Notice: This material is excerpted from Special Edition Using Microsoft Exchange Server, ISBN: 0-7897-0687-3. The electronic version of this material has not been through the final proof reading stage that the book goes through before being published in printed form. Some errors may exist here that are corrected before the book is published. This material is provided "as is" without any warranty of any kind.

30 - Using Advanced Schedule+ Components

While most of the chapters now so far have focused on back-end administration of Exchange, this is a good chapter for end users. If you are an administrator, you may want to point out this chapter to your users for reference and to your training staff to aid in the preparation of training materials, because it offers step-by-step guides through many of Schedule+'s features. The figures in this chapter help you become familiar with the layout of Schedule+, its expansive features, and ease of use.

As a client component of Exchange, Schedule+ offers individual and group scheduling, contact management, and day planning across the enterprise. On the back end, it takes advantage of all the features of Microsoft Exchange Server, such as directory synchronization, global address books, e-mail, and fault tolerance.

The power of Schedule+ is in its ability to provide access to information for anyone who needs it, while still maintaining privacy and security. By replicating the local copy of your schedule with the Exchange server's copy, Schedule+ allows you to share information even when you are not in the office. Schedule+ is not just an application; it is a working environment.

In this chapter, you learn about the following:

• Schedule+ key features
• Schedule+ integration with Exchange
• Schedule+ flexibility

Using Key Features

Schedule+ offers many features to the user for organizing information. We will be discussing the key features of Schedule+ in great detail, giving step by step instructions on their use. The features covered will include:

• Scheduling and planning appointments
• The meeting wizard
• Scheduling recurring appointments
• Events
• Scheduling tasks
• Scheduling recurring tasks
• Events
• Views
• Tab gallery
• Contact management
• Finding information
• Schedule+ Interchange
• Access permissions
• Printing
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• Configurability

Scheduling and Planning Appointments

The main job of Schedule+ is to keep track of your day. The main screen shows your calendar for the day when you load the program. From this screen, you can begin to schedule appointments, move to other days, show different views, and so on. Figure 30.1 shows this layout.

Fig. 30.1

The Schedule+ main screen lays out your day in a notebook-style format.

In addition to the basic characteristics of a meeting—like start time, end time, description, and location—Schedule+ provides some additional parameters that prove useful when scheduling appointments. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Whether the appointment is an all-day affair
• Whether to sound a reminder chime and when
• Whether an appointment is tentative
• Whether the engagement is private or not
• Whether to make an appointment recurring

From the main screen, shown in figure 30.1, there are several ways to make an appointment. You can either double-click in a certain half-hour time interval, or you can hold down your left mouse button and drag the pointer to cover the entire time period of the engagement. Once highlighted, clicking the right mouse button brings down a menu from which you select New Appointment. The Insert menu at the top of the screen also provides a way to enter a new appointment. After either of these steps has been taken, you are presented with the screen shown in figure 30.2.

Fig. 30.2

The tab metaphor makes entering a new appointment quick and simple.

This screen contains all the information for the appointment. If you used the first method, double-clicking an interval, you can set the start and end time on this screen. If you chose the latter method, the correct starting and ending times will already be correct.

There are three or four tabs associated with a particular appointment:

• General: The General tab is the default tab that is selected whenever a new appointment is created. It shows the essential items such as meeting time, duration, location, description, with all the options discussed above. This is the only tab that requires input. Other tabs are optional.
• Attendees: The Attendees tab gives you the ability to invite other people to the meeting (see fig. 30.3). By using the Invite Others button you can ask other people to join you for a meeting. Just highlight their names and click on the Required or Optional buttons, depending on whether the person must be at the engagement or his or her attendance is optional. This feature can be used to keep people informed that there's a meeting happening without requiring their attendance. If you invited your boss as an optional attendee, he or she would stay abreast of what was happening in your department, even without really having the time to attend every meeting.
• Notes: The Notes tab allows you to type in comments about the particular appointment. This tab is also used when using the Invite Others button on the Attendees tab. Invitations from one participant to another are automatically pasted into this area when invitations are accepted. This will be discussed in greater detail later in this section.
• Planner: The Planner tab gives you the weekly cell view of your entire calendar. This gives you the flexibility and ease of use to see if you are free at a certain time, once you have decided to plan a meeting, or accept an invitation. It shows all the participants to any event in the selected cell.

Fig. 30.3

Use the Attendees tab to invite people to a meeting.

You can invite other people on the network to participate in a particular event. When you click the Invite Others button, Schedule+ presents the list of users in the global address book; however, you can drop-down the list box to use your personal address books instead, just as you can in the Exchange Client.

You can use both global and personal address books when inviting people to meetings by using the drop-down box in the upper right corner of the window.

After you choose the invitees, an e-mail message window is displayed, allowing you to explain what the meeting is about or to give any additional information. The participants, be they optional or required, are automatically entered into the To: field. Also, you can see that the optional participant, Bart in this case, has been filled into the cc: field. This shows the integration of Schedule+ into Exchange. At the top of the screen, you can see that the time and date have been filled in automatically and that the e-mail message form automatically popped up.

After the invitation message has been sent, it shows up in the recipients' inboxes just like any other message, except it has a special icon to indicate that it is a Schedule+ request.

When the invitation message is opened, Schedule+ is launched and shows the e-mail message that was sent, along with a request to accept, decline, or make a tentative agreement to attend the meeting. Schedule+ checks your schedule to see if you are free and lets you know whether something is already in that time slot, making it an easy choice. You can also view your schedule from here. This is useful if, for instance, you needed time to prepare for a subsequent appointment and the requested meeting would cut into that preparation time. Figure 30.4 gives an example of the choices available to you at this point.

Fig. 30.4

You can either accept or decline an invitation by just clicking the appropriate button.

After Joe accepts the invitation, the appointment gets pasted into his schedule automatically (see fig. 30.5). This is one of the most powerful features of Schedule+. In the process of accepting, Joe fired off an e-mail message to Kevin saying that he could make it. This allows Kevin to count on Joe's attendance.

Fig. 30.5

Schedule+ automatically places the meeting in your calendar when you accept an invitation.

Schedule+ automatically enters accepted appointments into your schedule and sets the Notes tab to include the e-mail message that was tacked onto the invitation. This is useful because sometimes it is easy to forget why a meeting was called, and the invitation message often contains that information.

The Meeting Wizard

The meeting wizard is a utility that makes it very easy to schedule a meeting between several people across the network. The previous section was doing it the hard was—if you can believe that! The meeting wizard can be accessed choosing Make Meeting either from the Tools menu or from a selected a time period on the calendar.

You can select location, resources, required, and optional attendees. Clicking Next brings you to a screen where the attendees are selected. They can be keyed manually into the window and then checked using the Check Names button, or, more easily, they can be picked from either the global address list, or your personal address list by clicking the Pick Attendees button. This brings you to the selection window as shown in figure 30.7.

Fig. 30.7

You can select the attendees from the global address list.

This screen should be very familiar to you by now. It is used whenever recipients need to be selected. The next thing you need to do is fill in any optional attendees, the same way you select required attendees: just pick them from the list.

The next page the wizard brings up has travel time and appointment duration information on it. The wizard asks what times and days are acceptable. With this information, the wizard goes to the Exchange server and checks whether people are free at the requested times.

If you have optional attendees, the wizard will ask if you want to get Free/Busy information for them. This is really situation-specific. For example, if you would like to have the remote possibility that your boss will make an appearance at a meeting, but he or she isn't required to attend, you would want to schedule the meeting at a time when he or she is free. If he or she isn't free, there is no possibility of even poking his or her head in at the meeting. If you choose not to check other people's schedule, the optional attendees will still be invited. After you've made your selection, the wizard will show you a planning grid.

The grid shown in figure 30.8 indicates the times that others are busy or free. The wizard suggests a time that is conducive to not only your own schedule but the schedules of all the required participants (and optional participants if you instructed it to do so). If you aren't comfortable with this time for some reason—maybe it is too early—you can click on the Pick Next Time button, which will bring up the next available time.

Fig. 30.8

The wizard suggests a time for the meeting.

After you click Finish, the wizard presents a screen where you type an e-mail message that the wizard then delivers to the participants. When they accept, an entry will automatically be added to their schedule and you will get a reply.

The meeting wizard makes it a real snap to schedule a meeting among many people. The key to making this feature of Schedule+ work is that the people you want to invite to meetings regularly have to keep the electronic schedules up to date. The Exchange server will take care of the rest. It keeps track of all the Free/Busy time information by always keeping the server copy of the user's schedule in synchronization with the user's local copy. If every individual's schedule is up to date, effectively scheduling meetings using the wizard is really simple.

Our example did not include scheduling equipment or locations. If you want to use those features, your Exchange administrator needs to create Exchange accounts for the rooms and pieces of equipment that are going to be reserved. If those resources are kept in the global address book, they can be scheduled across the enterprise by all users with the permission to do so. When using these features, the wizard adds a page or two asking you the device or resource for which you wish to make a reservation.

Scheduling Recurring Appointments

Schedule+ makes it simple to fill recurring tasks and appointments into your schedule. This is particularly useful for scheduling status meetings. Think about the contrast with a paper appointment book. On paper, you must write in each iteration of the same meeting on the same day each week. Sure, you could just assume that you'll have the meeting and not write it down, but does everyone in the office know that? What happens if it slips your mind and you make another appointment in its time slot?

With Schedule+, there are two ways to schedule a recurring appointment such as a status or staff meeting. One way is to select Recurring Appointment under the Insert menu. Another way is to click the Make Recurring button when scheduling a regular appointment. Either method produces an appointment dialog box that contains four tabs. The four tabs for a recurring meeting are a bit different than those for a regular meeting: here there is no Planner tab, and there is a When tab. The When tab, shown in figure 30.9, is the key to recurring events.

Fig. 30.9

Setting times and dates for recurring events.

The result, the completed schedule, is shown in figure 30.10. Take a look at the figure. You can see in the monthly calendar on the upper right that all the Fridays are shaded, indicating something is scheduled then. In addition, looking at the daily appointment, you will notice the circular arrows that indicate a recurring appointment.

Fig. 30.10

Recurring appointment scheduled for the month.

You can make changes to recurring appointments by using the Edit Recurring selection under the Edit menu.

Entering Schedule+ Events

Events are engagements that have no specific time of day attached to them. For example, if a seminar will occur on a certain day, or a certain movie is being released, and you want to be reminded of them, they wouldn't be classified as appointments or tasks, they would be considered events.

Events do not show up in any kind of Free/Busy information. They are simply reminders of things that may be happening on a certain day.

Events show up above your appointment book in the Daily and Weekly views.

There are several ways to enter an event into the system. One easy way is to single-click the pen-and-paper icon that is to the left of the date; this cause Schedule+ to display a drop-down menu (see fig. 30.11).

Fig. 30.11

Clicking on the event icon drops down a menu.

From the drop-down menu, select Insert Event. This will bring up the main event editing window. It is here you set all the properties of an event (see fig. 30.12).

Fig. 30.12

The main event window is where you will enter your event times and descriptions.

The Set reminder and Private checkboxes carry their usual standard meanings. The figure shows that no reminder is necessary, but you can set the reminder for minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months ahead of time.

There is a special kind of event called an Annual Event. You can use this feature to easily schedule occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. There are three ways to insert an annual event into your schedule. You can click or right-click the event icon under the month, you can use the Insert menu, or, if you already have events entered for a certain day, you can click on that event to get a drop-down menu. Type in the description, pick the date, choose your reminder settings, and click OK. Your annual event then appears at the top of the day for which it is scheduled.

There are several ways of executing the functions of Schedule+. Use the method that seems most comfortable to you. There is no single, right way; as all methods lead to the same windows.

Scheduling Tasks

Schedule+ provides a flexible To Do List system. It is an organized, entry-based system that helps you keep track of things you have to do during the day or series of days, just like all those sticky notes surrounding your computer monitor and inside your wallet. You can do things like set priorities, set the number of days a task should last, note when the task should be completed, and fill in the percentage of completion of a chore. The To Do List provides a more complete view of the information than what appears when the Daily tab is selected on your calendar. The Daily tab only shows the description field.

When you use Schedule+ on a regular basis, viewing the To Do List on the Daily tab is of great assistance because you have a constant reminder right on the screen that you have to get certain tasks completed that day. Adding a task is very simple from the Daily tab: select one of the rows with the left mouse button and type in a description.

Under the View menu, selecting Columns will give you the ability to view more To Do List fields while the Daily tab is selected. By default, only the description is shown.

Adding a task can be done for any day of the week. The monthly calendar is right above the To Do List for that day. Just select the day the task is due, and complete the same procedure.

A good, practical example of the usefulness of this feature is when you first get into the office in the morning. Fire up Schedule+, and when you are looking over your schedule for that day, you can start entering the things you have to get done, right on the same screen. You'll find that always having the reminder in front of you throughout the day will really help, especially if you have the habit of leaving Schedule+ open all day as previously discussed. When you work in a hectic environment, the morning is usually the calm before the storm, when all your thoughts are in order. As the day goes on, things can get lost in the shuffle, but Schedule+ will keep you right on track.

You can use your right mouse button to pull a menu to access more complex task properties. Select New Task.

In addition to using the simple entry method, putting a task on your To Do List using the To Do tab is also very easy. Simply click on the To Do tab. It displays the screen in Figure 30.13. From there, position the pointer somewhere in the main window, and click your right mouse button. From here, you have a few options. You can organize your To Do List into Projects or you can just list Tasks quickly. Projects are headings that categorize your tasks. For example, if there are certain activities that you perform every day, such as checking voice mail, e-mail, and writing reports. These tasks can be placed under a project title called Daily Activities. In addition, you can have a project called Home that lists all the chores you need to complete for home, like grocery shopping and going to the dry cleaner.

You can forego using project titles altogether and just list the things you need to get done under the project title of None (the default). You will see later how that method is quicker if you enter your tasks on the Daily tab of your calendar.

Using Project Titles

We will now enter a new task into the schedule with a project title, step by step. First, let's use the To Do tab on the calendar to enter tasks, so select that tab. Then, position the pointer anywhere on the grid and click the right mouse button. This will drop down a menu. Remember that you can also use the Insert menu at the top of the screen to enter new projects and tasks. Now follow this process:

1. Select New Project.

2. Enter a name for the project (in this case, Home).

3. Set a priority (determine whether the project is private), and click OK. The priority should be 1-9, A-Z, and privacy hides the information from other people on the network. If you give your secretary or associate permission to view your schedule, any item marked as private will not be displayed.

4. Select the newly created Home project row, and click the right mouse button.

5. Select New Task to brings up the screen shown in figure 30.13. The items on the screen are very straightforward.

The right mouse button is context-sensitive and will provide a customized menu, based on where the pointer is located.

Fig. 30.13

The General tab contains overview information about a new or existing task.

6. Fill in the desired values.

7. Move to the Status tab and fill in values for the percentage complete, days of effort, contact information, billing information, mileage, and your role in the task.

See "Using Contact Management" later in this chapter.

8. Press the OK button to enter the task under the current project.

You can add additional tasks and projects using the procedures just described. Schedule+ has an ingenious way of completing tasks as well as entering them. When certain task has been completed, clicking in the checkmark field crosses the item off your To Do list. The entry is not removed, but it is crossed out. This is useful for those times when you can't remember whether you paid your bills or not, or when you paid them.

The status items provide the timely information you need when you are working on many different projects. Sometimes you will not enter the status information, but it is nice to know it is there and that Schedule+ can serve as a way to keep track of your tasks when there are several of them at once. It is also handy when you are given the permission to view someone else's To Do List. For example, one person takes minutes during a meeting and records the progress of all the action items, that person can enter the information into other people's To Do Lists (see fig. 30.14). The information can prove very useful and productive in a collaborative environment. This is really the power of Exchange: it links people to each other in every way.

Fig. 30.14

The Status tab gives detailed information about the progress of a task.

The Notes tab provides a way for you to enter additional descriptive information, or any ancillary information related to the task. This tab is provided throughout Schedule+ and Exchange for free-form text entry to complement the database-style field entries.

Turning a Task into an Appointment

A key feature you can use when putting tasks on your To Do List is to turn the task into an appointment. This is useful for when you know you have a job that needs to be done and you know what job entails, but you don't have any time specific information. You can place the item on your To Do List, make notes, give a description, but leave off the time information. Later, when you get the details, you can put the item onto your appointment calendar. To access this feature, you select the task you want to convert into an appointment, click your right mouse button, and choose Appt. From Task from the menu. This will bring up the standard appointment schedule window.

By using the To Do list to its potential, you can have this kind of handy information at all times. For maximum benefit, it is important to have policies in place so that people throughout your organization are required to use the system.

See the section titled, "Getting Everyone on Board," in chapter 29, "Integrating Schedule+ with Exchange Server," for more information about setting company policies.

Scheduling Recurring Tasks

Filling in recurring tasks is almost the same as entering appointments, except that tasks are related to the To Do List rather than the appointment calendar: choose the To Do tab on the left side of the calendar window, position the pointer in the main window, and click the right mouse button, and choose Recurring Task.

You can use the menus for this function by selecting Recurring Task from the Insert menu.

A dialog box pops up with four tabs. The names of these tabs should be familiar to you, but because this is a recurring task, the entries on the General and When tabs are a bit different, to reflect the time intervals at which these tasks must be accomplished.

The General tab has an entry at the top of window that explains when the tasks occur. Other than that, the General tab is the same as the nonrecurring General tab. The When tab gives you the opportunity to enter the times when the task will occur. You can choose daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly and control things like when the recurring task will start and when it will end. This screen also tells you when the next occurrence is taking place. The complete screen is shown in figure 30.15.

Fig. 30.15

Using the When tab, you can set the times when tasks occur.

The Status and Notes tabs are the same for recurring tasks as regular tasks. Refer to the previous section for descriptions of these tabs.

Schedule+ provides a robust To Do List system that enables you to remind yourself of tasks that need to be accomplished on a particular day. The system is easy to use, is as straightforward as using sticky notes around your monitor, and provides much more power.

Using Views

The Schedule+ window is divided into several views. View is just another way of describing all the different tabs on your screen. For example, selecting the Daily tab is the same thing as the Daily view.

The Schedule+ window comes configured with six default views: the Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Planner, To Do, and Contacts views. In the next section, you will see all the different views that are available in addition to the default views.

• The Daily View: You have already seen plenty of examples of the Daily tab. It is shown in many of the figures in this chapter and is the default view. In the Daily view, your day is on the left side of the screen, with the right part of the screen divided vertically between a monthly calendar used for navigation on the top and the To Do List shown in the lower portion of the screen. You use the arrows located at the top of view above the date to move from day to day.
• This view is where most of your activity will probably take place. It consolidates a lot of disparate information. You are kept abreast of your events, appointments, and things to do all from this one screen. In addition, the monthly calendar gives you the long-term picture, shows which days you are free, and allows quick navigation. To move from month to month, use the arrows above the calendar.
• The Weekly View: This view gives you the picture of how the week is shaping up (see fig. 30.16). It is most useful when previewing the week ahead. For example, if you know you have a busy week ahead, you can make sure to enjoy the upcoming weekend a little more because you know you will be having a busy week. You can use the arrows at the top of the screen to see the next or previous weeks.

Fig. 30.16

The Weekly view gives you the week at a glance.

See the "Using the Tab Gallery" section for instructions on getting To Do List information in the same window as your monthly calendar.

• Another good use of the Weekly view is for scheduling appointments when people say they would like to meet at a certain time period. If someone wants to have a breakfast meeting, you can check the Weekly view to see what particular morning you are free. This view makes it very simple.
• The Monthly View: The Monthly View gives you the appointments and events scheduled for an entire month (see fig. 30.17). It looks much like the old paper calendars where you would keep track of birthdays and anniversaries.

Fig. 30.17

The Monthly view gives you the long-term picture.

See the "Using the Tab Gallery" section for instructions on getting To Do List information in the same window with your monthly calendar.

• Events show up with an asterisk in front of them, and appointments show up with the time in front of them.
• The Planner View: The Planner is really useful for project management. You can see the upcoming period of time and schedule meetings. It shows you which meetings require your attendance, which are optional, and whether resources are reserved for the particular meeting.
• The To Do View: This view gives you an extended look at the tasks you need to accomplish. It gives much more information than the Daily view.
• The additional attributes shown are priority, the ending date, the duration, the percentage complete, and the project to which the task belongs.

See the "Scheduling Tasks" section to get a complete description of how to use the To Do View.

• New categories can be added to the list by double-clicking on one of the column titles.
• The Contacts View: The Contacts View functions as your address book (see fig. 30.18). You can keep track of names, phone numbers, and addresses for both home and business. In addition, important dates, and notes can be entered. You see detailed information about all your contacts on one screen using the series of tabs on the right.

Fig. 30.18

The layout of the Contacts View enables you to enter and find information quickly.

See the "Using Contact Management" section for step-by-step instructions on how to use the Contacts View.

• You can find information by quickly navigating through the list of contacts on the left, or by entering the last name directly into the window at the top of the screen. Just entering the first few letters brings you directly to the right place.

Using the Tab Gallery

The Tab Gallery gives you the ability to customize your main Schedule+ window. You can customize what tabs are available, to be more in tune to the way you work. For example, if you really like to work with a Weekly View, but you also want to see your To Do List information, you can replace the default Weekly Appointments tab with the Weekly Schedule tab. If you have a separate contact management system already in place, you can choose to delete the Contact tab from your main screen and replace it with something else.

To use the Tab Gallery, select it from the View menu at the top of the screen or right-click any one of the tabs along the left side of the notebook (see fig. 30.19).

Fig. 30.19

Getting into the Tab Gallery is simple. Just right-click on any tab.

The Tab Gallery presents a list of available tabs, showing a thumbnail view of each and a textual description. Use the Add and Remove buttons to move tabs from one window to the other, and use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to establish the order in which you want the tabs will appear on the screen (see fig. 30.20).

Fig. 30.20

Use the Tab Gallery window to add and remove views from Schedule+.

Each tab has a screen name that may be different from the name listed in Available Tags box. You may notice that when you add a tab, a duplicate entry will exist. Just remove the duplicate. You can also change the screen name to something you are more comfortable with if you wish.

Here is a list of tabs included with Schedule+ that are not defaults (you must use the Tab Gallery to select these views):

You can have as many tabs as you want, but be careful. Having too many views will make Schedule+ more confusing to use. If you have more than six or seven views, you must scroll through your tabs on the main screen. This makes things a little more cumbersome. Unfortunately, Schedule+ does not layer the tabs.

• Contact List: The Contact List tab shows a columnar list of contacts. It differs from the Contacts tab because it doesn't have the tabbed edit fields. You can edit the entries by right clicking, and selecting Edit Item from the menu.
• Contacts and To Do List: This view gives you contact information and the related tasks (see fig. 30.21). Schedule+ will display all related tasks for a specified contact entry. It looks at the contact information entered into the task if it exists. There is an entry for All that will display all tasks.

Fig. 30.21

The Contacts and To Do List view joins the information based on contact information stored in the task entry.

When presented with columns that appear with buttons at the column heading, right-clicking will bring up a menu allowing you to sort, group, and arrange your fields. This applies in every context.

• Monthly Schedule: This view combines the Monthly and To Do List views (see fig. 30.22).

Fig. 30.22

You can move the horizontal line in the middle of the screen to resize each part of the window.

• Projects and To Do List: Rather than display tasks hierarchically like the To Do View, the Projects and To Do List View lays out each of your projects in a separate window. Selecting a particular project brings up all the related tasks in the bottom window.
• This is particularly useful when using Schedule+ for small project management purposes. See figure 30.23.

Fig. 30.23

You have easy access to all your projects and their related tasks using the Projects and To Do List View.

• Seven Habits Planner: The tab is based on the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. By going through the series of wizards under the Tools menu, you'll get a better idea of how to prioritize your life and your day.
• This view displays appointments for up to 7 days as well as the To Do List grouped by your Seven Habits Roles.

For more information, read the "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" section later in this chapter.

• Weekly Schedule: This view is the same as the Weekly View, except that it adds the To Do List. You can change the number of days to view by using the Number of Days selection under the View menu. See figure 30.24.

Fig. 30.24

You can use this view to enter new appointments as well as projects and tasks.

• Yearly Calendar: Viewing the yearly calendar gives the longest-term picture that Schedule+ provides. It can serve as a navigation device, and it shows the days appointments, tasks, and events are scheduled.

The right mouse button loses some functionality here. In order to add a new appointment, event, or task on the selected day, you must use the Insert menu.

The Tab Gallery provides many different ways of viewing information. Schedule+ was made to be very flexible in this manner. It is meant to be a daily environment where the user feels comfortable, and the utility of each view varies with the user.

Using Contact Management

Schedule+ provides a full-featured contact management system. It functions just like the cardfile on your desk except that it provide many more fields of information and is completely searchable.

See the next section for more information on searching.

Selecting the Contacts View on the notebook will bring you into the contact management screen (see fig. 30.25). It is separated into four distinct parts:

Fig. 30.25

Schedule+ provides robust contact management through the Contacts View.

• The Go to field in upper left part gives you the ability to find an item quickly.
• The Contacts listing under the Go to field on the left is a list of all your contact names.
• The upper right part shows the full name of the selected contact.
• The lower right part contains all the tabs where you enter information.

Five separate tabs in the Contacts view categorize all the fields Schedule+ offers:

• Business: The Business tab contains all the information regarding a person's company. Just start typing into the fields.
• Phone: The Phone tab provides a way to enter all the relevant phone numbers on one screen. You can enter business, fax, assistant, home, cellular, and pager numbers.
• Address: You enter both business and home address in these fields. There is multi-line support for the address to accommodate floor numbers and department names.
• Personal: You enter birthdays and anniversaries at the Personal tab (see fig. 30.26). These are automatically placed into your schedule as events. You can use any of the schedule views to change the notification time on those events. (Since the default notification is 15 minutes beforehand, you may want to change it.)

Fig. 30.26

With the Personal tab you can enter anniversaries and birthdays, and have them integrated into your schedule as events.

• This screen also contains a field for the name of the contact's spouse.

See the section entitled "Events" earlier in this chapter for more details.

• Notes: The Notes tab is used for typing any notes about the contact. In addition, there are four user-defined fields that let you keep track of things that might be important to you.

The four user-defined fields available for each contact can be used to tag each contact with different criteria which can then be used to group and sort the contacts into categories. For example, users can separate their "business" contacts from their "personal" contacts by entering these keywords in the User 1 field and then grouping the contacts by this field. Other uses include being able to identify those contacts which require a specific action item such as a follow-up letter or phone call.

Schedule+ offers basic contact management functionality that is integrated into Schedule+, Exchange, and other OLE applications.

Finding Information

Schedule+ offers different ways to locate information after information has been entered into the system. Because there are so many views in Schedule+, the searching facilities are very powerful, fast, and flexible.

If you select Find from the Edit menu, the window shown in figure 30.27 appears.

Fig. 30.27

You can enter a search string and find information from many sources.

You can control three properties of any search:

• What to search for
• Scope of the search
• What kind of information you want to find

These are entered and selected in the top three sections of the window shown in figure 30.27. The fourth section shows the results of the search.

You use the Find Next button to cycle through all the matches to your query. At any time, you can click the Edit button to change the properties of the item showing in the window. When you edit an item, it appears in its native edit window, as shown in figure 30.28.

Fig. 30.28

When you edit an annual event, it pops up in the Annual Event edit window.

Schedule+ Interchange

In order to make Schedule+ more robust and tie it into the Exchange architecture, Microsoft redesigned both the graphical user interface and the file structure of Schedule+. The outcome was 100 enhancements to the product. It is now available as a 32-bit application for Windows 95 and Windows NT.

Bringing Data into Schedule+ Version 7.0 from Previous Versions

Any version of Schedule+ earlier than 7.0 will not be able to communicate with Exchange. Microsoft has provided a way within Schedule+ 7.0 to import the appointments from previous versions. This is an easy process. All you have to do is get into your old version of Schedule+ the way you normally do. This will vary slightly, depending on whether you link your scheduling information with Microsoft Mail or you are working off-line in standalone mode. Either way, do the following:

1. Select Export Appointments from the File menu.

2. Select the file format Schedule+.

3. Select the schedule range All.

4. Include Daily Notes by checking the box if you want to export that information.

Figure 30.29 shows an example of what this screen will look like. It is a very simple process to save all your appointments into a file so Schedule+ 7.0 can import your data.

Fig. 30.29

Exporting data from previous versions of Schedule+ is quick and easy.

Duplicate appointments are put next to appointments that are already scheduled.

Another use of Schedule+ Interchange is the distribution of company holidays, days off, birthdays, and events. You can also distribute a company phone list this way. The file can then be e-mailed or posted in a public folder.

Importing Files to Schedule+ from Databases

In addition to importing files from older versions of Schedule+, the Interchange feature can be used to import database files into any one of the containers in Schedule+: the Appointment Book, the To Do List, the Event List, or the Contact List. If you already have an Access database, for example, that contains all your contact information, you can export the file to an ASCII delimited text file and import it directly into Schedule+. Here's the process.

1. Begin by writing down the name and order of the fields in your Access table. This will be useful later.

2. Export the data from Access as an ASCII text file. (Refer to the Access on-line help for instructions on how to do this.)

3. Schedule+ provides a wizard to help you import text data. From the File menu, select Import and scroll to Text, which makes the wizard pop up.

4. Input the name of the ASCII text file containing the information you want to import, and clicking Next to bring up the screen shown in figure 30.30.

Fig. 30.30

The wizard makes it possible to use the first line of the file as field names.

5. The Text Import Wizard screen asks whether the first line of the file contains the field names. Select No.(In most cases when exporting to ASCII from Access you won't have field names. You'll have to link the fields to the proper data later.)

6. Specify what the field and record delimiters are. The default in most cases is to separate fields by commas, and to enclose each field in double quotation marks. Keep these defaults, and click Next.

7. At the screen shown in figure 30.31, you must select where you want the information to be placed. In this case, select Contact List because we are assuming that the Access database was a list of names and phone numbers.

Fig. 30.31

You must select what kind of information is being imported.

8. Link the data with the field names in the Contact List. This will be very easy because you've written down the order of your fields in the Access file. Just go through each one as shown in figure 30.32 and select the proper field.

Fig. 30.32

Associate data values with field names.

9. Click Finish, and the items will appear in your Contact List. It is as simple as that.

You can also use Schedule+ to export data using a similar wizard.

Access Permissions

Access permissions are configurable for every object in the Exchange environment, and Schedule+ is no exception. You can assign rights to other users to view various parts of your schedule with varying authority. For example, you can give your boss read access to all the appointments in your calendar while keeping your contacts, tasks, and events private. You can also hide things from even your boss by marking them as Private in the properties window for the item.

Assigning permissions to users is straightforward; however, knowing what each of the permissions give access to is very important, so as not to compromise your privacy.

Setting permissions is done through the Tools menu. When you select Set Access Permissions, the window shown in figure 30.33 appears.

Fig. 30.33

Permissions are a powerful tool that lets others view certain aspects of your calendar.

What follows is a description of each kind of permission. With the exception of Custom, selecting an option in the User Role box will gray out all the fields below it. For example if you select Read, it will enable read access for Appointments, Contacts, Events, and Tasks. Custom lets you set each one individually. Also, Delegate and Delegate Owner permissions enable the checkbox labeled User meeting requests sent to me.

• None: Gives no access to the specified user. If this user tries to access your schedule, he or she will get an Access Denied message.
• Read: Gives the specified user read-only access to any item not marked Private in the item description. This is good for when you want your fellow employees to know what you're doing, while you retain the ability to hide the text of any particular description as needed. If you mark an item Private, another user looking at your schedule will know you have something scheduled, but he or she won't know what it is.
• Create: Allows the specified user to create new items and read existing ones not marked Private. This is useful for secretarial applications.
• Modify: Allows the selected user to read and modify existing items, except for items marked Private. This is the most potentially dangerous of all permissions because if you give it to someone else, they can make changes to your schedule without you knowing.
• Delegate: Allows the selected user to send and receive messages on your behalf. A delegate cannot read an item marked Private. This is another potentially dangerous attribute. Use only if you completely trust the person. It can lead to problems. It is useful for planning meetings when you are without a computer: you can call your delegate and have him or her send out a message for you.
• Owner: Allows the selected user to modify all of your schedule.

This permission enables the user to view your private items, and assign permissions.

• Delegate Owner: This is the same as owner, except the user can send meeting messages on your behalf.
• Custom: Allows you to define the level of permission for each of the scheduling categories. This is a very powerful feature because it enables you to give certain privileges to certain users.
• User receives meeting requests sent to me: Gets selected whenever you use any of the delegate permissions, because for all intents and purposes you may as well be that user, so why not receive his or her meeting requests. You can accept or decline as that user.

Depending on the permissions assigned to you, you can open other users' schedules. To do this, select Open and Other's Appointment Book from the File menu. You can also just press Control+O, select the user from the list, and click OK. You now can perform operations on that user's schedule. If you have Delegate or Delegate Owner permission, you can send out messages on behalf of that user.

In addition to these user permissions, there are three Global Permissions you can set, just by clicking the Global tab:

• Disallow Overlapping Appointments: Prevents you from scheduling two things on the same date at the same time. This is useful for maintaining the integrity of your schedule and avoiding conflicting appointments.
• Disallow Recurring Appointments: Removes the ability to schedule a recurring appointment.
• Show n Months Worth of My Free/Busy Information: Enter a value depending how far ahead you would others to be able to see your schedule. This option is useful in those situations where you would really like to keep your schedule open just in case something comes up. By keeping this number small, you only share a limited amount of information about when you will be free.

As you can see, the permissions capabilities of Schedule+ are extensive and robust and tie heavily into the Exchange server.

Printing Your Schedule+ Information

There are times that you are going to be without computing resources. Whether you are at home, on the road, in a meeting, or your computer is busy recalculating a massive spreadsheet, there will come a time when you need to have your schedule on paper. Schedule+ gives you the ability to print out a wide variety of scheduling information in a variety of different formats:

• All Text: Prints all data pertaining to that day.
• Contact List: Prints a report of all contacts, sorted by Company. Any entries that do not have a company field value are listed first and sorted by Last Name.
• Daily Dynamic: Presents the time of day on the left with all relevant information provided in each time period. What makes this report dynamic is that the time periods will be adjusted so that all time periods that have appointments and events are shown. The To Do List appears on the right side.
• Daily Fixed: Differs from the Dynamic in that the times on the left do not shift. Instead, a separate section is added on the upper right labeled Other Appointments.
• Monthly: Prints the standard monthly calendar with the previous and next months on the banner of the page. Any appointments, events, or tasks are put into each cell of the calendar.
• Monthly—small header: Same as Monthly, except the previous and next months are not printed.
• Monthly on Tri-fold graphical: Very informative report consists of two pages. Page one contains a daily layout on the left. The months are in the middle, with the current month shaded and the current day boxed; the right side shows the To Do List. Page two consists of a standard monthly calendar without the previous and next months. Each cell contains the appointment, event, and task information for that day.
• To Do List—mini
• To Do List—normal
• To Do List—text
• Weekly—5 day: Lays out the 5 days of the week as columns, with the time of day running down the side, and provides all relevant information for each day and time.
• Weekly—7 day: Same as the 5 day, except it adds Saturday and Sunday.
• Weekly—7 day with calendar: Adds a banner with a monthly calendar to the standard Weekly—7 day report.

Using The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Microsoft Schedule+ includes a series of wizards to help you organize your life as well as your day. In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey outlines a philosophy that helps people organize and prioritize the various aspects of their lives. Schedule+ can be used with Covey's principles in mind. On the Tools menu, two options relate to Covey's principles. If you choose Seven Habits Quick Start, the Seven Habits Wizard (see fig. 30.34) will ask you a series of questions and provide feedback based on your answers that will allow you to organize your time effectively.

Fig. 30.34

The Seven Habits Overview Wizard will lead you to other wizards that will help you do some self-evaluation.

The point of the exercises is self-reflection to get you to improve your quality of life, maximize your effectiveness, and learn a little something about yourself. The screens presented by the wizard lead you to self-understanding that will embody itself in the way you work every day. Completing all the wizards takes some time. You can always select Save Your Answers on the opening wizard and go back to answering later, but it is better to complete the reflection in one session.

When you have completed all the wizards, you'll have the tools to prioritize the things that are really important to you, and it will show in your attitude. You'll wind up with a personal mission statement, roles you will play, goals you'll strive to achieve, as well as bits of wisdom from historical figures. You'll come away from the experience with a different perspective than you had before.

Configuring Schedule+

Schedule+ provides a high degree of customizability. This is accomplished through the Options window. To get into the window, select Options from the Tools menu. This will bring up the screen shown in figure 30.35.

Fig. 30.35

The Options window allows you to configure Schedule+.

The General Tab

The General tab is shown in 30.35. It's options consist of the following:

• Calendar Name: This is the name that appears on the bar on the top of the screen. It can be set to anything you want. It defaults the your name in the Global Address List.
• Week starts on: The day you select will appear first in the navigation screens, as well as the weekly and monthly tabs. The default is Sunday.
• Day starts at: The time you set here will set atop your schedule in the daily and weekly views. The default is 8:00 AM.
• Day ends at: The time chosen here will cause any time after it to appear shaded in your views.
• Appointment book time scale: This controls the increments of time you see in your view. The default is a half hour.
• Appointment drag-drop time scale: When you extend a meeting by dragging the border to another time, you'll notice that the amount of granularity you get is 15-minute increments. This is the default drag-drop time scale value; you can change this value to suit your needs if you wish.
• Prompt to archive data over n months old: The system will prompt you every n months to move your old data off your active schedule to a local or network disk for recordkeeping purposes. Having Schedule+ prompt will keep your data current and remove any outdated appointments. You can always load the data from the disk if you need it later for reporting purposes.
• This account is for a resource: You can create accounts for resources like overhead projectors and conference rooms. If the Schedule+ is being used for that purpose, check the box.
• Set Daily Reminder: Selecting this checkbox will provide a pop-up window at the beginning of every day telling you what tasks you have scheduled for that day. The default is checked.
• Enable Reminders: If this box isn't checked, Schedule+ will not sound or display an alarm. The default is checked.
• Sound Audible Alarm: Select this checkbox to have a sound accompany the alarm pop-up windows. The default is checked.
• Automatically accept meeting requests: This is not checked by default. It is probably wise to keep it that way, so that you have full control over which appointments you attend and which ones you don't.
• Automatically remove canceled meetings: This is unchecked be default. You might want to check this box if you work in Schedule+ throughout the day. It will free time in your schedule and avoid waste of time used in planning for a canceled meeting.
• Send meeting requests only to my delegate: This feature is used in conjunction with the Delegate Access Permission if you don't want to receive meeting requests but want them to go to your delegate.

The Defaults Tab

The Defaults tab controls default behaviors for commonly used elements used in the General tabs of appointments, events, tasks, and contacts. Its options consist of this following (see fig. 30.36):

Fig. 30.36

The Defaults tab gives you control over the default values of commonly used parameters.

• Set reminders for appointments automatically: This determines whether Schedule+ sets a reminder for each appointment by default and the time period before the appointment when the user is reminded. The default value is 15 minutes.
• Set reminders for tasks automatically: This parameter is identical to the above, except that you can choose to be reminded before the start date or the ending date (because tasks have ending dates).
• Default task priority: This value is entirely up to you. You can select 1-9 or A-Z. The default value is 3.
• Default project priority: This value is entirely up to you. You can select 1-9 or A-Z. The default value is 3.
• Default task duration: Tasks have starting dates and ending dates; therefore, they also have duration. Setting the default duration will enable you to automatically set a reasonable ending date for your tasks. The default is 0 days.
• Default estimated effort: This value represents how much effort will go into a task. The default is 1 day. You can change it to suit your needs.
• Default business phone: When you are entering contact information, there exists a field for Business Phone. In today's society, people tend to have many different phone numbers. If you tend to communicate with people by fax, you might want to make Fax their default business number. The default value is Business.
• Default home phone: Just as in business, sometimes you communicate with people more on their cellular phones when you make personal calls. You can make Mobile or Pager the default home phone number. The default is Home.

The Display Tab

The Display tab lets you control the way things appear on the screen. From font size to the colors of objects, this tab lets you configure Schedule+ the way you want to see it. When you combine this with the flexible views offered by Schedule+, you have a lot of control over the way things look. Refer to figure 30.37 for what's available on the Display tab.

Fig. 30.37

The Display tab lets you see Schedule+ the way you want it.

The Time Zone Tab

The Time Zone tab gives you the ability to configure a primary time zone and a secondary time zone, as well as account for daylight savings time. See figure 30.38.

Fig. 30.38

The Time Zone tab lets you configure Schedule+ to let you schedule appointments in for a second time zone if you need to travel often.

The ability to have a secondary time zone is great for people who travel all the time. By choosing Second Time Zone from the View menu, you can configure Schedule+ to display your appointments in two time zones.

This tab also shows the current time in your primary time zone.

The Synchronize Tab

In order to provide its group scheduling capability, Schedule+ needs to synchronize the Exchange server copy of your schedule file with the one on your hard disk. This is configured in the Synchronization tab (see fig. 30.39). It offers the following options:

Fig. 30.39

Configuring the synchronization of both copies of your schedule file is made simple by this tab.

• Synchronize every n minutes: This option can be set for any amount of time you wish. However, there are a few things to keep in mind. Setting it to low will create network traffic and ultimately serve to annoy and disrupt you. Setting it too high may make it difficult to keep your two files in close enough sync at any give point in time. The default is 15 minutes, and that should be sufficient in most cases.
• Always synchronize upon exit: This is a good feature and should be left at its default value of checked.
• Work primarily from local file: Checking this box writes all data to your local file first, allowing you to synchronize the server file according the schedule. This is the default mode of operation and should be left alone.
• The Synchronize Now button: You can use this button to manually initiate the synchronization of the two versions of your schedule file. You may want to do this after a lot of activity so the rest of the network users will know not to try to invite you to meetings at those times.

From Here . . .

Network scheduling can be a very valuable tool in your organization. Although an entire book can be devoted to the topic of Schedule+, we've described the basic features of Schedule+ to give you a head start on understanding what a powerful environment Exchange and Schedule+ provide.

We've exposed how Schedule+ integrates into the Exchange client and server architecture. In addition, these features show how flexible this piece of software is. You can do a lot with Schedule+, as long as you use your imagination to come up with novel uses of the technology, like global phone books and enterprise-wide event scheduling with Exchange public folders. Follow those ideas to squeeze more mileage out of the Schedule+ features.

• See Chapter 28, "Understanding User Interface Features," for explanation of how to use this other Exchange client component.
• See Chapter 29, "Integrating Schedule+ with Exchange Server," to see what issues you will face when facing the task of rolling out Schedule+ to your enterprise.