I'm busy testing the latest dogfood version of the new 2007 Microsoft
Office system. As I journey ever deeper into the new applications in
the system I'm uncovering some really neat features. One of my
favourites is Outlook 2007's new Send a Calendar via Email feature which allows you to, er, well, send a calendar via email. It works like this: while composing an email, hit the Calendar icon in the Include section of the ribbon:
This brings up a dialog box that allows you to chose how you would like your calendar to appear.
You can choose to show your time using one of three different options:- Availability only (times shown only as Free/Busy/Tentative/Out of Office)
- Limited details (as above but with the meeting subject lines also shown)
- Full details (the whole caboodle, warts and all)
And what you then get is a custom piece of clickable text inserted
into your email that shows your availability for the dates you have
chosen. A snapshot of your calendar is also enclosed in the email as a
.ics file. Here's how Outlook presents my 'availability only' for
tomorrow:
Is this 'useful technology'? I'll say! Use this when you want to
organise a meeting with someone who does not have access to your shared
calendar. I reckon I've used this new feature at least once a day since
discovering it a couple of weeks ago. A real time saver.
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