Best Practices for Shared Calendar

Question

Best Practices for Shared Calendar

Maggie Ladd 20

I have been asked to create a shared calendar that will be used to track trade shows and internal educational offerings. From the research I have done, it appears that there are different ways to address this:

Create exchange calendar in Outlook and add it to Teams channel using the URL for the exchange calendar.
Create a team within Teams and add a channel calendar to the team. No Outlook integration and would manage channel calendar from within Teams.
Create a shared Microsoft 365 Group that will include a shared calendar
Create a shared SharePoint calendar and publish it in Teams using URL for calendar.

I don't think that list is all-inclusive but I'm wondering how best to set this up using the Microsoft 365 tools that we already currently use (including outlook, teams, sharepoint, etc.) without making it overly complex.

Any suggestions?

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Answer 1

Hello @Maggie Ladd,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum. It's an excellent and common question regarding the best way to set up a shared calendar for team events using the Microsoft 365 suite.

Of the options you've researched, the best and most integrated approach is to create a Microsoft 365 Group, which you can do by simply creating a new team in Microsoft Teams.

This method is the most modern and seamlessly connects Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint without complex setup. When you create a team, a corresponding Microsoft 365 Group is automatically created in the background. This group includes a shared calendar, a shared mailbox, and a SharePoint site, ensuring all your tools are perfectly in sync from the start.

Here’s how to set it up in just a few minutes:

Create the Team: In Microsoft Teams, click "Join or create a team" and then "Create team." Choose to build a team from scratch. Make it Private so you can control who is a member. Give it a clear name like "Marketing Events" or "Company Training."
Add Members: Add the people who need to view and contribute to the calendar.
Add the Calendar to a Channel:

Go to the channel where you want the calendar to live (the default "General" channel is a good place to start).
- Click the '+' icon at the top to add a new tab.
- Search for and select the "Channel calendar" app.
- Give the calendar tab a name (e.g., "Event Calendar") and click Add.

You now have a calendar tab directly within your team.

How Your Team Will Use It

In Teams: Anyone in the team can go to the "Event Calendar" tab to see all events. They can click "Add new event" right from there. The experience is native to Teams.
In Outlook: The same calendar automatically appears in each member's Outlook. They just need to look in the "Groups" section in the left-hand folder pane. They can view, add, and edit events from Outlook, and the changes will instantly reflect in Teams.

By creating a Team from the start, you are using the Microsoft 365 ecosystem exactly as it was designed, giving you the simplest and most powerful solution. The other methods you researched, such as legacy SharePoint calendars or embedding a URL, do not offer this same level of native integration.

I trust this provides a clear path forward. Please let us know if you have any further questions.

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Best Practices for Shared Calendar

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