How does WP8 display Exchange calendars?

[Lord Vadger]

The calendar associated with my Exchange account has different colors for different classes on my school schedule. Will WP8 display my appointments with these colors?

I ask because I recently upgraded from Win7 to Win8 on my desktop and was surprised to see the Metro Calendar app does not retain the colors--all my classes/appointments are the same color. Outlook still respects the colors, though.

 

[socialcarpet]

Good question... I can tell you that on my WP7 phone the calendar does display different colors from different calendars that it merges together, i.e. my personal stuff from my Google calendar is blue while my work stuff from Outlook is red. I'm not sure about the capability for colors within the SAME calendar source however. I hope someone with WP8 can answer it for you.

 

[Lord Vadger]

Ah yeah, not quite what I'm hoping to hear. Thanks though.

 

[fwaits]

Ah yeah, not quite what I'm hoping to hear. Thanks though.

The short answer is no, but...

You can create as many calendars on your Microsoft account (outlook.com) as you want and color code each of them so you could just organize things using separate calendars that each have their own color but all show on the same device under 1 account. You can just add these calendars into your work Exchange account using the hotmail connector so you will see them everywhere.

 

[ramrandhawa]

The calendar associated with my Exchange account has different colors for different classes on my school schedule. Will WP8 display my appointments with these colors?

I ask because I recently upgraded from Win7 to Win8 on my desktop and was surprised to see the Metro Calendar app does not retain the colors--all my classes/appointments are the same color. Outlook still respects the colors, though.

<rant>

This is one of my pet peeves . . . yes, I know there are workarounds (create multiple calendars) but seriously -- outlook has color-coded categories, surely Microsoft can find a way to make their own products work together! How hard could it be to map category color coding into WP8.

No, it'll all the be the same color.

</rant>

 

[Lord Vadger]

Well dang, that really sucks. I'm certainly not going to make a new calendar for each class or type of appointment just to see some color. It ought to be baked right in as it is for Outlook (the program).

 

[Lord Vadger]

Are there any third party calendar apps that will work properly (display appointment colors, or provide a weekly view of appointments)?

 

[ramrandhawa]

Unfortunately no. The WP OS doesn't have support for a category field, so that information doesn't even exist in the calendar. (Although there are third party apps that will give you a week view.)

I've been told if you really want this to work, your best bet is to get an iPhone or Android phone -- there are third party apps that will map your Outlook categories to different calendars, giving you the effect you desire. Ironically, the Outlook experience with Windows Phone is not nearly as complete.

It seems that Microsoft doesn't like Outlook, and really doesn't want people to use it . . . take for example its exclusion from Windows RT.