Office 365 (Apple iCal/Calendar) - Check Availability
This document explains how to create a new calendar in Apple iCal (Mac OS 10.5-7) or Calendar (Mac OS 10.8-9).
Check Availability
You can check the availability of people who use Office 365 in order to find the best meeting time for everyone. Please refer to this KB doc for inviting Office 365 attendees. This will only work for events that are part of your configured Office 365 calendar, that is, in order for 'check availability' to work in iCal/Calendar, the event calendar needs to be set to the Office 365 calendar. Local calendars will not check availability with Office 365 servers.
In iCal/Calendar, double-click the event to which you want to invite people and the Info window will open (or from the menu bar select Edit -> Edit Event or Get Info).
To see the availability of your guests/attendees:
- Click Available Meeting Times or Check Availability.... For OS 10.9, go to Window menu and select Availability Panel. In the Availability panel, the hours of the day when each invitee is unavailable are shaded in gray next to the person's name. The meeting you're proposing appears as a colored block. Times when all invitees are available are shown in dimmed color blocks.
- Drag the meeting block backward or forward to find a time when all invitees are available.
- Click the Forward and Backward arrows on either side of the date at the top of the window to see invitees' availability for the following or previous day.
- To have iCal/Calendar show you the next time all invitees are available, click Next Available Time.
- When you find the best time, click Done. In the calendar view, your meeting moves to the time you selected.
- When you're ready to invite the guests, click Send.