Free/busy information is unavailable in Microsoft Entourage
If you are trying to invite other people to a calendar event (see Create a new calendar event with Microsoft Entourage or Modify a calendar event with Microsoft Entourage), but you cannot see their free/busy status under the "Scheduling" tab, there are several potential solutions.
Incorrect Public Folder setting
If no free/busy data is available for any of your invitees, then you probably have incorrect account settings. Every event you schedule for other people may look like this, where the free/busy data shows "No Information" for all attendees.
In the picture above, none of the attendees actually exist, so they don't have free/busy data. Under normal circumstances, though, all members of the RIT community should have free/busy data available.
Initialize free/busy
Missing free/busy data for some attendees, but not others, indicates that some of the people you are attempting to invite have not had their free/busy data initialized. While this is supposed to happen automatically, we have found that many accounts are not initialized properly.
If your invitee has only connected to Exchange via Microsoft Entourage or Outlook Web Access, there is a good chance that his or her free/busy data has not been initialized yet. If he or she can connect via a MAPI client (see Exchange MAPI and IMAP access from a Macintosh) like Microsoft Outlook 2001 or Microsoft Outlook on Windows, that should be sufficient to begin the process that updates his or her free/busy status. This only needs to be done once.
Similarly, if you have only connected with Microsoft Entourage or Outlook Web Access, we recommend that you log in with a MAPI client -- you only need to do this once -- to make sure your free/busy data is initialized.
Non-RIT invitees
Another alternative is that you are trying to invite people from outside of the RIT community. Only those in the RIT community, with "RIT computer accounts" set to use Exchange for e-mail, will have free/busy status available.
Username-based e-mail addresses only
You may be trying to invite someone with an alternative address. Only username-based RIT e-mail addresses will work. You cannot, as of this writing, invite people by their name-based, personalized, or other RIT addresses.
Groups lack free/busy status
If you are using Entourage and need to look up the free/busy status for a group -- one in your own address book, or one that is found in the Exchange Global Address List (GAL) -- you will not get any information. Unfortunately, Groups lack free/busy status in Microsoft Entourage.
This is not something that can be fixed by changing any settings in Microsoft Entourage.
