Calendar Management

MailEnable Enterprise Edition incorporates a calendar feature that allows users to schedule appointments. This calendar can be used to navigate between days, weeks, months or years so that a user can view scheduled appointments.

Creating an appointment

To create new appointments, simply click the new appointment button located under the calendar month view. Once the New Appointment button has been clicked the new appointment entry screen is shown. The entry options are as follows:

General Tab

Field

Explanation

From

This setting is used to select the address of the individual who created the appointment or who is hosting the appointment. Use the dropdown menu to select a different contact.

Description

This text box is used to give the appointment an appropriate name. This description is used in the scheduled time slots.

Attendees

This text box is used to input peoples email addresses that will be attending the appointment. (Please note that when an attendee is specified in the attendee’s text box, an email notification can optionally be sent to each of the attendees.) To quickly choose attendees, click the Edit button and select attendees from the contacts window.

Date

Set the appointment date.

Start and Finish Time

These two dropdown menus are used to set the start and finish time for the appointment.

Location

This is where you input the location of the appointment e.g. Board Room

All day event If ticked, this indicates that the event will take up the entire day

Sensitivity A sensitivity rating for this appointment

Reminder
If ticked, a reminder about the appointment will be given. The amount of time prior to the event that the reminder is given can be selected.

Show Time As How the time taken up by this should be labelled on calendar.

Send an email to each attendee If ticked, an email with details of the appointment will be sent to each attendee listed.

Recurring Tick this if the event recurs at regular intervals. Details about when and how often it recurs can be set in the Recurrence tab.

Notes

This section is used to include any additional information regarding the appointment.

Attendee Options

Next to the Attendee field there are two additional buttons (rollover their icons to see the tooltip information ithat indicates their function):

Show Free/Busy Times: this button will open a new window with a timeline showing the times marked as free and busy for the appointment's attendees.
Check availability: this will check the appointment's timeslot against the schedules of all attendees and report any conflicts (i.e., this will indicate whether any attendees are busy during the time of this appointment).

Recurrence Tab

To set recurrence, choose how often the event happens, when it happens and how long it recurs for.

Quick Appointment Creation

Alternatively, an appointment can be created by clicking on the time slot when the appointment should begin and dragging the mouse down to the time slot when it ends. A bubble will appear where a name and location for the appointment can be entered. The appointment will be created once Add new appointment is clicked.

Saving or cancelling an appointment

After the appointment configuration is complete, click on the Save button to save the appointment settings, or click Cancel to return to the Calendar page.

Appointment editing

Once an appointment has been created, it can also be edited if there is any additional information to be added. Click on the scheduled appointment window to edit it.

Note: If an appointment is created and there were no attendees in the original appointment, you are not able to add any attendees in the appointment editing screen.

Field

Explanation

Status

If the appointment has been created and attendees have received a confirmation note regarding the appointment the status will be confirmed. To once again save changes made to the existing appointment you click the Update button. To delete an existing appointment you click the Delete button, and it takes you back to the Calendar page.

Update

To once again save changes made to the existing appointment you click the Update button.

Delete

To delete an existing appointment you click the Delete button, and it takes you back to the daily calendar view.

Sharing calendars

As well as being able to share a mailbox calendar to other webmail users, MailEnable can share these to other email and calendar clients using the CalDAV protocol and iCalendar hosting support. This allows the use of Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird (with the Lightning calendar add-in), Apple's iCal, and others to both view and edit calendars.

iCalendar is a file format used to describe calendar events. iCalendar hosting support in MailEnable means that you can upload these calendar files to a user's mailbox. These calendars are "published" (uploaded) by clients to the server, and other clients can "subscribe" to (download) these. As an example, imagine a Microsoft Outlook user who coaches a couple of soccer teams. They can create two calendars, one for each team, with their own schedules for the season, and publish these to their MailEnable account. A different URL can be given to each of the team members, which they can use in their calendaring application (whether using iCal from Apple or the Microsoft Vista calendar). Updates to the calendars can be made, and all subscribers will see the changes.

The CalDav protocol provides a more advanced method of accessing a calendar on the server and instead of just uploading and downloading a full iCalendar file.

The Enterprise Edition WebMail client allows you to view and set permissions for any hosted ICS calendars that you may have. You are able to create and upload these calendars using ICS calendaring enabled clients.

If you have granted public access to these calendars, others can access them via their mail/calendaring client.

Field	Explanation
From	This setting is used to select the address of the individual who created the appointment or who is hosting the appointment. Use the dropdown menu to select a different contact.
Description	This text box is used to give the appointment an appropriate name. This description is used in the scheduled time slots.
Attendees	This text box is used to input peoples email addresses that will be attending the appointment. (Please note that when an attendee is specified in the attendee’s text box, an email notification can optionally be sent to each of the attendees.) To quickly choose attendees, click the Edit button and select attendees from the contacts window.
Date	Set the appointment date.
Start and Finish Time	These two dropdown menus are used to set the start and finish time for the appointment.
Location	This is where you input the location of the appointment e.g. Board Room
All day event	If ticked, this indicates that the event will take up the entire day
Sensitivity	A sensitivity rating for this appointment
Reminder	If ticked, a reminder about the appointment will be given. The amount of time prior to the event that the reminder is given can be selected.
Show Time As	How the time taken up by this should be labelled on calendar.
Send an email to each attendee	If ticked, an email with details of the appointment will be sent to each attendee listed.
Recurring	Tick this if the event recurs at regular intervals. Details about when and how often it recurs can be set in the Recurrence tab.
Notes	This section is used to include any additional information regarding the appointment.

Field	Explanation
Status	If the appointment has been created and attendees have received a confirmation note regarding the appointment the status will be confirmed. To once again save changes made to the existing appointment you click the Update button. To delete an existing appointment you click the Delete button, and it takes you back to the Calendar page.
Update	To once again save changes made to the existing appointment you click the Update button.
Delete	To delete an existing appointment you click the Delete button, and it takes you back to the daily calendar view.