Modify a calendar event with Microsoft Entourage

You can modify existing calendar events that are already scheduled on your calendar. If you modify an event invitation, you can choose whether or not to send an update to each attendee. If you send updates and the invitee is using an Exchange-compatible calendar program, the event on his or her calendar should be updated with your new information once the updated invitation is accepted.

If you modify an event that was created by an invitation from another person, your changes can disconnect the event from further updates. Therefore, we suggest that you avoid making changes to event invitations after you receive and accept them.

All of the steps below are not needed when modifying every event, but they completely describe the options you may want to use for a variety of events.

Open an existing event.
Set a subject, or a title, for the event. You will not be able to send an invitation for an event that does not have a subject, start time, and end time. All events include a start and end time by default, so you just need to add a subject.
Note: Remember, when you send an invitation to someone else that he or she will have the same event in his or her calendar, so make the subject work for the other attendee(s), too.
Enter a location for the event, if desired.
Turn on the "All-day event" option if the event will be all day. All-day events appear as banners at the top of a day in your calendar grid. Therefore, they are commonly used for special events (such as "RIT spring quarter - last day of classes") or holidays (such as "Memorial Day" or "Christmas").
Set the start date and time for the event. You can select a date by clicking on the calendar button next to the "Start" field, or entering a date directly in the field. You can change the time by typing changes in the time field, or using the up and down arrow buttons next to it.
- Date and time formatting are based on your current settings in the System Preferences application, under "International."
- Entourage will understand many dates the way you would enter them, such as "6/14," "6/14/4," "6/14/04," "06/14/04," "jun 14 4" … all of these translate successfully to "June 14, 2004."
- If you type a date without a year, Entourage will assume you mean this year. This is true even if you enter a date in the past without a year.
- If you are editing an all-day event, you will only be able set the start date, not the time.
Set the end date and time for the event.
- If you are working on an all-day event, you can set only the end date -- and not the time.
- You can set the end date of an all-day event to be a later date (to have a continuous banner stretching from start date to end date), or you could make the start and end date the same and set up recurrence (see "Make a calendar event repeat in Microsoft Entourage"). The effects displayed in Entourage's calendar views are slightly different.
- If you are working on a regular event -- rather than an all-day event -- we suggest that you avoid having it cross the midnight boundary. This is true primarily for those using Entourage with a Palm handheld. For the highest compatibility with Palm synchronization, an event should end at 11:59 p.m.
Click on the "Invite" button in the toolbar of the event window. The window changes to allow you to enter the e-mail address of invitees and/or resources in the "To" field.
Enter one or more invitees or resources in the "To" field. You may use:
- RIT e-mail addresses, to send invitations to other people or resources at RIT
- Names from your Entourage address book, as long as those names are connected with RIT e-mail addresses
- Names of people or resources, which can be looked up in the Exchange Global Address List (GAL), using the "Check Names" button
- Non-RIT e-mail addresses, to send the event details as an iCalendar attachment that others can import into calendar programs.
Note: Only RIT e-mail addresses in the form of username@rit.edu will work when you look up free/busy scheduling information in Entourage.

Note: You can change your invitation list when modifying an event; you can either add or remove attendees.
Click on the "Scheduling" tab in the event window. Under the "Scheduling" tab, you will see free/busy data as:
- the combined free/busy times for all invitees and resources, listed as "All Attendees," which can help you find when all attendees are available
- each invitee's and/or resource's individual free/busy times, marked by various colors/patterns
- Event's chosen time slot, marked in purple, which can be dragged around with your cursor.
Note: The "Scheduling" tab does not appear unless you have begun to invite attendees, using the "Invite" button in the event window. You will not be able to see free/busy times for any invitee who is not in RIT's Exchange calendar system.
Click and drag on your event, indicated by a purple box, to move it around in the schedule so that it matches a free time for each attendee. You may also change the chosen date and time by entering them at the top of the event window.

Note: There is no way in Entourage v.X or 2004 to automatically choose the next free time for all attendees.
Click on the "Options" button in the event window's toolbar; drop-down menu appears and allows you to set the free/busy status for the event. The free/busy status of the event is always publicly available to others, even though the events in your calendar are not. (The "Options" button may not be labelled with text, but has an envelope icon.)

Note: The free/busy status you attach to an event will be sent along with the invitations to others.
Choose "Show Free/Busy Status As" from the drop-down menu, and then select a free/busy setting from the choices.
- Free, or your time will appear open to others
- Busy, or your time will appear blocked to others, which usually indicates you are present but unavailable for new event invitations
- Tentative, or you have an item which is not blocking your calendar yet (it's "penciled in," as we used to say with paper calendars)
- Out of the office, or you are not available for new invitations, as you are away (traveling or on vacation, for example).
Note: There is currently no "office hours" free/busy status. If you have regular hours throughout your work week, you can set the start and end time of your work day in Entourage's calendar preferences. If you have irregular work shifts or office hours, we currently do not have a good way to simulate this so that in a way that will be accessible to others (without extra steps like having to Set up delegate access in Microsoft Entourage 2004, which may not be appropriate in all situations).
Note: "All day events" start with a free/busy status of "busy." Because of this, they block your entire day. Therefore, we suggest changing the status if you are using these events as:
- banners, to mark important days like "RIT spring quarter - last daytime class"
- holidays, such as "Christmas" or "Memorial Day."
Click on the "Options" button in the event window's toolbar; drop-down menu appears and allows you to set the free/busy status for the event. The free/busy status of the event is always publicly available to others, even though the events in your calendar are not. (The "Options" button may not be labelled with text, but has an envelope icon.)

Note: The free/busy status you attach to an event will be sent along with the invitations to others.
Choose "Show Free/Busy Status As" from the drop-down menu, and then select a free/busy setting from the choices.
- Free, or your time will appear open to others
- Busy, or your time will appear blocked to others, which usually indicates you are present but unavailable for new event invitations
- Tentative, or you have an item which is not blocking your calendar yet (it's "penciled in," as we used to say with paper calendars)
- Out of the office, or you are not available for new invitations, as you are away (traveling or on vacation, for example).
Note: There is currently no "office hours" free/busy status. If you have regular hours throughout your work week, you can set the start and end time of your work day in Entourage's calendar preferences. If you have irregular work shifts or office hours, we currently do not have a good way to simulate this so that in a way that will be accessible to others (without extra steps like having to Set up delegate access in Microsoft Entourage 2004, which may not be appropriate in all situations).
Note: "All day events" start with a free/busy status of "busy." Because of this, they block your entire day. Therefore, we suggest changing the status if you are using these events as:
- banners, to mark important days like "RIT spring quarter - last daytime class"
- holidays, such as "Christmas" or "Memorial Day."
Select a recurrence option from the "Occurs" pop-up menu. You may choose a custom schedule for complicated repeating events, or you may select one of the defaults:
- Every Monday, or once per week
- Day 14 of every month, or the same date each month
- Every June 14, or once per year
- Every Day, or seven times per week
- Every Weekday, or five times a week.
Note: The recurrence rules are sent along with event invitations to others.
Click the "Edit" button next to the "Occurs" pop-up menu to make further changes, if needed. You will want to customize the recurrence schedule if you do not need to repeat the event indefinitely. Or, you may wish to do this if you have chosen one of the default options from the "Occurs" pop-up menu and need to customize. (For example, if you want to repeat an event every Monday and Thursday, you could start with "Every Monday" and customize it.) Click the "OK" button to close the resulting "Recurring Event" dialog box and return to the event window.
Note: You may experience extremely long synchronization times for your calendar if you create Microsoft Entourage recurring events with no end date. Instead, we suggest that all recurring events extend no more than six months into the future.
Click on the "Categories" button in the toolbar of the event window, and select a category from the resulting drop-down menu. You may select as many categories as you would like for a single event. Remove a category by reselecting it.
Click on the "Reminder" check box to turn on the alarm for this event.
Set the amount of time before the event that the alarm should sound. It can be a number of minutes, hours, and days.
Note: The alarm setting will be part of any invitation you send to others. Alarms associated with events will also go off -- either audibly or by other means allowed by your handheld -- if you synchronize the appointments to a Palm OS device.
Click on one of the following buttons in the event window toolbar to complete the event:
- Save, to save events where no other people or resources have been invited
- Send Now, to send the invitations immediately
- Send Later, to send the invitations the next time the automatic "Send/Receive" schedule runs next.