How to use vCalendar in Outlook

Microsoft Outlook supports vCalendar, a powerful approach to electronic Personal Data Interchange (PDI). PDI occurs every time individuals communicate, in either a business or personal context. These interchanges frequently include the exchange of information, such as business cards, telephone numbers, addresses, dates and times of appointments, and such. The vCard and vCalendar features facilitate PDI electronically.

vCalendar files are used to exchange information about appointments and schedules with others who are not in your workgroup or organization. You can also use them to schedule appointments with those who use scheduling software incompatible with yours.

How to Create a vCalendar File

To create a vCalendar file, follow these steps:

1. In a Calendar folder, click to select an appointment for which you want a vCalendar file.
2. On the File menu, click Save As.
3. In the Save as type box, click to select vCalendar Format (*.vcs).
4. In the Save In box, click the folder where you want to save the vCalendar file, and then click Save.

How to Distribute a vCalendar File

You can distribute a vCard file like other computer files. To send it as an e-mail attachment, follow these steps:

1. Open a new e-mail message, and then address it to the recipient.
2. On the Insert menu, click File.
3. Click to select a vCalendar (.vcs) file, and then click OK.

How to Automatically Process a vCalendar File

With Outlook, you can automatically convert a vCalendar file received from an external source into an Outlook appointment entry. If the vCalendar file arrives as an e-mail attachment, you can double-click the vCalendar, then click Save And Close to add the appointment to your default Calendar folder.

If you receive the vCalendar in the form of a file, perhaps on a disk, you can import it into your default Calendar folder by using the Outlook Import and Export Wizard. To do this:

1. On the File menu, click Import and Export.
2. Click to select Import an iCalendar or vCalendar file (*.vcs), and then click Next.
3. Click to select the vCalendar file, and then click Open.

How to Manually Process a vCalendar File As a Text File

A vCalendar record is just a text file. If you do not have an automated facility to process vCalendar records, you can open them with a text editor and use the information. The content of a vCalendar file varies with the information inserted by the file creator, but a typical file created from an Outlook appointment looks like the following example in a text editor: NOTE: The DTSTART and DTEND entries are a combination of the date and time in the format, YYYYMMDDThhmmssZ, where YYYY=year, MM=month, DD=day of the month, T=start time character, hh=hour, mm=minutes, ss=seconds, Z=end character. This string expresses the time as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), on a 24-hour clock so must be adjusted to your time zone.

For example, if you are in the Central Time zone, your time is 6 hours behind GMT. So, you would subtract 6 hours from the start and end times to derive the correct time range for the appointment. In the previous appointment example, the start time would be 210000-060000 or 150000 on the 24-hour clock. If you converted the time to A.M or P.M, the start time is 150000-120000 or 3:00 P.M.