Hi, my name is David and I’m a Program Manager for Windows Live Calendar. The service has infinite cool uses, but did you know that it can help lower your gasoline/petrol bill, help save the planet, and decrease roadway traffic? It’s true! You can easily use Calendar to coordinate a car or vanpool. In fact, some of our own team members are doing that right now. It’s simple. Here’s how:
Create a carpool calendar
- Go to http://calendar.live.com and sign in with your Windows Live ID or create one if you haven’t already.
- Click New, and then click Calendar.
- Enter the name and information about your new calendar—I’ll call mine “Carpool Calendar” for simplicity—and click Edit sharing.
- Save your calendar and select Share this calendar.
- Decide which carpoolers can see to-dos, add all the people in your carpool, and decide what you want each person to be able to view and do in the calendar. We like to give everyone in the carpool “View, edit, and delete items” permissions so that everyone in the carpool can quickly update the calendar if their plans change.
- Click Save.
Using the carpool calendar
The new calendar appears in your calendar list on the left side of your page. To show only that calendar, select the colored box next to its name.
Everyone you added to your calendar is sent an invitation to join. It may take a few minutes for them to get the e-mail message. Your fellow carpoolers simply click Accept in the e-mail invitation and sign in with their Windows Live IDs (or create a Windows Live ID if they don’t have one). They will now see the new Carpool Calendar in their lists, as well!
Quick tip—it’s a good idea to select Receive a daily e-mail schedule for this calendar so that each morning you will know who is planning to ride that day. The e-mail reminder is sent at 4 AM each day, so you’ll have it in time. It’s a good idea to go to http://alerts.live.com as well, to make sure all of your alerts for the calendar and for Windows Live will be delivered as you’d like them to be.
Ask everyone to update the calendar on a weekly or daily basis with the days they will be riding. They just need to click New, click Event, and add the details and recurrence information, making sure to select the name of the carpool calendar in the Calendar box.
That’s it! And carpools are only the start of it—just imagine what else you can organize in your everyday life using Windows Live Calendar! It’s especially powerful as a tool for family calendaring. Coordinating your kids’ schedules is a breeze. We’d love to hear how you use Windows Live Calendar and to get your suggestions for making it even more practical and powerful in the future.
Happy commuting!
- David & The Windows Live Team
That\’s a really useful idea!
live services are wicked awesome!
Very good real life situation that a Calendar could be used for… Great job!
stop putting things on my msn if i want something changed i.ll let you know i cant send an email for this new page comming up so would you please stop Eunice thank you
hehe…
David, you asked at the end what would make Calendar more powerful and useful. Two suggestions. I\’d like to be able to snooze alerts — that is, note an alert for an upcoming item and tell it to snooze for 15 to 30 minutes and then alert me again. I believe we have onetime only alerts. Second, the ability to check busy/free status of others so that the calendar could be used for setting up meetings. Not by looking at other calendars. That\’s too cumbersome. But when inviting people to a meeting, Calendar automatically checks their agendas for their availability. Oh, and possibly the calendar could search for alternate times when all invitees are free.
That\’s a good idea Brien Muller.
Very nice … great job done.
Great! But why can\’t I share my Windows Live Calendar with Google Calendar?When I share it I click "Send friends a view-only link to your calendar" And then When I try to subscribe to my calendar in Google Calendar it says "Could not fetch the url because robots.txt prevents us from crawling the url." where it is HTML,ICS, or RSS it is always the same I know that you can do itThanks
Hussein and Brien, thanks for the ideas. We\’ll consider free/busy enhancements for future and we are looking into the issue with Google Calendar right now.
David; why are the people that I\’m sharing my calendar with, able to view my inbox and contacts? Is there a way I can hide that and have them view the calendar only?
I use Calendar for everything since I now have loads of dates to save for different things. This has become so helpful to me now, that I couldn\’t live without it. However, if I choose to set a reminder, which I\’m prompted to do anyway, I\’ve never got the computer on in time to get it as it takes me ages to get prepared for a journey, due to being disabled! Calendar is really very helpful in all aspects, though. I wonder if the Live Team can truly appreciate the quality of the service they\’ve given us? It would take some beating – I\’ll tell you now. Thank you for this blog.
@ No name (just below Jen\’s comment):The only way other people can see your e-mail and contacts is if you have given them your Windows Live ID and password, and they are signing in as you. This is NOT recommended. To share your calendar with someone in a secure way, they need to sign up for their own Windows Live ID, and you need to add that ID (e-mail address) to your contact list. Then you can share your calendar with that person as described in the blog post above.If you don\’t want to make your friends sign in, you can also send them a "view-only" link to your calendar. Just click "Share this Calendar," and then select the check box that says "Send friends a view-only link to your calendar."- Windows Live team
@Jen:If you want to change your default calendar reminders to 12 hours ahead or 2 days ahead, you can do that. You can also arrange to have reminders sent to your mobile or Messenger. To find these settings, just go to your calendar and click Options. – Antonia
@WLT: Yeah, I know! Thanks heaps, though. Much appreciated:-) As long as I remember to put my dates in, that\’s really all that matters. Saves having to stumble across my room to grab a paper calendar. Wouldn\’t have one now. Would be a comedown after Live\’s version!
A moment of Truth, maybe Jen. Hehe…
Do they move all my Reminders From The Original Web Calendar To The Windows Live Calendar?
Good Tuesday!
Search feature is required in Live Calendar
Gorgeous Wednesday…
They don\’t have a search feature!!!!!
Terra, yes, reminders will migrate to Windows Live Calendar when data moves for the original (MSN) calendar. Thanks for using the service.
Jen, have you considered setting SMS alerts so you can get the reminders sent to you mobile phone? You can set that up at http://alerts.live.com by clicking "Edit Delivery" in the Windows Live Calendar section.
hola no entiendo por que mi msn no me funciona
Paloma, refieras a su calendario MSN? Si necesita volver a ello, tiene que visitar Opciones > Mas Opciones > Cambiar al calendario original. Y no se olvida que vamos a mover todo el contenido de su calendario MSN al calendario Windows Live muy pronto. Despues de eso no va a poder accesar el calendario MSN.
@Hussein. Don\’t know if this is exactly what you are looking for. I wanted to make it possible for google calender to read the Win Live Calendar that i already published. The link Win Live Calendar is called webcal:// change this to http:// when you add the link in google. Note that first I thought this wouldn\’t work, but when i logged on to goggle later that day it had updated
how can i sinchronize my live calendar with my blackberru calendar?
forward e-mail no longer shows uphow can i put this option back into my e-mail account??
Heeyaa I Was Wondering If Anyone Could Help….I Upgraded To The New Msn 2 Weeks Ago…And For Some Reason It Wont Let Me Log On To My Accont[x]If You Can Help Pleaseee Tell MeThank Youx
Hello, I got one of those weird your account will be closed e-mails.I replied but I didn\’t give them any information…..Could something still happen to my account????How can I report this e-mail???Thanks
@Sofia – It\’s a good thing you did not give them any information, because, as you guessed, this is a scam. Your account is probably not compromised, but to be safe, you should change your password and make sure you are using a strong password, with a mix of letters, numbers, and other characters.When you reply to this or any spam e-mail, you simply let the spammers know that your e-mail address is a good one to try again. It puts you on a list, which they may sell to other spammers, and so you will likely see more spam as a result.To report junk e-mail or phishing in Hotmail, at the top of the e-mail, click "Junk," or click "Mark as" and then click "Phishing scam."Thanks for helping us fight junk e-mail and phishing! – Windows Live team