Office365 Shared Calendars are not easy but there are options.

Every company I have worked for either as a consultant or an employee has had a shared calendar which is used to track leave, special events, birthdays and other information which is “shared” with everyone in the organisation. Cloud based access to this calendar is required to allow staff to view upcoming internal and external events and to co-ordinate leave.

Requirements;

• The calendar must be viewable on iPhone, iPad, Android Phone, Surface and the internet via a website.
• Changes to the calendar need to be able to be done from anywhere with any device.
• Security on the events in a calendar needs to be granular. (Board meeting are public but leave should be only for staff)
• Where possible native Apple, Android and Windows apps should be able to view the calendar without requiring Outlook to be installed.
• External people need to be included in invitations to some events in the calendar without giving them full access to the calendar.
• Calendar must hold internal events (leave, meetings etc) and external events such as board meetings.

Possible Solutions;

Outlook Public Folder Calendar – Not available on iOS or android without using 3rd party package.
Office365 Team Calendar – Can be made to work with a shared calendar but hands over full control.
Office365 Resource Calendar – Require multiple calendars for each use. ie leave,board etc
Calendar Wiz – Meets almost all of our requirements.
ECal – A great calendar used by sports teams but to expensive for an internal shared calendar
iCloud Calendars – Requires Apple accounts for each user.

Conclusion

Calendar Wiz provides a single calendar which can contain multiple categories with security applied to the calendar and to each category on a per user basis.

There are two types of access to the calendar with users able to log in and see more information than a subscriber who can be invitied to meetings and view public information.