User says “Ok, you posted that article on sharing and subscribing to calendars but how do I do that.”

Me, “What do you use for your calendar?”

User, “Outlook, of course.”

Me, “Do you know what version.”

User, “Hunh? I don’t know.”

Well for Outlook the version really does matter. It’s a simple matter to find your version, just click on ‘About Microsoft Outlook’ in the ‘Help’ menu. If your version is 2007, then life is easy. Visit this link for details from MS.

If on the other hand your version is 2003 or older, you may be out-of-luck or you may have to install some 3rd party helper software. For version 2003, try installing a free add-in called Remote Calendars and some instructions for using Remote Calendars.

For versions 2002 and prior, I have not yet found a reliable method. If any of you readers has a method to suggest, please do.

Google Way

updated 5/7/2009

Use Google Calendar to easily share event and meeting calendars with a group. Once created, friends can view or subscribe to the calendar. There are 3 methods to accomplish this.

One, you can simply link to the calendar with a button. As an example, view the shared calendar for Milwaukee Achiever Literacy Services – Board meeting and event calendar.

Two, invite your friends to subscribe to the calendar using a iCal compliant calendar client. To subscribe to the MA board calendar use this URL. The subscribed calendar will update automatically whenever you add a new item. This is a large advantage over Live.

Three, embed your Google calendar into a web site using iframes. As an example, see the MA Board calendar embedded into this page.

Windows Live Way (hotmail)

Windows Live provides many of the same capabilities as Google. In fact, it allows direct access via a URL to a shared calendar to visitors who are not logged in. This is an advantage over Google.

Allow friends to view your calendar directly using a URL generated from the Windows Live sharing page. For the MA example you may click on this URL.

While it is not possible to subscribe to a calendar, it is certainly possible to import a calendar into an iCal compatible client. For MA try this URL.

Yahoo Way

Yahoo does not provide the ability to create multiple calendars. It does allow you to share calendar items though. I considered this approach not sufficient for my purposes.