Creating appointments

In order to create new appointments in your personal calendar folders, public or other users' shared calendar folders - provided you have appropriate access rights - you can use one of the methods described below.

Creating new appointments in the calendar module

If the Calendar module is open, click on the Appointment icon in the New panel section. Here it is irrelevant whether or not the panel is already expanded - in every view of the panels, the icon for creating new appointments is always displayed at the top.

If an appointment is created in the Team view, all persons and resources visible in the current view are entered in the appointment.

Creating new appointments by double-click

As an alternative to the panel function described above, you can also create new appointments by double-clicking in the Calendar or Team view - specifically, using one of the following methods:

  • Day / work week - double-click on the time of day => Opens the Appointment window, where the start time of the new appointment is preset to the time you double-clicked on.

  • Month / week - double-click on a day => Opens the Appointment window, where the duration of the new appointment is preset to all-day.

  • Month / week - double-click on a day cell => Opens the Appointment window.

  • Team / Day or Week - double-clicking on the wanted time opens the Appointment window. The creator and the person or resource which calendar was clicked on are entered as participants of the appointment.

Creating appointments in public or other users' shared calendar folders

Please note that you need the right to create objects for creating new appointments in public or other users' shared calendar folders. If these rights have not been granted to you, a relevant error message will appear after starting the function to create new appointments. You can now decide whether you want to create the new appointment in your personal calendar folder (Calendar folder) or if you want to cancel the function.

Creating new appointments from other modules

Even if the Calendar module is not active, you can create new appointments - from any other module of Open-Xchange Server. If the panel is not expanded, click on the downward arrow of the New panel section and then select Appointment from the menu that opens then.

If the panel is already expanded, click on the Appointment icon in the New panel section.

Target folder for new appointments

Since appointments can only be managed in calendar folders, your personal calendar folder (Calendar folder) is automatically preset to be the destination folder when you create new appointments from other modules of Open-Xchange Server .

If you would like to save newly created appointments in other personal folders or in public or other users' shared calendar folders, you can choose another destination folder when you enter the data for the new appointment.

You can find more information about choosing a destination folder and the required access rights in the section the section called “Entering data for a new appointment” below.

Creating a new appointment with Drag & Drop

To create a new appointment with Drag & Drop in the E-Mail module drag an E-Mail from a list on a day in the mini calendar. The Appointment dialog window opens and the subject of the E-mail is entered in the description field.

To create a new appointment with Drag & Drop in the Contacts module drag a contact on a day in the mini calendar. The Appointment dialog window opens and the contact is entered as participant.

Creating a new appointment from an iCal attachment

You can create a new appointment from an E-Mail's iCal attachment. An iCal attachment can be recognized by the ending ics.

Open the E-Mail module. Display the E-Mail in the H Split or V Split view. In the lower part of the overview window right click on the ics file. Choose Import iCal from the context menu. The dialog window for editing the appointment data opens.

Entering data for a new appointment

Regardless of how and from which module you have initiated the appointment creation, the window Appointment opens with the Appointment tab activated. Now you can enter the relevant data for a new appointment via the appropriate fields.

When you create a new appointment, make sure to fill in the Last Description field, because this field is a required field and must always contain a value. If you forget to fill in the Description field, you cannot save the new appointment. Instead, you receive an error message, and the Description field is displayed with red borders.

Start and end of the appointment

You can enter the start and end of the new appointment either by hand-filling the appropriate fields or set the dates using the calendar icons or the select lists next to the fields.

Time specifications for new appointments

When you enter data, they are checked for plausibility to make sure that the end of appointments is set to occur after their start. If you have mistakenly set the end of a new appointment to occur before its start, you will receive a relevant error message and cannot save this appointment until you have entered chronologically correct values for the start and end.

All-day appointments

If you would like to create all-day appointments (as, for example, birthdays or other events that last a whole day), you activate the option all-day in the Appointment window. Here, no start and end times need to be entered for the new appointment.

Personal appointments

If you have started the creation of the new appointment from any personal folder and you do not add any other participants or resources to the appointment, you can mark the new appointment as personal. Appointments marked as personal can only be accessed by you - even if you share your personal calendar folders for common use with other users, other users cannot see nor edit your personal appointments.

Creating personal appointments

Please note that you can only mark as personal appointments that you have created for yourself - without other participants or resources - and that you manage in your personal calendar folders. When you create new appointments in public or other users' shared calendar folders, the option Personal appointment is not available in the Appointment window.

Appointment series

If you want to create periodically recurring appointments - as, for example, a weekly team meeting -, you can create it as an appointment series with appropriate parameters instead of planning these appointments over and over again.

In order to create an appointment series, click on the Series option. This opens the New appointment series window, where you can adjust the settings for the new appointment series.

The following figure shows a typical example of an appointment series - the parameters were set as follows: The appointment should take place once a week on Mondays; the date of the first meeting is set to be the start date of the appointment series. Since this appointment series is to last throughout the first quarter of the current calendar year, the last calendar date of the first quarter is set to be the end date.

Figure 4.14. Appointment series (example)

Appointment series (example)

You can create a serial appointment for a contact's birthday. Information can be found in the section called “Personal data, tags, and folders”

Associating tags

You can associate one or several tags with the new appointment in order to categorize it. To do this, you manually write the desired tags into the Tags field (individual tags must be separated by commas) or click on the option Tags and then select the desired tag by mouse click. Note that the Tags option display tags only if you had provided these before into the Settings.

As a result, all selected tags are entered into the Tags field.

If you would like to delete one or several of the tags associated with an appointment, just delete the relevant entries from the Tags field. Place your cursor into the field and delete the undesirable tags. As an alternative click on Tags and deselect the tags you want to remove.

Creating personal tags

If you would like to reuse certain tags frequently, it is advisable to create these as personal tags in the Settings, so that you can access these tags more simply. You can find more information about creating your personal tags and a description of the procedure in the chapter Settings under the section called “Private Tags”.

Selecting the destination folder

With the Folder option, you specify in which folder the new appointment should be saved; by default, one of the following folders is selected in this field:

  • When you create new appointments from one of your personal calendar folders => the personal calendar folder that was opened when you created the new appointment.

  • When you create new appointments from a public or another user's shared calendar folder for which you have been granted the right to create objects => the public or shared calendar folder that was open when you created the new appointment.

  • When you create new appointments from a public or another user's shared calendar folder for which you have not been granted the right to create objects => your personal calendar folder (Calendar folder).

  • When you create new appointments from another module of Open-Xchange Server, as, for example, Email, Tasks, etc. => your personal calendar folder (Calendar folder).

Please note during your selection that appointments can only be saved in calendar folders and that you need the right to create objects for public or other users' shared calendar folders in order to be able to save appointments there. Hence, the select list displays only as destination folders those calendar folders for which you have been granted this right.

Configuring the display type of the appointment

In order to set the display type of the new appointment (reserved, temporary, absent on business or free), click in the window on the Display as option and then select the desired entry from the list.

The display type you select for the appointment will be represented by color bars in the Calendar, Team and Detail views. More information about this is available under the section called “Calendar - views and time ranges” in this chapter.

Activating reminders

If you would like to be reminded of the appointment, you can select from the Reminder list when you wish to be reminded of this appointment. In the calendar settings you can set a predefined time interval for the reminder, please refer to Default time interval for reminder Please note that the selected reminder is only active for the creator of this new appointment - all other participating users can set different reminders for this appointment.

If you have activated a reminder for an appointment, a reminder window will alert you of this appointment when the end of the selected period has been reached - as shown in the following figure. In this window you can decide whether you would like to be reminded of this appointment again after a certain period, or whether this first reminder of this appointment is sufficient.

Notifying participants by E-Mail

If you want to notify all added participants of this new appointment, activate the option Notify all participants by E-Mail. This approach is recommended particularly when you are inviting to an appointment external participants (e.g., from your personal contacts) who do not have access to Open-Xchange Server - thus, they would not be automatically informed about this new appointment.

Notification and confirmation of appointments

More information about notification of other participants as well as the possibilities for confirmation of newly created appointments is available in the the section called “Confirming appointments” section of this chapter.

Selecting participants and resources for the new appointment

In the Participants tab, you specify all participants and resources for the appointment - resources are physical supplies and devices (conference rooms, vehicles, presentation media, etc.) as well as specific participants who are crucial for conducting the meeting.

The creator of the appointment is listed as the first participant. The calendar options allow to set whether you are entered as participant when creating an appointment in a public folder, see Creating public appointments. In order to add further participants and/or resources to the new appointment, click on the Add Participant function in the Participant panel section. This function opens the window Select participants and resources where you can select the participants and resources to be added as described below.

Adding internal participants and resources

In order to add registered users of Open-Xchange Server (as internal participants) and/or resources, you first need to make sure that the Global address book is selected as the contact folder. Then enter the names of the participants or resources to be added or wildcards (the characters * or ?), or combinations of parts of the names and wilcards, into the Search field and click on Go.

You can use wildcards in the following ways (among others) for defining the search criterion in the window Select participants and resources - you can ignore capitalization here:

  • me or *me* => all registered users and resources from the contact folder Global address book whose first or last name or whose label contains the character string "me".

  • m???r => all registered users and resources from the contact folder Global address book whose first or last name or label contains the characters "m" and "r" with precisely 3 characters between "m" and "r" - as, for example, the last names Maier, Meier or Meyer, but not Mair or Muller.

In the next step you add the desired participants by selecting the relevant participants from the select list and clicking on Add in the Participants section.

To remove new participants again select them in the field Participants and click on Remove.

If you would like to add physical resources (as, for example, presentation materials or other devices) as well as specific participants as resources, search and select the relevant persons and materials via the select list and then click on Add in the Resources section.

To remove new ressources again select them in the field Resources and click on Remove.

Adding participants as resources

If you add a participant as a resource to an appointment, this participant cannot be added to any other appointment for the duration of this appointment. This approach is recommended for participants whose attendance is crucial for conducting the meeting - as, for example, the instructor of a seminar.

Adding external participants

If you would like to add to an appointment external participants who do not have access to Open-Xchange Server (e.g., contacts from your personal or from public or other users' shared contact folders), select first the relevant contact folder and then add the desired participants as you would do for internal participants and resources.

If you have made a mistake selecting users or resources, you can remove the contents of the Participants and Resources fields via the Delete function. To do so select the user or resource to be removed and click on Delete.

If it would be impossible to find in a single search all users and resources that you want to add to the new appointment, repeat the display and selection process for participants and resources - with appropriately different search criteria - until you have captured all required participants and resources.

Adding external participants without address book entry

To add external participants without address book entry click on Add external in the Participants panel section of the Appointment window. In the External addresses window enter a name and a valid E-Mail address. Click on Add. Repeat these steps to add further participants. Click on OK to finish.

Result: The external participants without address book entry are entered as participants.

Adding attachments to appointments

If you would like to associate relevant external documents directly with the new appointment (e.g., text documents with driving directions, spreadsheets with quotes, etc.), you can add the appropriate files as attachments to the appointment.

Please note that in order to be able to add attachments to appointments, you must have enough free storage capacity on the server. If the storage space assigned to you is used up, you cannot add any further attachments to appointments. The InfoBox on the Start page of Open-Xchange Server provides information about your currently available storage space.

In order to add attachments to new appointments, you first activate the Attachments tab and then click on Add attachment under the Attachments panel section. This function opens the Select Attachments window where you can select the file(s) to be attached. Select one or more files via Browse and use the Add option to add them to the list of attachments.

When you confirm your file selection with OK and Save, the window Select attachments is closed and the attachments are added to the appointment.

Adding attachments to appointments

Every attachment that you associate with a specific appointment is exclusively associated with this appointment. If you add a file as an attachment to several appointments, a unique copy of this file is attached to each of these appointments.

Removing attachments from appointments

If you added attachments to the new appointment by mistake, you can delete them again. For this, select the file(s) you wish to delete from the appointment from the attachments table. If you want to select several files, hold down the Ctrl key (for non-adjacent multi-selections) or the Shift key (for adjacent multi-selections). Then click on Delete in the Attachments panel section and then on Saveto remove all selected attachments from the appointment.

Checking on availability of participants and resources

In order to check on the availability of all participants and resources added to the appointment, activate the Availability tab. Specify the time range via the date and time fields and decide via Check what you wish to check: resources only, participants only, or both. If you also activate the option Show Team Members, all members of user groups and their availability are displayed in the Participants column. When you have set the relevant values, click on Check to start the availability check.

Checking for availability on different days

If you would like to check the availability of participants and resources on preceding or following time periods, you can page through the display day by day using the navigation arrows in the date area.

Using the availability for an appointment

If you want to set the start and end of the new appointment using the dates of the checked time range, click on Use for appointment. This switches to the Appointment tab where the start and end fields for the new appointment are already pre-filled with the transferred dates.

Figure 4.15. Using the availability for an appointment

Using the availability for an appointment

Saving your entries

In order to save the new appointment with all supplied data, click on the Save icon in the Save panel section. This closes the Appointment window, the new appointment is created in the previously selected folder, and the events described below are triggered.

Checking for conflicts

When you save a new appointment Open-Xchange Server checks whether this appointment conflicts with others that are scheduled for the same time: This is the case if you or other participants already have other obligations that prevent participation in this appointment.

If there is a conflict, you receive a relevant warning message and can decide whether to ignore the appointment conflicts or cancel out of this warning message. If you Ignore the displayed appointment conflicts, the new appointment is created regardless of existing appointments and the Appointment window is closed. If you cancel out of this warning message, you return to the Appointment window and can change the parameters of the new appointment to avoid the conflicts.

Adding to the appointment a resource which is used by another appointment causes a conflict which you cannot ignore. To be able to save the appointment, you have to remove the resource.

Notifying participants

If you have invited other participants to the new appointment, all internal participants are notified about this appointment via a confirmation dialog and they can reply to you whether they will participate in this appointment or not - as shown in the following example. More information about confirmation dialogs is available under the section called “Confirming appointments” in this chapter.

If you create a new appointment and activate the option Notify all participants by E-Mail, all internal and external participants are notified about this new appointment by E-Mail.

Discard input

If you do not want to save the appointment, click on Cancel in the Window panel section. To be safe, you will be asked whether you really want to discard your entries. If you confirm this query with OK, the Appointment window is closed and all inputs are discarded.