How To Share Office 365 Calendar

Office 365 Calendar Sharing

As an Exchange Online admin, users may ask you to delegate access to their calendar.

Unfortunately, you can’t do this via the Exchange Admin Center. It’s one of many tasks that require PowerShell.

With Easy365Manager, the leading Office 365 management snap-in for Active Directory, you can share Office 365 calendars easily from AD user properties:

If you prefer to spend your time running PowerShell scripts, the following guide will show exactly how you do it.

1. Connect to Exchange Online using PowerShell

Use the EXO PowerShell module (supports MFA) and connect to Exchange Online:

Connect-ExchangeOnline

For complete details on connecting to Exchange Online with PowerShell, read Connect to Office 365 – PowerShell.

2. Check Existing Calendar Permissions

Before configuring calendar sharing on a mailbox, you need to know the following:

  • Is the calendar folder named “Calendar”?
    • A localized mailbox uses a localized name, like “Kalender”, “Calendario”, etc.!
  • Are permissions already assigned for the delegate?
    • You need one command to set existing permissions and another command to add new permissions!

Use the following command to identify the calendar folder name (substitute username with the actual user name):

Get-MailboxFolderStatistics username | ? {$_.FolderType -eq 'Calendar'} | ft Name,FolderPath,FolderType

Sample output from this command may look like this:

PS C:\> Get-MailboxFolderStatistics hans.c.orsted | ? {$_.FolderType -eq 'Calendar'} | ft Name,FolderPath,FolderType

Name       FolderPath  FolderType
----       ----------  ----------
Calendario /Calendario Calendar

Use the following command to list the existing permissions of the calendar folder (substitute username with the actual user name):

Get-MailboxFolderPermission username:\calendar

Sample output from this command may look like this:

PS C:\> Get-MailboxFolderPermission tycho.brahe:\calendar

FolderName           User                 AccessRights              SharingPermissionFlags
----------           ----                 ------------              ----------------------
Calendar             Default              {AvailabilityOnly}
Calendar             Anonymous            {None}

The reason you should check existing settings is that you need to use different commands depending on whether you’re updating existing permissions or setting new permissions.

3. Configure Mailbox Sharing

If the user or group to which you are delegating rights already has rights on the calendar you must use the Set-MailboxFolderPermission command.

If e.g. you want to change the rights assigned to Default from AvailabilityOnly to LimitedDetails use the following command:

Set-MailboxFolderPermission tycho.brahe:\calendar -User Default -AccessRights LimitedDetails

On the other hand, if you’re assigning new permissions on the calendar, you must use the Add-MailboxFolderPermission command.

If . e.g., you want to grant the user Hans.Schjellerup the Editor right on the calendar of user Tycho Brahe, use the following command:

Add-MailboxFolderPermission tycho.brahe:\calendar -User Hans.Schjellerup -AccessRights Editor

After running the two above commands on the calendar of user Tycho Brahe the configuration should now look something like this:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-MailboxFolderPermission tycho.brahe:\calendar

FolderName           User                 AccessRights              SharingPermissionFlags
----------           ----                 ------------              ----------------------
Calendar             Default              {LimitedDetails}
Calendar             Anonymous            {None}
Calendar             Hans Schjellerup     {Editor}

If you want to know more about the mailbox folder and calendar access rights available, please refer to this article: Add-MailboxFolderPermission.

How to Save 95% on Hybrid Office 365 Support

As illustrated above, a senior-level admin will easily spend 3 minutes or more using PowerShell to configure calendar delegation.

Based on the standard salary of a senior admin and applying a Hadzima factor of 1.4, the cost to resolve this ticket is USD 3.60 or more.

A first-level supporter using Easy365Manager can configure calendar permissions in 20 seconds with practically no training. Even if the calendar folder name is localized or existing permissions exist or not:

Based on the standard salary of a first-level supporter and a Hadzima factor of 1.4, the cost to resolve this ticket is USD 0.18.

For this particular ticket (calendar delegation), Easy365Manager will save you 95% of the cost to solve it.

Consolidate Active Directory and Office 365 Administration

With Easy365Manager, your Office 365 user provisioning, license, and mailbox administration all become an integrated part of AD user management.

This unique approach can save you a ton of time. You can create synchronized Office 365 users and shared mailboxes in just a few seconds.

Similarly, you can retire user accounts, convert to shared mailboxes and set up forwarding in a matter of seconds.

The mixed bag of standard Microsoft tools requires that you switch between AD, Exchange on-premises, Microsoft 365 Admin Center, Exchange Online Admin Center and Azure AD Connect.

This leads to tedious workflows and frequent errors that may accidentally cause dual Office 365 users and mailboxes to be generated.

Easy365Manager removes the pain and lets you and your team work much faster.

On top of all these benefits, Easy365Manager allows for the removal of the on-premises Exchange Server.

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