MSN Calendar & Outlook integration (from: Torres Talking)
http://spaces.msn.com/members/mike/Blog/cns!1pG4qKNdtRA5Nl-UhvZI_1rQ!1125.entry | Comments
What has MSN been doing recently in the calendar space? Well, one of the best new features of MSN Calendar is one most people don’t even know about (I really do say that a lot.) It is the integration into Microsoft Outlook as part of the Outlook Connector for MSN. (note: this feature is for people who live by their calendar like me - not really for lightweights)
Not only can you use Outlook to manage your online calendar (way cool), but you can share your calendar with others AND pull shared calendars on MSN down into Outlook. So you can view your spouse’s calendar right next to yours in Outlook without ever having to launch a web browser. But it doesn’t stop there. If you are an MSN Groups user, it will also pull your shared Group calendars into Outlook and let you toggle which ones appear next to your personal calendar. And this all works seamlessly on top of an Exchange configuration - talk about integration!
So your Outlook calendar might have:
- My Calendar (MSN)
- My Work Calendar (Exchange)
- Mom’s Calendar (MSN)
- Dad’s Calendar (MSN)
- Jay’s Calendar (Exchange)
- Soccer Club Schedule (MSN Groups)
- Team Meetings (MSN Groups)
This is a pretty powerful feature, tying the best of client technologies with the best of the web.
MSN Calendar also supports sharing right from the website - check it out at http://calendar.msn.com. I worked on this feature (on the underlying platform) when I first arrived at Microsoft - so I guess what I said in that last post about finally getting away from from time zones wasn’t entirely accurate. Somehow calendars always find me - or I always find them.
Update: Check out this tour of Outlook Live! with calendar sharing, etc. Compelling stuff - check out #6 for a demo of the calendar sharing functionality I talk about above.