4.3 Sending Calendar Items

4.3.1 Understanding Calendar Items

You can schedule appointments and reminder notes for yourself and other users. You can also reserve a block of time by using a posted appointment.

For information about how appointments and reminder notes differ from other item types, see Section 1.8, Understanding GroupWise Item Types.

If you want to find out if someone is coming to your meeting, you can check for an accepted or declined status in the item’s Properties. For more information, see Working with Sent Items.

All scheduled items can be retracted or rescheduled, even if the recipients have already opened and accepted them. For more information, see Retracting Sent E-Mail and Rescheduling an Appointment.

For more information about managing items after they have been sent or received, see Section 3.1, Sending E-Mail and Section 3.3, Receiving E-Mail.

4.3.2 Scheduling Appointments

Use appointments to schedule blocks of time on a specific date or range of dates.

You can use Busy Search to check for a time when all the users and resources you want for an appointment are available.

When you schedule an appointment and include yourself as a participant, GroupWise automatically accepts the appointment for you.

Scheduling an Appointment for Yourself

If you are not available for meetings, schedule a posted appointment for those times. When another user includes you in an appointment and does a busy search, the user can see that you are not available at those times, but can still schedule over your appointment.

Posted appointments are placed in your Calendar on the date you specify. They are not placed in your Mailbox or in any other user’s Mailbox. Similarly, all posted appointments are saved to your main GroupWise calendar. To move them to a personal calendar, drag and drop them to the personal calendar after they are created.

  1. On the toolbar, click the arrow on the New Appt button, then click Posted Appointment.

    or

    In your Calendar, open a view with an Appointments List, click a date, then double-click a time in the Appointments List.

  2. (Optional) Type a subject and a place.

  3. Specify the start date.

    or

    Click Date icon to specify a date or Auto-Date for your appointment. To create a recurring appointment, see Section 4.3.4, Scheduling Recurring Items.

    or

    Select All Day Event for an all day event.

    For more information about all day events, see Understanding All Day Events.

  4. Specify a start time and duration. Duration can be in minutes, hours, or days.

  5. (Optional) Type a message.

    You can specify many options, such as making this appointment a high priority and more, by clicking the Options tab.

  6. (Optional) Specify a Show Appointment As type by clicking Actions > Show Appointment As, then clicking a type.

  7. Click Post on the toolbar.

Scheduling an Appointment for Multiple People

  1. Click New Appt on the toolbar.

  2. In the To field, type a username, then press Enter. Repeat for additional users.

    or

    To select usernames from a list, click Address on the toolbar, double-click each user, then click OK.

    Your name is automatically added to the To field of the appointment. When you send the appointment, it is automatically added to your calendar. If you do not want to be included in the message, delete your name from the To field.

  3. If necessary, type usernames in the CC and BC fields

    CC (Carbon Copy): Carbon copy recipients (CC) receive a copy of an item. CC recipients are users who would benefit from the information in an item, but are not affected by or directly responsible for it. All recipients can see that a carbon copy was sent. They can also see the names of the CC recipients.

    BC (Blind Copy): Blind copy recipients (BC) receive a copy of an item. Other recipients receive no information about blind copies. Only the sender and the blind copy recipient know that a blind copy was sent. If a recipient replies and chooses Reply to All, the blind copy recipient does not receive the reply.

  4. To change the From name (to another account or proxy), click From, then click a name.

  5. Type the place description in the Place field.

  6. Specify the start date.

    or

    Click Date icon to specify a date or Auto-Date for your appointment. (To create a recurring appointment, see Section 4.3.4, Scheduling Recurring Items.)

    or

    Select All Day Event for an all day event.

    For more information about all day events, see Understanding All Day Events.

  7. Specify a start time and duration. Duration can be in minutes, hours, or days.

  8. Type a subject and message.

    If you want, change the font of the message text. For information, see Formatting E-Mail.

  9. If you want to make sure the people and resources for the appointment are available, you can do a busy search by clicking Busy Search on the toolbar. See Checking Availability.

    You can specify many options, such as making this appointment a high priority, requesting a reply from recipients, and more, by clicking the Send Options tab.

  10. Click Send on the toolbar.

Checking Availability

Use Busy Search to find a time when all the people and resources you want to schedule for a meeting are available.

Performing a Busy Search

  1. In an appointment you are creating, specify usernames and resource IDs in the To field.

  2. Specify the first possible day for the meeting in the Start date field.

  3. Specify the meeting’s duration.

  4. Click Busy Search on the toolbar.

    The legend at the bottom of the Busy Search dialog box shows the meaning of the various Show Appointment As patterns on the grid.

    If Busy Search Information icon appears to the left of the username or resource, you can click a scheduled time across from the username or resource on the Individual Schedules tab to display more information about the appointment in the box below. However, the user or resource owner must give you appointment Read rights in their Access List before the Busy Search Information icon icon appears. See Granting Proxy Rights as a Mailbox Owner.

    To exclude a username or resource from the search without deleting it, click the Available Times tab, then deselect the check box next to the user or resource. Excluding a person or resource from the search is useful if a user (like a CC recipient) should be invited to a meeting but does not necessarily need to attend. To include a user or resource name that has been excluded, select the check box next to the user or resource.

  5. To remove a user or resource from the Invite to Meeting list after the search, click the Available Times tab, click Invite to Meeting, select the username or resource you want to remove, press thee Delete key, then click OK.

    This is useful if you want to include several conference rooms in the search to find one that is available, then eliminate those you do not want.

  6. Complete and send the appointment.

    If you want to do a busy search before creating an appointment, click Tools > Busy Search. Specify information in the Busy Search dialog box, then click OK to perform a busy search. When you find a time you want for a meeting, click Request Meeting to transfer the information to a new appointment view, then complete the appointment.

    You can change the search range for one appointment by scheduling the appointment with Tools > Busy Search and changing the number in the Number of days to search field.

    This method is useful when looking to schedule recurring appointments or planning appointments that may be further in the future.

Changing Busy Search Options

You can change the search range, time, and days default for all appointments on the Busy Search tab in Date Time Options.

  1. Mac: Click GroupWise > Preferences.

    Linux: Click Tools > Options.

  2. Click Calendar > Busy Search.

  3. Change the options you want.

  4. Click OK.

Understanding All Day Events

When you are creating a GroupWise appointment, you can choose to make the appointment an all day event by selecting All Day Event, located next to the time input field.

You can specify how you want the appointment to appear by clicking the availability button, located below the All Day Event selectbox. Appointments can appear as Busy, Free, Out of the Office, or Tentative. Unlike regular appointments, all recipients receive all day event appointments as Free by default. This is because all day events are often intended to be strictly informational for recipients. For example, you might send out an all day event to inform colleagues that you are going to be on vacation. In this case, colleagues who receive the event are not shown as Busy on the day of the event.

Rescheduling an Appointment

In your Calendar:

  1. Mac: Control+click the appointment you want to reschedule.

    Linux: Right-click the appointment you want to reschedule.

    If you are rescheduling just one appointment in a series of recurring appointments, select the appointment on the day you want to reschedule.

  2. Click Resend.

  3. If the original appointment was an Auto-Date appointment, click This Instance or All Instances.

  4. Make your changes, then click Send on the toolbar.

  5. Click Yes to retract the original item.

HINT:To reschedule an appointment for a new time on the same day, open your Calendar and drag the appointment to the new time.

Rescheduling Recurring Appointments

  1. Click the Sent Item folder in the Folder List.

  2. Click the appointment you want to reschedule.

    If you are rescheduling just one appointment in a series of recurring appointments, select the appointment on the day you want to reschedule.

  3. Click Actions > Resend.

  4. Click All Instances for all appointments in the recurring appointment.

    or

    Click This Instance for only one appointment in the series of recurring appointments.

  5. Make your changes, then click Send on the toolbar.

  6. Click Yes to retract the original item.

HINT:To reschedule an appointment for a new time on the same day, open your Calendar and drag the appointment to the new time.

Canceling an Appointment

You can cancel an appointment if you scheduled it or if you have the necessary Proxy rights to the scheduler’s Mailbox.

In your calendar:

  1. Mac: Control+click the appointment you want to cancel.

    Linux: Right-click the appointment you want to cancel.

  2. Click Delete.

  3. Select Delete this item from all other recipient’s mailboxes to remove it from other users’ mailboxes. Leave this option deselected if you only want to delete it from just your own mailbox.

  4. (Optional) Type a message explaining the cancellation.

  5. Click OK.

A Meeting Cancelled message is sent to each user that the appointment was sent to, and the appointment is removed from the user’s calendar. Users who had the appointment delegated to them do not receive a Meeting Cancelled message, but the appointment is removed from their calendars.

Canceling a Recurring Appointment

You can cancel a recurring appointment if you scheduled it or if you have the necessary Proxy rights to the scheduler’s Mailbox.

In your calendar:

  1. Mac: Control+click the recurring appointment you want to cancel.

    Linux: Right-click the recurring appointment you want to cancel.

  2. Click Delete.

  3. Select Delete this item from all other recipient’s mailboxes.

  4. (Optional) Type a message explaining the cancellation.

  5. Click OK.

  6. Click This Instance, All Instances, or This Instance Forward.

A Meeting Cancelled message is sent to each user that the appointment was sent to, and the appointment is removed from the user’s calendar. Users who had the appointment delegated to them do not receive a Meeting Cancelled message, but the appointment is removed from their calendar.

4.3.3 Sending Reminder Notes

Reminder notes are like mail messages, except they are scheduled for a particular day and appear on the Calendar for that date. You can use reminder notes to show vacations, holidays, paydays, birthdays, and so forth.

Scheduling a Reminder Note for Yourself

A reminder note to yourself is called a posted reminder note. Posted reminder notes are placed in your Calendar on the date you specify. They are not placed in your Mailbox or in any other user’s Mailbox.

  1. From your Calendar, open a view with a Reminder Notes List (for example, the Week view).

  2. Click a date, then double-click an empty space in the Reminder Notes List.

  3. If necessary, click Calendar icon to specify a start date or Auto-Date for your reminder note.

  4. Type a subject and the reminder note message.

    You can specify many options, such as making this reminder note a high priority and more, by clicking the Send Options tab.

  5. Click Post on the toolbar.

To access the information later, open your Calendar and select the date the information appears on. Double-click the reminder note in the Reminder Notes List.

Scheduling a Reminder Note for Others

  1. Click File > New > Reminder Note.

  2. In the To field, type a username, then press Enter. Repeat for additional users. If necessary, type usernames in the CC and BC fields.

    or

    To select usernames from a list, click Address on the toolbar, double-click each user, then click OK.

  3. To change the From name (to another account or proxy), click From, then click a name.

  4. Type a subject and the reminder note message.

    If you want, change the font of the message. For information, see Formatting E-Mail.

  5. In the Start date field, type the date this reminder note should appear in the recipients’ Calendars.

    or

    Click Calendar icon to specify a start date or Auto-Date for your reminder note.

    You can specify many options, such as making this reminder note a high priority, requesting a reply from recipients, and more, by clicking the Send Options tab.

  6. Click Send on the toolbar.

4.3.4 Scheduling Recurring Items

Use Auto-Date to schedule recurring appointments, tasks, and reminder notes.

When you send an Auto-Date item, GroupWise copies the item and places one of the defined dates in each copy of the item. For example, if you define five dates for the event, GroupWise makes five copies of the item and schedules one copy for each date. If you send the item to other users, you have five outgoing items with a five-occurrence Auto-Date. If you receive the event, you find five copies of the incoming item in your Mailbox, each scheduled for a different date.

  1. In an appointment, task, or reminder note you are scheduling, click Actions, then click Auto-Date.

  2. Click the days you want to schedule.

  3. To move to a different year, click the year button, type the new year, then click OK.

  4. If you want to clear all the dates you have selected, click Reset.

  5. Click OK.