The high level of integration between Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft SharePoint means that it’s often possible to access features from within the SharePoint environment without needing to directly access the system.  This makes it possible to publish Microsoft Access files directly into SharePoint lists as well as saving Word and Excel documents directly into a document library.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 also delivers a number of features to assist users in managing offline files as well as organising their diaries across multiple team sites or collaboration environments.

In this post, we look at how to integrate your shared calendars in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 so that you can view some or all of them in real time.

First thing is to navigate to the Shared Calendar that you’re wanting to manage within Microsoft Outlook 2007.  Site configurations differ, but if the person creating the site used default options then you’ll likely see a link saying Calendar on the quick launch bar, on the left underneath the header Lists.

Click on the calendar link and the screen should update to show your calendar in the default view.

Just above the calendar, and below any crumb trail, you should see a menu bar and a drop down menu that says Actions.

Click on Actions and choose Connect To Outlook.

Microsoft Outlook should then appear with a dialogue box asking whether you trust this information source and want to link it to your Outlook account.  Click on Yes.

You’ll now notice that in addition to your personal calendar in My Calendar, a new header will have appeared in the calendar folder list that says Other Calendars.  This is where Outlook stores all other linked calendars.

To view a calendar, tick the box next to the name; to hide a calendar, untick the box.  Simple as that.

Screen shots and video on their way soon.