MS Outlook Shortcut – Email Your Calendar
Every now and then, a shortcut comes along and changes the game forever. Until recently, the last time I came across a trick of such magnitude it was:
(If you don’t know what that means then you are under 25, over 45 or lead a very, very sheltered childhood.) The tid-bit I am about to share won’t give you the Spread Gun or Infinite Lives; but it will save you some time and make your job easier.
If you spend any amount of time trying to coordinate calendars with people outside your office, then you probably know that pain of browsing back and forth, toggling from the calendar view (squinting to see which time slots are free) and then clicking back to the body of your email and manually typing out the day and times your available to meet.
As a Salesperson, I used to spend lots of time typing out emails that ended in a bulleted list of my availability for that next conference call or meeting. I can’t tell you how many times I have said to myself: “I wish I could just click a button and have my availability just show up for the next week or two without having to look at my calendar.”
Until recently, I did not realize that this functionality was built right into Outlook 2007 and 2010. If you ever spend more than 2 seconds outlining your availability for others, then you are going to love this.
When composing a new message in Outlook…
After filling in the ‘To’ and ‘Subject’ fields, click on the ‘Insert tab’ on the ribbon. Select the ‘Calendar Icon’ (Your cursor must be in the body of the email to enable the ‘Calendar Icon’)
This will pull up a window that will allow you to insert your availability with a number of different personal preferences:
You can select if you want to show today, tomorrow, a week, a month or specific date range.
It will also allow you to toggle whether or not you showing ‘Availability Only’, ‘Limited Details’ or ‘Full Details’.
There are some ‘Advanced Options’ that allow you to do things like Set Working Hours, Change Color Schemes and a few other customizations. (Having said that, this tool does everything most people would want with no customization at all.)
You can also send an email with your availability directly from your Calendar Home views in both Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010. Clicking these will basically take you through the steps mentioned above but just provides another way to access the menus.
Outlook 2010:
Outlook 2007:
I have found this tool to be a great timesaver when it comes to coordinating calendars with prospects, clients, friends and family that are external to my work environment. Hope this saves you some time as well.
Below is an example of the final output. If you see an available slot on my calendar and you would like to talk about improving IT support at your company, feel free to send me an invite.
Every now and then, a shortcut comes along and changes the game forever. Until recently, the last time I came across a trick of such magnitude it was:
A, B, A, B, Select, Start. (If you don’t know what that means then you are under 25, over 45 or lead a very, very sheltered childhood.) http://www.mobygames.com/game/contra/hints
The tid-bit I am about to share won’t give you the Spread Gun or Infinite Lives; but it will save you some time and make your job easier.
If you spend any amount of time trying to coordinate calendars with people outside your office, then you probably know that pain of browsing back and forth, toggling from the calendar view (squinting to see which time slots are free) and then clicking back to the body of your email and manually typing out the day and times your available to meet. As a Salesperson, I used to spend lots of time typing out emails that ended in a bulleted list of my availability for that next conference call or meeting. I can’t tell you how many times I have said to myself: “I wish I could just click a button and have my availability just show up for the next week or two without having to look at my calendar”.
Until recently, I did not realize that this functionality was built right into Outlook 2007 and 2010. If you ever spend more than 2 seconds outlining your availability for others, then you are going to love this.
When composing a new message in Outlook:
• After filling in the ‘To’ and ‘Subject’ fields…
• Click on the ‘Insert tab’ on the ribbon
• Click on the ‘Calendar Icon’
o Your cursor must be in the body of the email to enable the ‘Calendar Icon’
• This will pull up a window that will allow you to insert your availability with a number of different personal preferences:
• You can select if you want to show today, tomorrow, a week, a month or specific date range
• It will also allow you to toggle whether or not you showing ‘Availability Only’, ‘Limited Details’ or ‘Full Details’.
• Lastly, there are some ‘Advanced Options’ that allow you to do things like Set Working Hours, Change Color Schemes and a few other customizations. (Having said that, this tool does everything most people would want with no customization at all.)
• You can also send an email with your availability directly from your Calendar Home views in both Outlook 2007 and Outlook. Clicking these will basically take you through the steps mentioned above but just provides another way to access the menus.
Outlook 2010:
Outlook 2007:
I have found this tool to be a great timesaver when it comes to coordinating calendars with prospects, clients, friends and family that are external to my work environment. Hope this saves you some time as well. Here is what the output looks like:
PS… If you see an available slot on my calendar and you would like to talk about improving IT support at your company, feel free to send me an invite.
Comments
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Bill Mendelsohn November 16th
Very helpful!
Steve May 19th
Wow cant tell you how much time this is going to save me, I knew there had to be a way to do this in outlook. Sharing knowledge is such a wonderful thing. Thanks again for posting this!
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