I wanted to create a boardroom calendar that internal and external users can view and edit in Microsoft 365.
I reviewed the organization sharing settings in the Exchange admin center, which allow sharing of free/busy and other calendar information between federated Exchange organizations. However, setting this up requires administrative access to both tenants, and I didn’t have access to the external users' tenant.
I also explored external sharing for a user's mailbox, but that option only grants the external user permission to view the mailbox content without the ability to add or modify items.
This lead me to SharePoint where I could create a basic site with a calendar and setup internal and external permissions that allowed users to sync the calendar back to Outlook.
1. Log into Microsoft 365 and open the SharePoint Admin Center.
2. In the left-hand menu, click on Sites, then select Active sites, and then click the Create button.
3. Select a Communication site
4. And choose a Blank custom site (Scroll to the bottom of the list)
5. Then click the Use template button.
6. Give your site a name, description and select the site owner. This site owner should be the person giving users access to the calendar.
7. Select Language and Time zone and press the Create site button.
8. The new calendar site should now appear in the Active sites list.
9. Click on the URL .../sites/Calendars to open the Calendar SharePoint site
10. Click the COG and select Add an app from the drop down menu
11. Select the classic experience.
12. And choose a Calendar
13. Give the Calendar a name and press Create.
14. You will now see the Boardroom Calendar in the list of contents. Click on the calendar to open it in the browser.
15. You now have web access to the calendar, allowing you to add and modify entries.
16. To sync with your Outlook client, select the calendar from the menu, then click Connect to Outlook from the ribbon.
17. Click Open Link button, to allow the site to open then stssync link with Outlook.
Click Yes button, to allow the SharePoint Calendar to connect to Outlook.
19. Now you have the Boardroom Calendar available in Microsoft Outlook.
20. Now, let's add an external user to access the calendar. Return to the SharePoint Admin Center, select the Calendar, and click the Sharing button.
21. Change the External sharing to New and existing guests. Press the Save button and close the Window.
22. Now click the Membership button.
To give a user Read Only access add them to the Site visitors group. In my case I want external user to have Edit access so I am adding them to the Site members group.
Click Add site members.
24. Add the external or internal email address and click the Add button. (You may have to add the external user as a guest to your tenant first)
25. The external/internal user will now have access to the calendar using the SharePoint URL (https://companyname.sharepoint.com/sites/Calendars/Lists/Boardroom/calendar.aspx
and can sync it to Outlook using the Connect to Outlook button.
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