BIMSB Calendar 2013

Group Calendar Solution at BIMSB

Introduction

At the BIMSB we use a number of group calendars (beyond everyone’s private Outlook calendar) to communicate events within the individual labs (working groups) as well as to all members of the BIMSB.

All calendars are hosted together with your e-mails on the MDC communication server mdcmailapp.mdc-berlin.de (Exchange 2010). How to access these calendars is described below for (1) MS-Outlook web-users and MS-Outlook desktop-users, (2) Apple-iCal users, and (3) Linux users of Thunderbird with Lightning-AddOn (all also available for MacOS and Windows). 

If you need mobile access (iOS, Android), please contact either the MDC IT-Hotline, or contact Martin Siegert or Andreas Kuntzagk to ensure that also this manual gets updated, based on your experience.

Notice: The previous calendar solution (using CalDAV-technique with our server bbc.mdc-berlin.de) that was in operation since 2009, was disabled in June 2013 (i.e. switched to read-only mode) and all entries from the old server were migrated to the now to be used MDC Exchange server.

List of available Calendars

Notice: "Secr.s" consists of the five BIMSB secretaries (SD, NE, IK, ML, AT). The "editor" access permits to adjust or delete even those calendar entries that they have not created themselves, while "author" access only permits to adjust/delete calendar entries that you have created yourself.

Detailed Descriptions

(1a) Group Calendar Access with Outlook Web Access (OWA, any Browser)

1. Browse to https://mdcmailapp.mdc-berlin.de/owa and login with your MDC-Accountname and Password.
2. In the lower left corner of the initial OWA Mail view, click on "Calendar".
   
3. In the Calendar view, right-click on "People’s Calendars" and select "Add Calendar ..." from the popup menu.
   
4. In the "Add Calendar" popup window, select "Calendar from your organization" and start to type in the name of the desired group calendar into the "Name..." field. Soon a selection of accessible calendars will show up, and you can pick the appropriate one.
   
5. Now you see two calendars side-by-side.
   
6. Using the checkmarks left to the calendar names, or the blue "x" atop of the calendars, you can disable (or enable) the display of one (or up to five) calendars.
   
   The selection of connected calendars is kept throughout different OWA sessions

(1b) Group Calendar Access with Outlook Application (MS-Office, MS-Office:Mac)

1. Open Microsoft Outlook to see your mailbox, then switch to the Calendar view. To do so, click on "Calendar" in the lower left corner of the Outlook window. Maybe your View-Selector is minimized, then use the Calendar icon (2nd from the left).
    PICTURE HERE
   
2. In the calendar view select "Open Calendar” from the Ribbon.
   
   
3. Type the name of the desired Calendar into the "User:" field and confirm with "OK". From the List of matching results select the one that ends with "Calendar".
   Clicking on the button right of the "User:" field, you could search for calendars.
      
   
4. Now You can include or exclude calendars to be shown overlaid, using the checkmarks in the "Shared Calendars" section:
   PICTURE HERE

(2a) Group Calendar Access with Apple iCal (Mobile: iOS)

In principle it should work like described below for Desktop iCal. Please try to extract the needed configuration information from section 2b. Accessing group calendars from iOS was not tested by us yet, thus we would appreciate your feedback on successfull iOS access as well as reports about possible pitfalls.

(2b) Group Calendar Access with Apple iCal (Desktop: MacOS)

1. Launch iCal from the dock or search for it (⌘+Space)
2. Open iCal Settings (⌘+Comma) and select the Accounts tab. From the list of accounts, select the "MDC – Exchange 2007" account. If that one is missing, create it [see "Trouble shooting" below].
   PICTURE HERE
3. Open the Delegation tab and click on the "+" to connect to another calendar. Type the name of the desired user (here: group calendar) into the text field.
   PICTURES HERE
   From the popup-list of possible names, pick the one ending with "Calendar".
4. After iCal verified your access permissions, you finally need to check the field "show".
   PICTURE HERE
5. The checkmarks in the "Delegates" section decide, which Calendars you see overlaid.
   PICTURE HERE

(3) Group Calendar Access with Thunderbird + Lightning (Linux/MacOS/Windows)

RELAX: The first 3 complex steps to fulfill the prerequisites need to be done mostly once, afterwards, you can connect to the BIMSB Group Calendars as explained in the easy steps 4 thru 8.

1. Thunderbird (TB): Ensure you have installed a recent version of TB. The latest version is TB 17.0.6 (in May 2013).
1. Linux: Depending on your distribution, use the appropriate GUI management application or one of the following commands:
1. sudo apt-get install thunderbird
2. sudo yum install thunderbird
2. MacOS: Download the respective DiskImage (Thunderbird 17.0.6.dmg) from http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird/, open it and drag the TB application to the applications folder.
3. Windows: Download the respective Installer (Thunderbird Setup 17.0.6.exe) from http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird/, and execute it to install…
2. Lightning: You need a recent "Lightning" Add-on for TB that fits your TB version (e.g. Lightning v1.9.x for TB 17). Go to TB-menu → Extras → Add-ons to open the Add-ons-Manager. Usually "Lightning" is presented right away in a prominent position – if not, search for it and install.
3. Exchange … : You need a recent "Exchange 2007/2010 Calendar and Tasks Pro–vider" Add-on for TB+Lightning, e.g. version 3.1.x, which is newer than the version 2.2.2 currently available via the Add-ons-Manager (Step 2 above).
1. Browse to http://www.1st-setup.nl/wordpress/?page_id=133 (which is also linked as "Homepage" on the Version 2.2.2 details-page of the Add-ons-Manager) and click the lengthy download link (hidden in den paragraph below the list of requirements):
   PICTURE HERE
   Notice: Do not let Firefox (if that is your browser) install the downloaded XPI-file install as a Firefox Add-on!
2. Check the download window of your web browser to learn the location of the just downloaded "exchangecalendar-3.1.3.xpi" file.
3. In the Add-ons-Manager (see step 2) select "Install Add-on from file" from the settings-icon drop-down list:
   PICTURE HERE
4. In the file-select dialogue specify the XPI-file learned in step 3.3. (Maybe you simply can drag’n’drop the file from the download-folder to the dialogue.)
5. Confirm the Security warning to install Add-ons from known sources only.
6. Permit Thunderbird to restart to activate the just-installed Add-on.
4. Open the Calendar tab in Thunderbird, e.g. via the Calendar icon or the TB menu.
   PICTURE HERE
5. Right-Click on your pre-existing private calendar and select "New Calendar" from the drop-down menu; choose to have the calendar on the network
   PICTURES HERE
6. Select to add a "Microsoft Exchange 2007/2010" calendar and name it as you like.
   PICTURES HERE
7. Insert the Server URL "https://mdcmailapp.mdc-berlin.de/ews/exchange.asmx" (which is in the end faster than the lengthy Autodiscovery feature), type-in the exact (!) name of the group calendar as "mailbox name", plus your MDC-username, then click "Check Server and Mailbox" to proceed:
   PICTURE HERE
8. After the access was verified, you can proceed to get the calendar connected finally
9. Daily usage is like in Desktop-Outlook (Part 1b, step 4) or iCal (Part 2b, step 5): Checkmarks enable or disable the different overlays

(4) Group Calendar Access with Android

According to https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=52270 there seems to be NO OPTION (yet) to sync more than one (your primary) Exchange calendar with Android.

Trouble shooting Group Calendar Access

What if ...

1. If You cannot access delegated calendars ("People’s calendars") in OWA (Method 1a, Step 3) in your Web-browser (here: Safari, Firefox), maybe your OWA is running in "low vision experience” mode. (This mode is also identified by having the links to Mail/Calendar/Contacts located left-top and with blue background, instead of left-bottom on white.)
   To switch that off, navigate to →Options (upper right area), →Accessibility, and uncheck “Use the blind and low vision experience” then click on “Save”.
   3 PICTURES HERE
   If you use a mobile devices’ web browser it might be forced to the low vision mode, and you won’t be able to get the full-view mode (as far as we know yet.)
2. If You need to link your iCal with your Exchange account (Method 2b, Step 2), select the "+" button below the list of accounts, change Account type to "Exchange 2007" and type in your full name (e.g. Dr. Martin R. Siegert), your E-mail address (e.g. martin.r.siegert@mdc-berlin.de) and your password (e.g. *****). After you click "create", an error will show up, and you can specify more details: change your guessed username to the short one "msiegert" and click create again. Now Access-check is successful, and you can specify an detailed description for this account. Verify to also have the checkmark set to configure your address book!
3. If You cannot find delegated calendars in iCal (Method 2b, Step 3), you need to also link your address book to exchange [HOW ?!]
   Also you should start typing "Cal"... to find (all) the calendars, instead of your Groupname, as the search only works for words starting after an emptyspace (which is missing in e.g. "AG_Rajewsky"
4. 
   

Contact / Questions

Please tell us about your experience / problems with this manual…

Martin Siegert, -4228

Andreas Kuntzagk, -2997