Been having a real hard time creating an all staff calendar in Microsoft 365 - any solutions?

Posted by PsyduckAF@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 19 comments

All I need is a calendar, that can be managed by one user, that all staff can view but not edit, and they can view the calendar in their Outlook client/OWA. I really feel like theres no clear answer, and it's doing my head in at this point. What I've tried: \- Created an all staff 365 group, but there's no way for members of the group to not edit the calendar entries. I tried the PS command "Set-UnifiedGroup -CalendarMemberReadonly:$true", but it seems like the cmdlet isn't working at the moment (https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/office-docs-powershell/issues/11047) \- I created a list on our SharePoint intranet home page and enabled calendar view, but there's no way for users to add this calendar to their Outlook client. The "Connect to Outlook" button is greyed out. And quite frankly, the whole process seems very legacy. I'm not sure this is the best way. Is my only solution to create a Shared Mailbox? I really thought there'd be a better way, but I guess not...

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19 Comments

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Korvacs@reddit

We use a room calendar for this, I also want to move to a group with the members restricted from editing but as you say the command is broken at the moment.

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brkdncr@reddit

Public Folder calendar.

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PsyduckAF@reddit (OP)

Oh interesting. I've never even heard of this tbh. Looking it up now and saw that public folder calendars are accessible in Outlook but not on mobile. I can't win.

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167819@reddit

Who even demands this? Tell them they hit the limitation of the products that microsoft offers.

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PsyduckAF@reddit (OP)

Who demands what sorry?

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167819@reddit

> public folder calendars are accessible in Outlook but not on mobile. who demands that they're on mobile? isn't this ok as is?

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PsyduckAF@reddit (OP)

I meant the calendar. So users can look at the calendar in Outlook on their phone.

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167819@reddit

Yes, I know. That is not offered by microsoft. BY. MICROSOFT. What is the problem, simply say that it won't be available on mobile and that's it. End of story, it is not available on mobile. Again, I'd tell whoever wants it on their phone that they hit the limitation of the products that Microsoft offers. Live with that.

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PsyduckAF@reddit (OP)

An organization wide calendar isn't something that Microsoft offers?

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167819@reddit

of course it is, but apparently someone says > can be managed by one user, that all staff can view but not edit why?? just use what is there.

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PsyduckAF@reddit (OP)

Awww, new to IT?

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167819@reddit

if you call 7 years new lmao I'd have closed the ticket long ago

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PsyduckAF@reddit (OP)

Oh... Helpdesk. That explains it 🤣

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167819@reddit

why??

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brkdncr@reddit

Only shared mailboxes appear on mobile and only on the outlook app. You may want to look at sharepoint again, but use sharepoint as the app, not an email client.

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PsyduckAF@reddit (OP)

Oh interesting. I've never even heard of this tbh. Going to look into it.

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nsdeman@reddit

Good question, I was curious and had a mess around in the developer tenant In Outlook Web * I went to a shared mailbox (though you can probably use any) * Clicked the 3 horizontal dots to the right -> sharing and permissions * Instead of entering a user to share with I set the "People in my Organization" setting from "Can view when I'm busy" to "Can view all details" From what I understand it's altering the basic view people typically see when they want to book a meeting with others. That might do what you want? You'd give people you want to manage the calendar full rights to the mailbox as you typically would. The downside is people would need to add the calendar manually which unless there's a way of automating that it might be another swing and a miss You can also publish a calendar which you might be able to get SharePoint to present? (I don't speak SharePoint sorry)

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cW_Thiger@reddit

It depends for what you need it exactly, but you could also create a resource Mailbox and set the settings in a way that the Mailbox only accepts invites from a certain User and/or give that user full Mailbox permission. Otherwise, as you said, Shared Mailbox is a solution

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PsyduckAF@reddit (OP)

It's just for an all staff calendar that we can add events etc to. Resource mailboxes seem like they're more for rooms or facilities, doesn't seem like the right fit. I think the only option is a Shared Mailbox. Ridiculous.