Calendar delegation

Question

Level 2

317 points

Calendar delegation

Apparently this can be used to share access to an entire Calendar account. Just Go to Calendar Preferences, select the account, click the Delegation tab and add users to share with - so says Calendar's Help.

But, when I try this on an iCloud based account, there's just a message displayed

"the server doesn't support delegation for this account"

which is somewhat disappointing.

So do Apple's iCloud servers not support delegation? In which case the Help file is being extremely economical with the truth by not mentioning this fact. Or is this an error that can be fixed to allow delegation with an iCloud based Calendar account?

Can anyone confirm either way?

Posted on Jun 24, 2013 6:28 AM

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Answer 1

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jun 25, 2013 6:39 AM in response to UKenGB

Only MS Exchange supports it, use that.

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Answer 2

dkelley

Level 1

10 points

Jul 8, 2013 9:59 AM in response to UKenGB

this might help answer your question.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2689?viewlocale=en_US

i believe the google calendar also supports sharing you might describe as deligation.

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Answer 3

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 8, 2013 10:09 AM in response to dkelley

Delegation is not sharing but in a pinch you could substitute it for delegation, iCloud also supports sharing.

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Answer 4

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 9, 2013 4:56 AM in response to UKenGB

Just one small point, iCloud does not have a delegation tab, Calendar and iCal do, but they are clients, not calendars.

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Answer 5

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 9, 2013 5:40 AM in response to UKenGB

Then clearly you can understand that as clients iCal and Calendar require a delegation tab. They are Exchange clients and they would be poor Exchange clients without it, wouldn't they.

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Answer 6

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 10, 2013 4:44 AM in response to UKenGB

I know which mail systems support delegation so there has never been any confusion for me.

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Answer 7

UKenGB Author

Level 2

317 points

Jun 25, 2013 2:45 AM in response to Csound1

Yes, I suspected as much and it's not a big deal that iCloud doesn't support it, but I fail to understand how they have managed to forget to mention this. Help makes no mention of this fact (that I could find) and the 'error' message is decidedly unhelpful. Why can the message not say something like "This feature not supported by iCloud", then it's nice and clear for all to see and no further investigation necessary. All the information I could find (not just Apple's) about Delegation also failed to point out that it's not supported by iCloud. It's almost like no-one wants to actually admit to such a shortcoming.

Anyway, thanks for the confirmation.

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Answer 8

UKenGB Author

Level 2

317 points

Jul 9, 2013 12:40 AM in response to dkelley

Can I finish this by re-iterating that the question was not about how to share a calendar, nor how to 'delegate' as I fully understand the former and have no real need of the latter. It was specifically about whether iCloud supported it since in practice Calendar gives NO information about this. In Preferences you are offered a Delegation tab, yet it doesn't work and the documentation/Help offers no clue as to why.

My subsequent complaint concerned the poor design of Calendar (iCal) that is so unclear about this.

So the answer to this topic is that despite appearances, iCloud does not suport delegation. End of.

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Answer 9

UKenGB Author

Level 2

317 points

Jul 10, 2013 4:39 AM in response to Csound1

I also didn't actually say there shouldn't be a delegation tab. I said the implementation was poor with apparently half the options (2 tabs, one of them for delegation) simply non functional yet with NO explanation as to why. If the Help file had explained that it's not supported in iCloud, that would have helped, but no, Help implies no such thing and offers NO help as to why there's an empty window with a message simply saying it doesn't work.

Having said that, if the connected server doesn't support delegation then IMO the tab should not be displayed. That is the sort of appropriate interface we expect from Apple. Don't stick a tab there that isn't going to work. But as I said, if Help had actually been 'helpful' it would have, er, helped. 😝

Anyway, let's move on as we're not adding anything of any value here.

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