OL98: How to Use vCalendar in Outlook 98

ID: Q179431

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

Microsoft Outlook 98 supports vCard and vCalendar, a powerful new 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.

This article discusses the implementation of vCalendar in Outlook. For information on vCard, please see the REFERENCES section below.

This article discusses:


MORE INFORMATION

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

  1. In a Calendar folder, click to select an appointment for which you wish a vCalendar file.


  2. On the File menu, click Save As.


  3. In the "Save file as type" list, click to select vCalendar Format (*.vcs).


  4. In the Save In list, select the folder where you wish 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 email message and address it to the recipient.


  2. On the Insert menu, click File.


  3. Click to select a vCalendar (.vcs) file, and 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, on a disk, you can import it into your default Calendar folder using the Outlook Import and Export Wizard as follows:

  1. On the File menu, click Import and Export.


  2. Click to select "Import a vCalendar file (*.vcs)" 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 will vary with the information inserted by the file creator but a typical file created from an Outlook appointment looks like the following in a text editor: 

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Microsoft Corporation//Outlook MIMEDIR//EN
VERSION:1.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:19980114T210000Z
DTEND:19980114T230000Z
LOCATION:My office
CATEGORIES:Business
DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:This is a note associated with the
meeting=0D=0A
SUMMARY:Meeting to discuss salaries
PRIORITY:3
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
NOTE: the DTSTART and DTEND entries above 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 appointment above the start time would be 210000-060000 or 150000 on the 24-hour clock. Converted to A.M/P.M the start time is 150000-120000 or 3:00 P.M.


REFERENCES

For information on vCard, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q179430 How to Use vCard in Outlook 98

Additional query words: 


Keywords          : GnlCal IntpImEx 
Version           : WINDOWS:
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbhowto kbinfo

Last Reviewed: July 27, 1999