Troubleshooting Free/Busy Times in Microsoft Entourage
Having trouble viewing free/busy times when scheduling meetings in the Microsoft Entourage calendar? If you cannot see other people’s availability when inviting them to a meeting, you’ll want to confirm the following settings…
In short:
Make certain your account’s Public Folders Server field matches that of your Exchange Server field.
Microsoft Entourage Advanced Account Settings
In an Exchange environment when an Entourage 2004 user tries to schedule meetings with other users, availability information is retrieved using a WebDAV based query (Get /public/?Cmd=freebusy) to the Public Folder Server configured in your account settings under the advanced tab.
Entourage 2008 is able to also utilize ‘Exchange Web Services’ (available only on Exchange 2007 Server) to retrieve availability information. Public Folders are a feature of Microsoft Exchange Server that provide a way to collect, organize, and share information with others in an organization. Public folders are often used by project teams or user groups to share information about a common area of interest. You can use public folders in
Free/Busy Availability Scheduling in Microsoft Entourage
Entourage, to view and post messages, events and contacts. The Exchange server that stores Public Folders is also usually used to store users’ free/busy scheduling information. Having confirmed your Entourage Exchange account’s Public Folders Server field matches that of your Exchange Server, you should now be able to see other user’s calendar availability, assuming your organization stores this free/busy time information in the public folder.
You should also be able to see resource/conference room availability. For an example of how to reserve resources, including Cisco Telepresence rooms, see How-to Reserve a Conference Room in Entourage 2008.
