Viewing Delegate Exchange Calendars in iOS 5

Hi,

did you find out how to access delegate calendars on the iPhone / iPad?

We're using Office 365 (Hosted Exchange) and we're sharing some calendars with all employees - works with iCal after some hiccups but there seems to be no way to add the delegate calendars on iOS 😟

Philipp

One cannot sync shared calendars via Activesync, the protocol the iPhone (and Android devices) use to sync with Exchange. To the best of my knowledge, this is a fact of Microsoft's ActiveSync and is not Apple's fault.

I want to move a 28 user client of mine to hosted Exchange and this is a bit of a snag for us too. So I'm not unsympathetic.

Hi,

I wouldn't be surprised, if Microsoft really "forgot" about that feature in their protocol design...

However, Google is able to sync multiple (including shared) calendars using ActiveSync on the iPhone.

http://support.google.com/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139206

I used that method and it works perfectly. I can see and interact with the calendars of my co-workers flawlessly.

Apple probably really can't do much about it - Microsoft seems to be the one that has to implement a similar feature to Google in their Exchange platform (choose or automatically determine which calendars should be synced). :/

Philipp

Hey:

I think Google may accomplish this by making shared calendars appear to be part of your calendar group on the web, which then sort of tricks ActiveSync. How easy it would be to do this in Exchange, I have no idea. Google is a different platform, but I don't know how different. It's undeniable that Google calendars are easier to share. That's one of the few things I like about Google. Of course, that's a different topic. 😉

Hello. I would love to have your instructions on how to get the shared calendar in ical as a delagate. The only way I can make this work it by giving the calendar owner rights (using a test account) in outlook 2010 (PC) then sending a share invite to myself and accepting in Outlook 2010. It then shows up in ical. What I would like to do is have our 15 mac users be able to view only a shared calendar from outlook. We are using exchange 365. Macs are all Mountain Lion.

FYI, when I go to preferences in ical (calender) and go to delegation, the test user proogaates but says No Access.

Thank you in advance. PS. I have been working on this for a month with major stress and headaches about it 🙂

Donna

I'm a bit confused. You say: "What I would like to do is have our 15 mac users be able to view only a shared calendar from outlook."

First, there is no way I know of for them to see only a delegated calendar in the Calendar app (no longer called iCal in 10.8, FYI). They have to have their own primary calendar, then they can see a delegated calendar from a specific user below the primary one and will see that shared caledar based on whatever permission they have.

The question is: does each Mac users have their own Exchange account?

If so, you should be able to share the calendar you want to share from the sharing user's Outlook 2010 by right clicking the calendar in question and giving any of a variety of rights to any user under the domain. You have to search for the user you want to delegate to and add them, but you can definitely add them. (I am speaking based on my experience with Outlook 2011, which is considered an inferior product compared to Outlook 2010, so 2010 should be just as capable of this if not more. You could also use a similar process using Outlook Web Access [a.k.a. OWA] online i.e. webmail.)

If they don't have their own account and you are trying to use just one Exchange account for all 15 Mac users (which is inviting headaches, IMHO), it should still be possible, but only to do what I said above i.e. they have a primary calendar, then see a delegated calendar with whatever permissions you specified.

Again, I 100% know this can work using Outlook for Mac 2011. It's very hard to believe Outlook 2010 cannot do the same thing. And you can always resort to OWA.

If you think you've done all this right and it still isn't working in the Calendar app, I'd suggest trying your setup in a trail verison of BusyCal. The developer just added Exchange support and it's a great product. You can download a 30 day trial from the website. If everthing works, you know it's a Calendar app issue and you can call Apple for support. If it doesn't, then you either have a problem on the configuration side (your problem) or Office 365 isn't working like it's supposed to (Microsoft's problem - reach out to support).

Good luck!

Thank you so much for your response. Each mac user does have a user account in exchange. I am just wondering if the issue is that we are using exchange365 and it does not seem to work like a true exchange. I have done all the above, however the only calendar that will show up in the exchange user is a shared calender that has persmissions set to owner. I do not want those people to be able to edit. I want them to be a reviewer (sorry that is what I meant by view only)

I have been testing busy cal for 2 weeks, and it works fine. I just have an owner who refuses to use anything but calendar (I know the name changed, but I like ical better 🙂) I would think delegation in calender would work under the preference, then exchange>delgation, but no matter what permissions were given, it says no acces.

I was hoping Debbie or Phillip could give their work arounds

BTW, been on the phone with apple and the people from India with Microsoft, (they cannot even set up a shared calendar without reading an article) no one seems to know if it works or how