Creating a New Calendar

Create a new Calendar by following these steps:

1. Make sure you are in Calendar view and click File, then, New, then Calendar. The Create New Folder dialog box appears.
2. Enter the new Calendar’s name. Accept all the other default options to create your new Calendar in the existing Calendar folder.
3. Click OK. It will now appear in the My Calendars section of the Navigation Pane.

Telling Outlook Which Calendars to Display

Telling Outlook which Calendar or Calendars you want it to display is easy. Just set the checkbox for each Calendar you want to be able to see right now, and clear the checkbox if you want that Calendar hidden. If you select multiple Calendars, Outlook will display them all simultaneously.

Multiple Calendars can be displayed two ways, and if you have three or more Calendars visible at once, you can mix and match the two ways in whatever manner suits the needs of the moment. Outlook can display Calendars side-by-side or one overlaid on top of the other. The overlaid view is one of the new Calendar features introduced in Outlook 2007.

In the side-by-side view, the Calendars appear next to each other, much as they would if you laid two printed calendars side by side on the kitchen table. In this view, it is easy to read each Calendar by itself, but comparing two or more Calendars is hard since you need to keep looking back and forth between them. This can lead to more mistakes.

To picture the overlaid view, imagine that each Calendar was printed on a transparent sheet of plastic, and you’ve stacked the sheets on top of each other. They each show the exact same period of time in the same place, and you can see all the information from each ‘layer’ of Calendar. Because they are physically in the same place, when the Calendars have overlapping appointments it’s easy to see. This makes it easy to spot scheduling conflicts or open times in all the Calendars. That said, with all the information stacked up the way it is in overlaid view, this view can be confusing, especially if one or more of your Calendars is crowded.

There’s a lot more to working with multiple Calendars, but now you at least know how to create them and view them.

Creating and viewing multiple Calendars is just one of the things covered in the sixth lesson of the 6-week online course, Introduction to Outlook 2007. There we talk about how to work with multiple Calendars, along with all other major aspects of using Calendars in Outlook. If strengthening your skills with Outlook 2007 makes sense to you in these uncertain economic times, I strongly suggest you visit http://IntroToOutlook2007.info to learn more about the course.

The Basics

By default, Outlook displays multiple Calendars side-by-side. That means all you need to do is select the Calendars you want to view in My Calendars. Each Calendar appears with a different color trim to make it easier for you to tell them apart. Your main, or primary Calendar is always displayed on the left side of the Outlook window. The other Calendars (your secondary Calendars), are on the right.

To view Calendars overlaid, you begin by selecting the Calendars you want to see in My Calendars. They will appear side-by-side at first. To overlay a secondary Calendar on the primary Calendar, click the left arrow next to the secondary Calendar’s name. This tells Outlook that you want the secondary Calendar to be overlaid on the primary Calendar. Overlaying Calendars always entails overlaying one or more secondary Calendars on the primary Calendar, but beyond that, you can have any combination of overlaid and side-by-side Calendars that you want. If you click the right arrow next to the name of a secondary Calendarcauses it to switch from overlaid mode to side-by-side. Clicking the right arrow beside the name of the primary Calendar causes all the overlaid Calendars to go back to side-by-side mode.

Modifying Calendar Options

While the default Calendar options generally work well, there are a few options you might want to adjust to adapt Outlook for your company’s workweek or your personal schedule and habits. Here’s an example. I am very much a morning person, and frequently begin my work day at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. On the other hand, I have some night owl friends who don’t start working until 10:00 in the morning or later. The Calendar can be adjusted to match these starting times and a variety of other individual schedule variations. Check it out:

1. In the main Outlook window, click Tools > Options. This opens the Options dialog box.
2. In the Calendar section of the Options dialog box, click Calendar Options. This opens the Calendar Options dialog box.
3. Find the Calendar Work Week section of the Calendar Options dialog box. Specify your work week by checking the days you work. You can also set the First Day Of Week, First Week Of Year, Start Time, and End Time to meet your needs as well.
4. Click OK when you’re done setting these options.

At this point, you have everything you need to get your life more organized through the use of Outlook’s multiple Calendars.

Note: If you would like to see tips and tricks that will help you make even better use of Outlook Calendars, click here.

Working with multiple Calendars is just one of the topics covered in Lesson 6 of the 6-week online course, Introduction to Outlook 2007. In that lesson alone we cover all the major aspects of using Calendars in Outlook. If strengthening your skills with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 makes sense to you in these uncertain economic times, I urge you to visit http://IntroToOutlook2007.info to learn more about the course.

• You receive email messages: An alert for an email message displays the name of the sender, the subject of the message, and a bit of the body of the message.
• You receive a meeting request: An alert for a meeting request displays the name of the sender, the subject, and the date, time, and location of the meeting.
• You receive a task request: An alert for a task request displays the name of the sender, the subject, and the starting date for the task.

As long as Outlook is running (even minimized) and desktop alerts are active (which is the default option), any of the above events will trigger an alert.

Desktop alerts appear over whatever else is visible on the screen at the time. By default, they’re partially transparent, and appear along with some sort of tone or other sound to alert you to their arrival. Alerts remain visible for a few seconds, then disappear. Each of these characteristics is customizable.

Working With Desktop Alerts

Desktop alerts do more than notify you about something important. They let you work with the item without messing with the Inbox. Next time you see a Desktop Alert, notice the little down arrow in the top-right corner. Click that down arrow and Outlook displays a menu of options you can click to take various actions.

How to Customize Desktop Alerts

What many people don’t realize is that you have complete control over the behavior of alerts, including the amount of time they stay on the screen or whether they appear at all. The easiest way to customize alerts is with the Desktop Alert Settings dialog box from the main Outlook window. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Tools > Options to open the Options dialog box.
2. From the Preferences tab of the Options dialog box, click email Options.
3. From the email Options dialog box, click Advanced email Options.
4. From the Advanced email Options dialog box, click Desktop Alert Settings.

Once you get to the Desktop Alert Settings dialog box, you can adjust the amount of time that alerts appear on the screen along with the transparency of the alert box (visit Using Desktop Alerts at the Living With Outlook website for more information). Click the Preview button at the bottom of the dialog box to see what your changes would do. Click OK when you’re happy with the way things are adjusted.

Learning how to work with Desktop Alerts is just one of the topics covered in the second lesson of the 6-week online course, Introduction to Outlook 2007. If strengthening your skills with Outlook 2007 makes sense to you in these uncertain economic times, and you like the idea of a structured class with the ability to interact with your instructor, I urge you to visit http://IntroToOutlook2007.info to learn more.

Why should you choose Gmail? Well, there are lots of other free email accounts out there, for example Yahoo! Mail & Hotmail. But connecting them to Outlook for free is another story. Some Web-based email accounts are set up so you can view them using your Web browser, but they’re set up to prevent you from connecting to them with programs like Outlook. Other email accounts (Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, for example) allow you to connect to them with Outlook, but they charge you a fee for the privilege. Their free versions won’t help you at all. There’s only a small number of Web-based email accounts that allow you to connect Outlook for free. Google’s Gmail is the biggest and best of this select group.

With Gmail, you get a massive amount of space (measured in Gb) of mail storage right on Google’s servers. It also provides powerful search capabilities (basically doing a Google search on your own email). Google supports the Gmail service with advertising, but you only see the ads when you use your Gmail account with your web browser, not when you use Outlook. This is definitely the free email service you want to use to connect to Outlook.

The steps required to make the Gmail Outlook connection are moderately difficult, but most people can make the connection on their own especially if they have access to someone more experienced should they get stuck. If you want to try setting up a Gmail account & connecting it to Outlook 2007, the instructions are posted here.

Configuring Gmail and Outlook to work together is just one of the topics covered in the first lesson of the 6-week online course, Introduction to Outlook 2007. If strengthening your skills with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 makes sense to you in these uncertain economic times, and you like the idea of a structured class with the ability to interact with your instructor, I suggest you visit http://IntroToOutlook2007.info to learn more.