A New Outlook on Calendaring
If you haven’t heard yet, it’s here! Office for Mac 2011, which now includes Outlook for Mac, is finally available. It’s been great to see all the interest in Outlook since the announcement and the team will be here showing off some cool things we’ve built in the coming weeks. To get things started, let’s take a look at new tools that will help you manage your Calendar in Outlook for Mac.
Talking with customers, we frequently hear about the pain of managing personal and work calendars. It’s important to be able think of your Calendar as a single schedule that details all the stuff you have going on, without resorting to awkwardly merging your personal and work data. On the other hand, it’s useful to be able to slice and dice all the different types of things you have planned, whether it’s school, work, sports, personal, etc…and look at them in their unique context. For Exchange customers, it’s also critical that core folder considerations like sharing, delegation, public folders, and data integrity remain intact.
To address these diverse and sometimes competing workflow goals, we looked at the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of approaches and worked through a string of iterations, incorporating feedback from usability testing to hone the design. I think we landed on the right approach, one that will support both intuitively managing your schedule as a single Calendar and breaking apart its distinct parts, without sacrificing fundamental Exchange folder expectations.
With Outlook for Mac, you’ll find a new take on the navigation pane (aka Folder List). You can instantly toggle the visibility of specific parts of your calendars or look at the whole thing in one shot. You can also expand or constrict at the account or folder level to take a more traditional look at your calendars. With these simple controls, modifier keys for power users, and touches like focusing and dimming the event tiles as you switch contexts, we think you have the right tools to get creative and take control of your schedule.
note: The focus here is on Calendar, but you’ll be able to use these same navigation pane tools to manage your contacts, tasks, notes and when it’s time to print.
A large part of my day is spent attending meetings. When I’m not in a meeting, I find myself working through invites for even more meetings. I live in my inbox and when invites arrive, it’s always annoying to having to stop down, switch to my Calendar, just to take a peek at my day to see if the time works. I might not necessarily have a direct conflict, but it helps to look at the context of the day before deciding to attend. Hearing similar stories from customers, I know I’m not unique in this frustration. Our friends on the Outlook 2010 team came up with a smart solution for this inefficiency. We liked the approach and made some tweaks we thought made sense from a Mac perspective, like moving the preview side by side with the content. In Outlook 2011, you’ll now be able to instantly check your schedule right from the invite:
I’d like to conclude with something we don’t yet have in the Outlook for Mac, Sync Services support for Calendar. If you’re interested in hearing more about why this is the case, head over to my last post on the Mac Mojo blog.
Richard Kmieciak
Program Manager, MacBU
I’m looking for a way to create a calendar event from a mail message. Possibly using Automator or maybe……any thoughts?
Thanks, Doug
It should be made clear that Outlook does not sync with iPhones- neither Microsoft nor Apple indicated that it would be an issue. I upgraded from Entourage, have a great Outlook calendar on my desk top but have no way of syncing it to my iPhone.
After a long time on the phone with Apple, (I had to speak with a senior supervisor before someone knew that it wasn’t possible through iTunes) they said Mobile Me and iCal will not work with Outlook either, I can’t use a Google calendar because the Outlook export file is the wrong format and Microsoft told me that going back to Entourage would be a “laborious and time consuming” process.
Do I have any options other than waiting for the new Outlook update or the new iTunes update?
@peter Kau: We don’t offer a standalone version of Outlook 2011 but for an additional $99 you can upgrade to Home & Business edition, which does include Outlook without reinstalling Office. You can do this by starting the un-activated Outlook application on your computer, and following the purchase steps online.
@David Fletcher You can sort your contacts by first name or change your preferences when searching your contacts, find out how here: http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/outlook/item/efa0e102-9bfc-4f19-b5cd-242ab035c1f4
@Enrique: Thank you so much for sharing this great feedback! We couldn’t be happier to hear all of the ways you’re using Outlook 2011 to stay sync’d and organized. Keep rockin on!
@JBrettB: Great to hear you like it for the most part. At this time, OFM 2011 does not include the ability to drag a message into the calendar as an appointment, but we’ll keep you posted if this changes in the future. Let us know if you have any other questions.
I use Microsoft Exchange server to sync everything. Any reason why Outlook 2011 doesn’t take all my appointments made in iCal? It shows the “day” appointments, but not the time-specific appointments. Very frustrating.
*Very* disappointing not to have sync capabilities for Outlook 2011. This delay is causing much distress and dismay among many users. It seems quite ludicrous that in this automated world of ours a business product as basic as a calendar does not have the ability to sync with my telephone. Unacceptable, I would say. So, I have to purchase Entourage in order to sync until an update is issued? Advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
As usual, Microsoft releases a product that is NOT COMPLETE. I’m talking about Synching with the iPhone. How INCREDIBLY STUPID do you think we Mac Users are??? Furthermore, no TASK SYNCHING either (nor apparently on the horizon). You need an Outlook App for the iPhone!!! I don’t care about Excel, Word or Powerpoint for the iPhone – the device is too small to really make those usable. But Outlook? ABSOLUTELY.
I’ll stick with iWork, iCal, AddressBook, MacMail and Things for now. When you guys get your act together, I’ll think about upgrading.
Hi – Bought the Small Business edition and loaded it up on my new MBPro running 10.6.5. Quickly updated Office to v 14.0.1. Had a failure to import from 2004 using the import utility but finally did an export from 2004, imported that into 2011 and was up and running. Email, calendar, contacts, tasks all there.
Then I went to invite someone using that function and hit an error saying, “Before you send a meeting invitation, you must first add an e-mail account to Outlook.To add an account, on the Tools menu, click Accounts.” Of course, I have email accounts up and running.
Confirmed that I have myself in the contacts as “This is me” and can send and receive from all email accounts.
Any ideas why Outlook thinks I need to set up an account when I have them there already?
Thanks in advance for any help.
@maria – We’re sorry for your troubles and appreciate your patience. Unfortunately, we can only provide you an update to improve Outlook with newer features. Learn more about future updates here: http://blog.officeformac.com/outlook-for-mac-and-your-calendars/
@Scott S. Sorry you’re having trouble. Are the iCal appointments you’re trying to add to Outlook saved in the Export format? Outlook 2011 can only import iCal events saved in the Export (.ics) format, find out how here: http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/outlook/item/e168a6bf-7086-4fac-bfe2-0b95e37af79a
@janwynns We hear you and appreciate your patience. Entourage 2008 supported Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Notes so you have the option to continue using it. Learn more about our Outlook Sync Services here: http://blog.officeformac.com/outlook-for-mac-and-your-calendars/
Please let me know when outlook will work with mobile me and the must important for me when he will syncronise with Car Scan. I already asked it when 2011 came out and no one know.
unreal…. thanks MS. We all should just stick with native apple products. Why promote the value of MAC 2011 when it absolutely sucks without calendars… what the heck are you thinking? Can i get my $289 back???????????????????????
We use SBS2003, i bought Office for Mac 2011 Home/Business, so i can’t use outlook, so my heart is broken; Reluctantly, is it possible to buy entourage somehow to use with the rest of the new suite, or is there any other way of not having to use windows?
I can use OWA but it is even more limited than entourage i guess. Any suggestions?
Thank You
Mark
Hey Mojo Team –
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put the calendar synch higher up on the fix list. This drag and drop stuff is a pain.
Otherwise I am pretty happy!
@Federico Roy We will definitely keep you posted on any MobileMe calendar sync updates. Learn more here: http://blog.officeformac.com/outlook-for-mac-and-your-calendars/
@Rich Hall Sorry you’re having trouble, with a little more information we’ll try to help you. You have your email accounts setup with your Outlook 2011 and you were unable to send the meeting request, or were you able to send the request? Is Outlook not detecting your email account only when trying to send a meeting request?
Office for Mac 2011 business edition is a good product but has one glaring hole – how can you possibly release a product that doesn;t interface with Google Calendar? I’m running Outlook 2011 on my Mac pulling from Gmail bt their is no sync capability btw Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar. What’s up with that?
@Earl Whipple Sorry for the inconvenience, but though OFM 2011 supports Google email and contacts, we weren’t able to include support for calendars. But we are continuing to add features that are important to our users and will let you know when we have more information to share.
I think that the new Office for Mac 2011 is amazing! Congratulations to the Office for Mac team. The suite is so much more compatible and comparable with the windows version. I also LOVE the new outlook of course with the exception of the lack of sync for calendar, tasks and notes – and possibly no sync ever for online calendars.
The sync really is a very important feature for so many users. The reason I bought the new version is because I wanted outlook, only to discover that it did not have calendar sync. So my words to the team would be – you did an amazing job, but, customers should have been warned upfront before releasing the product that it did not have sync – or that the product should have been released after calendar sync etc. was implemented. Hopefully it will be a lesson learnt for future versions. I really depend on having my calendar on my phone to remind me of important meetings that I would frequently miss without a reminder on my phone. Please make this update a top priority. Also, please consider putting calendar sync in for online calendars as I have been getting the vibe that it isn’t on the cards at all for future updates. This is another VERY important feature for so many customers not using exchange. It would be a shame to go backwards after entourage could do all these things.
Question about canceling meeting requests. I imported my calendar events from entourage a few times in error, but now that I am trying to delete the duplicate meeting requests, they keep coming back up everytime I open outlook. Is there a way to have them deleted and stay deleted? I do click on the send cancellation icon, but it still doesn’t get deleted. Is there a workaround for this?
Is there coming an update that would hold the week numbers to Outlook calendar?
This would be a really needed update to the Office 2011.. I don’t think that I’m the only one who would love to have..
@Keisha Thanks for the kind words! We are working on adding additional sync support to make your experience better in the first half of 2011, so we’ll keep you up to date. For your question on meeting requests, we’ve started a thread for you on our forum, here: http://www.officeformac.com/ms/ProductForums/Outlook/1529. Please reply to it adding as many details about the issue as possible and let us know if you have any other questions.
@Miro Korja Thanks for the feedback. We don’t have anything to share about week numbers right now. To submit your request for this feature please take a look here: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/product-feedback
@Office for Mac Team – I tried clicking on the link to go to the new thread, but got an error…Not sure why
Like @JBrettB: I too want OFM 2011 to include the ability to drag a message into the calendar as an appointment. Very important.
I am amazed that MS put out Office 2011 and calendar cannot be synced with an IPHONE. That is totally irresponsible.
I am equally amazed that when I go to enter feedback in the HELP menu, it actually requires me to check a box saying I don’t expect a response. That is so bad it’s laughable. So you put out an inferior product and don’t care enough about your customers to respond to their frustrations.
I used to work there. I know nobody reads those.
Let’s see if this gets posted.
HELP….CAN’T SYNCH MY OUTLOOK CALENDAR WITH MY MAC AND WITH MY I PHONE. I’M TOLD THAT APPLE HASN’T SOLVED THIS PROBLEM YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Francis LaMaina Calendar syncing is expected to arrive in the first half of this year, thanks for your patience. You’ll be the first to know when we have news to share. Find out more from our blog here: http://bit.ly/i5vvFU
I bought the Office Mac 2008 with upgrade to 2011. When I upgraded I discovered that there was no email support. So, I grudgingly purchased the business upgrade for another $110 +. It ain’t perfect. The Calendar snooze for all day events is not right. When I tell it to snooze for 10 minutes it doesn’t come back until the next day. The address insert from the Contacts to Word puts a comma between the city and state, no spaces – the USPS “standard address format” doesn’t use punctuation marks – and there seems to be no option to overcome that other than deleting the comma in the envelope preview. Please start getting these problems fixed with all that loot you collected.
And what’s with the wimpy “No New Mail” sound? That is ridiculous.
Office for Mac 2011 won’t sync with iCal
Now that I’ve purchased a dual license for Office for Mac 2011, I discover that I cannot sync my calendar (iCal) from my iPhone. While I think the new Outlook beats the Apple Mail, iCal, and certainly Entourage, I’m very disappointed that this deficit was not clearly identified on the package. While the software moved forward, the functions moved backward. I’m told that this is being worked on, but MS has published no date as to when. In the meantime, I’ve had to abandon the new Outlook (the primary reason I bought the new version of Office) and am using Apple’s Mail and iCal so I can use my calendar, synch to Google, my iPhone, etc. What a disappointment. Does anyone know WHEN the update is scheduled to include sync capability with iCal?
I thought that Outlook for Mac was useful, as it is for Windows.
But i really think it sucks bigtime.
When will we be able to schedule Communicator-based conference calls from within Outlook? This is a crucial feature in OCS 2007r2 for Windows that is missing. Seems odd that this was overlooked.
How can I open/share tasks of my colleagues in Outlook exchange 2007 from our company server in my Outlook2011 for Mac. In the Open from other user I can only select Agenda, Inbox, Contacts.
@Frank Find out how to share Outlook items like tasks here on our Help & How-To page: http://tinyurl.com/46gs4rr.
What about side by side calendars for delegates (show my co worker side by side and not on top – useless). Will it be possible in Outlook 2011 like in the old 2008 PC version?
@Joakim Outlook 2011 doesn’t have a side-by-side feature built in, but you can go to the Outlook Menu->New->Open New Main Window and set the display of each main window side-by-side. It’s the same effect.
So, let me get this straight. MS’s flagship Office for Mac won’t sync a calendar with Apple’s flagship product, the iPhone?
Really?
Really?
Wow.
Bring IMAP Support to Outlook 2011 and also the features should be equivalent of the Windows Version and not be like 3rd rate cousin to the Windows Version, believe it or not its frustrating to work with the Mac Version of Outlook.
All I see in these blogs are praises of Office 2011 while other products in Office suite are decent Outlook is the worst and most frustrating to use, so far I have provided like n number of feedbacks and hope the Office Dev team of whoever is responsible starts to look at such feedback.
For Example dont understand Microsoft’s Office Outlook makes GMAIL look better and better, I can get every label in Gmail as they support IMAP but microsoft’s own Hotmail is not supported via IMAP and trying to use Hotmail via Outlook is very frustrating as there is no folder mapping. Its crazy that Microsoft is building products to make the competition look better.
I can’t even get the Mac Office support site to accept my registration (it just keeps presenting me with the form to fill in), which is sad because I’ve figured out a few solutions and workarounds to my initial frustrations – all with Outlook – and I want to share.
For example, If you’re screaming because you can’t read filed .msg messages, try MailRaider. It’s saved my life. And dragging messages to the desktop, renaming and dropping into Finder doesn’t take that much longer than Save As in Windows Office 2010.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO CHANGE PLEASE:-
Give us a fast upgrade which allows us all to export calendar and tasks back to Windows as .pst files. So many people work between the 2.
2 less important things that I haven’t yet solved:-
2. Provide a synch with Blackberry
3.. Give us an address card view in contacts and make the whole address visible in the first line. (If we’ve exported from Windows the first 4 lines of the address goes into the first Mac Outlook address line and only the first few words are visible).
@Caroline What support site are you trying to use? It seems like you have some good insights and we’d like to try to help you get registered.
Outlook 2011 Appointment reminder does not pop up 1 week in advance. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Import of data into Mac Outlook 2011 from Win Outlook 2010 is not accurate.
I just tried an export of my Win Outlook 2010 data to a PST file and then import of PST into Mac Outlook 2011. My calendar data on the Mac showed substantial corruption. All of the appointments appeared to survive the export/import process, but the specific month of many of the appointments ended up in December rather than their original month (Jan .. Nov). This was especially true for annual recurring appointments.
I also noticed that many of the All-Day appointments have moved up a day (such as March 5 becoming March 4).
I have substantial number of Contact folders (historical, with folders for each client project), which all now have the name of the PST file appended to them. No loss of data, just very annoying.
I can deal with going back and renaming my Contact sub-folders, but I’m not confident that there is any integrity in the appointment dates in the Calendar.
* I performed this test after running all of the software updates to Win7 64-bit Home, Win Office 2010 Pro, Mac OSX 10.6, and Mac Office 2011 Home & Business.
Is there a reason I can’t set reminders for events on public calendars? It seems like Outlook on Windows allows this.
Also, is there a way to copy an appointment from a public calendar to my personal calendar?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Simple question: how do I copy an appointment from one date/time to another, within the same calendar? This is pretty easy on Outlook for Windows, but I can’t find a way of doing it in the Mac 2011 version.
This is such a simple and vital thing that I can’t imagine it’s not supported, is it?