Microsoft has ‘improved’ calendar sharing for all their Microsoft hosted accounts but Outlook (classic) has been left behind with too many bugs with some still outstanding. The changed Shared Calendars is a good move that’s been poorly implemented for many customers.
The Shared Calendar changes are an attempt to standardize the mix of different technologies across the many different versions of Outlook.
Of course, Microsoft doesn’t admit their previous mistakes, this is their summary of the Shared Calendar changes.
- “Users can share their calendar from any version of Outlook and have the same permission options on all versions.
- Users can easily accept shared calendar invitations from any Outlook application and see those shared calendars on all their devices.
- Users can view all their shared calendars on any device or calendar application. If someone changes a shared calendar, all other people sharing the calendar will see the changes instantly. Users will also notice performance improvements when viewing and editing shared calendars. Using a shared calendar will be as fast and reliable as managing the user’s own calendar.“
Shared Calendars are now cached on each device with changes immediately pushed or pulled as they occur. The old system worked directly off the owners calendar store.
In addition, the new Shared Calendars work in Outlook for iPhone, iPad and Android.
There’s a fuller explanation on this Microsoft support page.
Shared Calendars should automatically switch to the new system when the Outlook app is next started.
In Outlook (classic) go to File | Account Settings | choose a Microsoft hosted account | Change | More Settings | Microsoft 365 Features | Turn on shared calendar improvements. This settings might already be turned on, it was on all our test machines.
What went wrong?
Outlook (classic) for Windows doesn’t play nice with the changed Shared Calendar system, There’s a total of 14 disclosed bugs in Shared Calendars with Outlook (classic). 11 have been fixed, one has a workaround while two are being ‘investigated’. Not a great track record.
It seems that Microsoft didn’t properly test the Shared Calendar changes or they didn’t care about the bugs in software they are trying to dump. Bugs in Outlook (classic) serve Microsoft’s agenda of pushing people to Outlook (new) by any means available.
The Shared Calendar bugs in classic Outlook are listed on this support page, here’s a summary:
Investigating
- Meeting cancellation sent unexpectedly to some attendees in classic Outlook
- Attendees do not get updates on attachment changes by Delegate
Workaround
After a user deletes an attachment from an existing meeting, the attachment may reappear after it is deleted.
WORKAROUND: Please wait approximately one minute to give the sync time to complete. Additionally, it is advisable to save attachments to SharePoint or OneDrive whenever possible and share them using a link.
Fixed
- Extending an all-day event on a shared calendar unexpectedly shortens or lengthens the event
- Issues adding and syncing internet calendars in Outlook Desktop
- Users may notice there is no “Send Update to Attendees” prompt
- Updated calendar permissions are not reflected and applied immediately
- Calendar Work time options display default settings
- Duplicate shared Calendar(s) after transitioning between Mail and Calendar modules
- Users may notice that the incorrect timeslot is selected after clicking a meeting in the Calendar
- Problems syncing shared calendars when enabling “Can view titles and locations” permissions
- Delegate observes duplicate attachments after opening sent meeting invite.
- “No Response Required” displayed in meeting invite for delegates of room mailboxes
- Meeting acceptances by delegate do not show in the delegate sent items folder
