Shared Exchange Calendars in Outlook Mobile

[notoriousTOB]

Afternoon all, thanks for bothering to read.

I'm dealing with a client who has bought himself a Nok 920. He's set up his exchange account on it no worries but wants to know if he can open a shared calendar in Outlook mobile or if he'll have to add it as a separate account. I can't find any documentation online and would rather not drive out there just to fiddle with his phone.

Any users got any experience with this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[CapnPauly]

I don't believe so. ActiveSync connections are one-for-one, in that you can authenticate to one mailbox per ActiveSync account, unlike Outlook where you can open multiple accounts in one instance of Outlook.

The one thing I have not tried yet, however, is adding multiple ActiveSync accounts to the same domain. Maybe someone else reading can chime in with their experiences.

 

[Funky Cricket]

Ditto to above, exchange active sync only allows the one to one connection, so you can't see a conference room or shared company calendar as yours. You should be able to go to OWA and see everything through the browser though.

 

[notoriousTOB]

Thanks for the knowledge CapnPauly and FunkyCricket, I'll let you know how I get on with adding another account from the same domain.

 

[Funky Cricket]

It would be interesting to know if you could. I know Outlook can only have one OA (Outlook Anywhere) attachment (due to the https binding to allow push), i'm not sure the phone would deal with that. There may be a way to configure a rule that the other calendar always invites that user to it's events, so he will see them as tentative in his calendar?

 

[CapnPauly]

"Outlook Anywhere" is simply another name for "RPC over HTTP", which is ancillary to message-flow; it simply allows RPC calls and NTLM authentication over an HTTP connection. That said, if your Outlook is configured for "Joe Smith" but you have access to a shared calendar named "Accounting Conference Room" then you could still open the "Accounting Conference Room" calendar via Outlook out of the office as you would in the office. You only have one Exchange connection established in Outlook, but you can add additional mailboxes for viewing.

ActiveSync, however, is one-to-one. If Joe needs access to his mailbox (Joe Smith) he would need an ActiveSync connection setup for joe.smith@domain.com and if he needs access to the Accounting Conference Room he would need "accountingconferenceroom@domain.com" (if it exists) setup as an ActiveSync profile as well. This is where the issue is - can there be two separate mailbox connections to domain.com? I'd like to think so since you can have multiple ActiveSync profiles on a WP8 device, but we have yet to see.

 

[Funky Cricket]

That is why I specified OA when I said outlook.. I'm not sure how the phone handles the active sync profiling and domain authentication. If you can have 2 or not.

 

[BENNIEV]

I have 2 exchange accounts setup on my 920 and it works flawlessly.

 

[CapnPauly]

I have 2 exchange accounts setup on my 920 and it works flawlessly.

For the same domain?

 

[crystal_planet]

I'm kind of in the same boat. Currently we are running 2008 SBS and utilize the company web sharepoint calendar for tracking installations etc, and it is exceptionally helpful. Unfortunately, aside from one workstation, all of our client systems use outlook 2003 (yeah, yeah I know), so I can't even link the sharepoint to my calendar unless I'm logged into that one client with outlook 2010 installed. I'd love to see all my appointments from the company web calendar migrate to my WP8, but I don't think it's possible at this point. I don't even use my outlook calendar.

 

[crystal_planet]

"Outlook Anywhere" is simply another name for "RPC over HTTP", which is ancillary to message-flow; it simply allows RPC calls and NTLM authentication over an HTTP connection. That said, if your Outlook is configured for "Joe Smith" but you have access to a shared calendar named "Accounting Conference Room" then you could still open the "Accounting Conference Room" calendar via Outlook out of the office as you would in the office. You only have one Exchange connection established in Outlook, but you can add additional mailboxes for viewing.

ActiveSync, however, is one-to-one. If Joe needs access to his mailbox (Joe Smith) he would need an ActiveSync connection setup for joe.smith@domain.com and if he needs access to the Accounting Conference Room he would need "accountingconferenceroom@domain.com" (if it exists) setup as an ActiveSync profile as well. This is where the issue is - can there be two separate mailbox connections to domain.com? I'd like to think so since you can have multiple ActiveSync profiles on a WP8 device, but we have yet to see.

I take it you are running exchange in your office. How's your Nokia set up? Just as a typical outlook client?

 

[CapnPauly]

I take it you are running exchange in your office. How's your Nokia set up? Just as a typical outlook client?

Yep. I'm in the midst of migrating from 2003 to 2010.
Unfortunately it is NOT a standard setup as we use certificates for authentication going through a TMG 2010 server. It's a massive pain in the a** to manage, and the only benefit I see is that users don't need to enter their password on their phone whenever they change it on their workstations, but whatever...
All I had to do was export my account's certificate as a .PFX and install that. Worked like a charm.

 

[BENNIEV]

Yep same domain... Office 365. Its nice. Syncs contacts and calendars as well. I only wish Microsoft would fix the awful calendar views in WP8...

 

[crystal_planet]

My exchange mail runs into my phone slicker than poop through a goose - faster than I get it on my desktop by about 45 seconds. It's pretty nice actually. On the server I can see the relationship between my phone and my account if I view my profile, but as to this SharePoint fiasco, well it just blows chunks. I was looking at some possible solutions, and some moderator on tech net told a poster to "cut the appointments from SharePoint and paste them onto his outlook calendar". The resulting response was pretty comical. :evil:

 

[CapnPauly]

Yep same domain... Office 365. Its nice. Syncs contacts and calendars as well. I only wish Microsoft would fix the awful calendar views in WP8...

Awesome. Well there ya go, notoriousTOB.

 

[CapnPauly]

My exchange mail runs into my phone slicker than poop through a goose - faster than I get it on my desktop by about 45 seconds. It's pretty nice actually. On the server I can see the relationship between my phone and my account if I view my profile, but as to this SharePoint fiasco, well it just blows chunks. I was looking at some possible solutions, and some moderator on tech net told a poster to "cut the appointments from SharePoint and paste them onto his outlook calendar". The resulting response was pretty comical. :evil:

At my last place the SharePoint admin was able to hook into OWA to display the Public Folder-based conference room calendars we had. This was back with Exchange 2003 & SharePoint 2007, I believe.

 

[notoriousTOB]

Thanks everyone, added the other accounts without even the slightest hitch and I though it was working quite elegantly. Apparently not though, as he's returned the phone and bought an iphone. Directors, eh.

Thanks again.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

My exchange mail runs into my phone slicker than poop through a goose - faster than I get it on my desktop by about 45 seconds. It's pretty nice actually. On the server I can see the relationship between my phone and my account if I view my profile, but as to this SharePoint fiasco, well it just blows chunks. I was looking at some possible solutions, and some moderator on tech net told a poster to "cut the appointments from SharePoint and paste them onto his outlook calendar". The resulting response was pretty comical. :evil:

Could you quote us the response please? I want to see this.

 

[emiliano lugli]

I am pretty shure that I managed to see shared calendars (ie calendars shared by somebody else) on my windows phone. It was an experiment, and it worked with a third party app. But I removed the app, because it was my wife's need to see her work calendar (she is the CEO assistant) on the phone. Now I can't see the app in the app history, but I amm really shure it worked well. Now I am giving her my lumia, and she desperately needs the calendar.