1. Internal Calendar Sharing:
What’s happening?
During the refresh window, the way you accept calendar sharing requests will change.
Current Process:
The process of accepting a calendar invite works as expected in the current service because both the sender and recipient are yet to have their NHSmail accounts refreshed.
What’s changing?
The recipient will get a calendar sharing invitation in a different format depending on whether the senders account has been refreshed. Check out the various scenarios below for more information.
Scenario 1:
Your colleague wants to share a calendar invite with you.
Your account has been refreshed.
Your colleague’s account has not been refreshed.
What should you do?
If you received a calendar invite on Outlook Web Access (OWA), there’s no option in the email to add the calendar.
Therefore, you’ll need to add the calendar manually. To do this, follow the simple steps below:
- Sign into Outlook on the web
- At the bottom of the page, select ‘Calendar’
- In the navigation pane, select ‘Import Calendar’
- Select ‘From Directory’
Search for and add the person who has shared their calendar with you
If you’re opening the calendar invite on Outlook, select the option to “Open this calendar” in the Outlook Ribbon.
Scenario 2:
You colleague wants to share a calendar invite with you.
Your account has not been refreshed.
Your colleague’s account has been refreshed.
What should you do?
If you received the calendar invite on OWA, this automatically generates an email request with the following two options:
- ‘Add Calendar’- this option works.
- ‘Accept and View Calendar’- this option doesn’t currently work. Instead you should use the ‘+ ADD CALENDAR’ button at the bottom of the email.
If you received the calendar invite on Outlook, there is no link in the ‘I’d like to share my calendar with you’ in the body of the email. In addition, the ‘Open this calendar’ option shown in the box will generate an error message if selected.
Therefore, you’ll need to manually add the calendar. To do this, follow the simple steps below:
- In Calendar view, click ‘Open Calendar’ in the ribbon.
- Select the type of calendar you wish to add
- Once the calendar is added, it should show up under ‘Shared Calendars’
2. External Calendar Sharing:
What’s happening?
Whilst we refresh the NHSmail service, you (the sender) will be unable to share your calendar with external recipients (non nhs.net users).
What do I have currently?
You (the sender) can share calendars with external recipients from approved domains.
What’s changing?
If your account is refreshed, you won’t be able to share calendars externally for a limited time. You’ll be informed when this feature is switched on again. Below is an example of the message you will see whilst this feature is switched off.
3. Room browsing with OWA in Exchange Online:
What’s happening?
After you have been refreshed, when searching for a room in OWA to add to a calendar invite, only a limited number of rooms appear.
What do I have currently?
In OWA, there is a ‘Add room’ option when creating a calendar invite. This shows approximately 40 rooms in alphabetical order however, there is no option to search for rooms.
What’s changing?
Following the refresh, when you select the option to ‘Search for a room or location’ box within a calendar invite, there is a new feature to ‘+Browse more rooms.’
This search feature does not currently work. Instead, you’ll need to search for the full room mailbox email address in the initial calendar invite attendees’ box.
