iCal & Delegates

Is iCal really this bad? Based on the amount of complaints I'm seeing (and within my own company) - I'm thinking Entourage really isn't that bad now. Maybe the upcoming Outlook client might end up being the savior here...

Anyone? I'd really love to know why overlay mode with a single calendar isn't working and why I can't see it as a tab called Delegates on the left hand side in which I can overlay it with my calendar. That's something that I find invaluable for other calendars I subscribe to - so this is unacceptable on Apple's part that:

1. They can't answer why its not working
2. No-one else has the answer which is sad that it can't be resolved
3. Apple's software is the "hack" it really is... an OS that's barely holding its own?

Sorry to put up #3 but after 4 years of being a MAC user I'm starting to feel like this is regression back to the Windows world...

Found out something even more interesting after some testing with the Exchange 2010 server over the weekend...

If you remove ALL permissions from the user's calendar I want to see - I can add them to iCal under Delegates but it shows as "No Access". The minute that permissions are added (the other user uses Entourage) - by specifying my name and making me a "Reviewer" with Read Only access - I can no longer add them to iCal as it just sits there thinking about adding them but never does.

This is truly strange behavior. I don't know what's going on here but honestly this is one of the most frustrating problems I've had to deal with in being a Mac user for 4 years now.

Any other thoughts as to why this may still be happening?

So my goal here is if I can help anyone out with this crazy thread - I've achieve something or at least can get enough attention that it helps.

I continued to work with my Exchange 2010 Admin to see if permissions of all sorts could fix this. If I set the account I'm trying to see to Availability Only for my permissions to it - I can add his calendar to my list but it shows as "No Access". If I then close the iCal settings and have them change the permissions for me and that calendar to ANYTHING - Owner, Reviewer, Editor... then when I go back into the Delegate screen to see what permissions I have - it hangs and won't even show me the ones I do have access for.

At that point I had the admin remove ALL permissions - voila I can open up the Delegate screen again. As such I removed the calendar I cannot access and things are back to norm.

This truly is one of the most annoying problems I've run into to date. The fact that I have 4 other calendars I have access to all on the EXACT same Exchange server is unbelievable that they work without a hitch.

So where can one go to understand why this doesn't work? Dunno. I have a few more things I'd like to try but at this moment in time Outlook 2011 for the Mac cannot come out quick enough. Apple really bit the big one on this as iCal truly is a hack in how much it really cannot do with Exchange... but alas I'm still a Mac bigot and must defend the rest of the product despite how iCal doesn't work right.

-JF

Ok - so of course I did some searching and will FINALLY have the answer here.

Turns out that with iCal - if the person who's calendar you want to view is set to be the OWNER - Not Editor of their own Calendar - it prevents iCal from being able to give others permission to see their calendar.

The solution is to set the person as Editor to their own calendar - voila I can now access that person's calendar.

Wow. Microsoft is more forgiving of its own permissions yet iCal wants things to be by the book or however you might see this...

Resolved.