

It's so greatly reduced my need to email that I also ended my relationship with Eudora, and moved what email I still have to do over to Gmail--using their web interface for everything, including receiving, and sending from all my various domain-based aliases. Gmail makes it simple to do that, and I honestly haven't found myself feeling limited at all by its being "web mail." Ok -- there is one limit I'd change. It's that I can't choose different sig lines for different email addresses I'm sending from. Such a small thing, though, you know?

I had briefly (verrrrrrrry) considered using Outlook for email when I got my new PC desktop, but nixed the idea because of the security issues. None of the good stuff outweighed the bad for me.

Having said that, I do use Outlook for calendaring and contacts, and tasks and notes and such. And I share calendaring and contacts across a hosted Exchange service (mailstreet.com) with my COO and VA because I still use Outlook 2003. We all do, in fact.

I have to say that we've been doing it this way for several years, and it works flawlessly--which is also why I'd be disinclined to change it.

I also sync my Outlook calendar with my Google calendar, and then to my Blackberry, OTA. I decided, when I got my Blackberry, to only use apps and services that work OTA, as I don't want to have to feel that to get the good stuff, I need to tether my Blackberry to my computer (and which computer to choose, btw--PC or Mac--can't sync to both!). I love the way the calendar syncs, no matter where I am, no matter when I want to do it.

I am especially loving that I can access my Outlook information *and* Groove remotely from my Macbook Air--without having to have partitioned my hard drive and loading Windows. I do that by using Remote Desktop, both across my internal network here at home, and across the Internet when I'm away. I understand I could probably also do this with LogMeIn.com, but I'm happy with the way Remote Desktop works.

All-in-all, I'm supremely happy with the way my systems work, and how they allow me, and my virtual staff members, to collaborate and keep in constant contact!

[Tiffany Odutoye]

I use the IMAP feature for email via a business Google account as well as the Google Calendar. This has full integration with my Outlook and my blackberry (you have to download a patch for the curve 8300). Google calendar is synced (seamlessly) with my blackberry calendar. My desktop gets updated when I'm in the office.

The great thing about this is that my VA, who manages my calendar via the business Google account, uses all the bells and whistles, and *presto* - it shows up instantly on my blackberry!!! I love it!!!

Because of the IMAP feature, all messaging can be accessed either on the road (online) or on the desktop, when I return. Seamless collaboration at its best:).

I love it - can you tell? :-)

Tiff-

[Tiffany Odutoye]

PS - did I mention that it's free? Another reason why I love the features (described in my previous post).

Tiff-

[Rob Neilly]

Wow ... I've been (happily) run over with all the *quality* comments on this post about sharing calendar and data. Thank you, all.

Blogging in the best of all worlds means a lot of things, but these two stand out:

- bloggers have something relevant to write about
- someone who is reading the blog has something to share, and shares it

Sweet.

Danielle talked about SharePoint and I appreciated that. I should have included it in my post, but now we all know about it.

Mimi dropped in to say hi, and thanks. We hadn't chatted for a while, so it was nice 'hearing' from her again.

Stacy covered many of the ways she uses a combination of Groove, MailStreet and other collaborative tools to keep her happy, as well as keeping things flowing smoothly at AssistU.

And Tiffany added two sets of comments, to sing the praises of Google Calendar. The more I use Google, the more I like it.

So the discussion was contributed to by several, and fleshed out nicely. Thanks everyone!

[Nikki]

Take a look at OfficeCalendar (http://www.officecalendar.com) - you may find what you're looking for. We sure did!

[Rob Neilly]

Hi Nikki,

Just wanted to thank you for sharing the link to OfficeCalendar; I scoped it, and it looks good! The price is competitive, and they seem to have a great support system.

Rob