Publish Outlook Calendar Free/Busy Times Only to External Web Site
I use Outlook 2007 with a hosted Exchange 2007 account. I would like to publish my Outlook calendar to my hosted web site, but with a few caveats.
1) I only want to publish generic appointment descriptions--I do not want any of the appointment descriptions to be displayed, and I do not want to have to mark any appointments as Private to hide the description. All appointments should simply say "Busy".
2) I would like to display both Busy and Free times. So if I have an appointment from 9am - 10am, and then another from 12pm - 2pm, I want those times to show busy, and then show 10am - 12pm as free. I suppose the most important part is the free time, where I am available for appointments.
3) It would be great if the solution could publish directly to an FTP or web site, but I would be fine with generating an HTML file that I then upload manually to my web site.
4) The goal is for customers to be able to go to a single web page on my web site and check when I am available for a call or meeting.
I have reviewed most of the solutions on Slipstick, but none seem to accommodate these requirements.
http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/olpubcal.asp
I have tried the Word templates that extract appointment data into a Word doc, but those list my appointment descriptions by default. I have also tried the "Save As web page" option in Outlook, but that too prints the descriptions. And all of these produce a pretty cluttered looking calendar as a result.
The solution does not have to be freeware--I am willing to pay a reasonable price for the solution if one already exists. If not, I'll probably hire a developer to have it custom developed. Just wondering if such a solution already exists before I spend time developing it.
1) I only want to publish generic appointment descriptions--I do not want any of the appointment descriptions to be displayed, and I do not want to have to mark any appointments as Private to hide the description. All appointments should simply say "Busy".
2) I would like to display both Busy and Free times. So if I have an appointment from 9am - 10am, and then another from 12pm - 2pm, I want those times to show busy, and then show 10am - 12pm as free. I suppose the most important part is the free time, where I am available for appointments.
3) It would be great if the solution could publish directly to an FTP or web site, but I would be fine with generating an HTML file that I then upload manually to my web site.
4) The goal is for customers to be able to go to a single web page on my web site and check when I am available for a call or meeting.
I have reviewed most of the solutions on Slipstick, but none seem to accommodate these requirements.
http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/olpubcal.asp
I have tried the Word templates that extract appointment data into a Word doc, but those list my appointment descriptions by default. I have also tried the "Save As web page" option in Outlook, but that too prints the descriptions. And all of these produce a pretty cluttered looking calendar as a result.
The solution does not have to be freeware--I am willing to pay a reasonable price for the solution if one already exists. If not, I'll probably hire a developer to have it custom developed. Just wondering if such a solution already exists before I spend time developing it.
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Glad to help.
Would hate to see someone pay $$$ for something they didn’t need to.
The Genius of Experts Exchange....
Would hate to see someone pay $$$ for something they didn’t need to.
The Genius of Experts Exchange....
ASKER
I tried using the WebDAV service provided by my web site hosting provider (Unix hosting with a WebDAV option), but that didn't seem to work--Outlook complained that it could not access the location.
I ended up trying the Microsoft Office Online option, and that seems to work pretty well, and allows me to publish publicly (no authentication), or only to specific people (based on e-mail address and their Live ID login).
Fortunately the primary user that I need to share with does have a Windows Live ID, so I think it will work out well.
I've sent her the invite to access the publish calendar, so tomorrow I'll find out if it works for her.
Thanks alot for the info--I was about ready to spend $500-$600 to have something custom developed.
Steve