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Method to Colorize and Mobilize your Calendar to a smart phone (MS Outlook optional)
My idea:
A method to access and update my MS Outlook calendar on a mobile phone, using AirSet as the central calendar repository.
Honestly I don't use the web interface much now that I have everything set up.
I am using AirSet in a fashion that is probably somewhat non-standard, given my particular needs.
The first thing I should mention is that I am using it entirely to manage and mobilize my personal Outlook calendar, as opposed to managing several calendars involving multiple people. Even though I do not use the workgroup capabilities, I appreciate those capabilities, and may use them at some point in the future.
For my purposes, I am using the different groups to manage _categories_ of events.
For example, I have a category in outlook for meetings, which I have color-coded in Blue, so I can tell at a quick glance where I need to be at various times during the day.
I set up a group in AirSet called 'meetings', and changed the color for that group to match the color in Outlook. To do this, I opened the 'meetings' Web Computer in AirSet, then navigated to the AirSet -> Administration -> Web Computer Settings', and edited the color (this is about in the center of the web computer settings screen). I selected a color from the palette that turned out to have the RGB numbers of "#7495d7" to match the MS Outlook blue color (you can pick whatever you want here).
I then renamed my 'meetings' category in MS Outlook by adding brackets, so the new name of the category is '[meetings]'. When I synchronize AirSet to MS Outlook, any event within the 'meetings' group in AirSet gets categorized as an event in Outlook with the category '[meetings]', and automatically color-coded blue. See the bottom of this post for instructions on how to set up MS Outlook to do automatic color-coding.
Note: if you use automatic color coding, make sure you leave the 'Label' blank in MS Outlook events, but always set the 'Category' to match your AirSet group names (with brackets around the group name).
Finally, to mobilize my calendar, I use AirSet Mobile on my smart phone (a small monthly fee, well worth the cost). AirSet Mobile supports many smart phone models, but I use a Nokia N95 8GB.
The really cool thing is that now I have a color-coded calendar on my phone, as well as in Outlook and AirSet. Much nicer looking than the native calendar application in the phone.
Another great feature in AirSet Mobile is the abillity to send event reminders to your cell phone via text messages. I really like this, as I hate printing my calendar and carrying it with me (I always forget to look at it, so having an audible / vibrating alert for appointments is a great feature for me).
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By the way, the automatic color coding is set up through MS Outlook's "Calendar Coloring -> Automatic Formatting" feature:
(By the way, I'm using MS Outlook 2003, so the menus may be slightly different for older or newer versions of MS Outlook).
1. From MS Outlook, in the toolbar, click on the square icon with 9 colors (three blue squares in the top row, three red squares in the middle row, and three green squares in the bottom row), and select "Automatic Formatting":
2. In the Automatic Formatting window, click on the 'Add' button.
3. Type a name for the rule in the Name field. For example: 'Show meetings in Blue'.
4. Select the label with the blue color from the Label drop-down list (I had previously renamed this label to "Dark Blue", since it is just a color. I think by default MS Outlook describes the blue label as 'Meetings' or 'Business'. I can't remember what the default is).
5. Click on the Condition... button, which brings up the 'Filter' window.
6. In the Filter window, click on the 'More Choices' tab. From this tab, click on the 'Categories...' button, and select the '[meetings]' category from the list (you can select multiple categories if you want them all to have the same color), then click OK on the Filter window.
7. Define additional coloring rules if desired, by repeating steps 2 through 6 for each category / color combination. When you have finished defining all of the colors you want, click on the OK button from the 'Automatic Formatting' window.
That's all there is to it! Enjoy your new color-coded calendar! :-)
Feel free to send me a message here if you have any questions about these instructions.
- Jay
A method to access and update my MS Outlook calendar on a mobile phone, using AirSet as the central calendar repository.
Honestly I don't use the web interface much now that I have everything set up.
I am using AirSet in a fashion that is probably somewhat non-standard, given my particular needs.
The first thing I should mention is that I am using it entirely to manage and mobilize my personal Outlook calendar, as opposed to managing several calendars involving multiple people. Even though I do not use the workgroup capabilities, I appreciate those capabilities, and may use them at some point in the future.
For my purposes, I am using the different groups to manage _categories_ of events.
For example, I have a category in outlook for meetings, which I have color-coded in Blue, so I can tell at a quick glance where I need to be at various times during the day.
I set up a group in AirSet called 'meetings', and changed the color for that group to match the color in Outlook. To do this, I opened the 'meetings' Web Computer in AirSet, then navigated to the AirSet -> Administration -> Web Computer Settings', and edited the color (this is about in the center of the web computer settings screen). I selected a color from the palette that turned out to have the RGB numbers of "#7495d7" to match the MS Outlook blue color (you can pick whatever you want here).
I then renamed my 'meetings' category in MS Outlook by adding brackets, so the new name of the category is '[meetings]'. When I synchronize AirSet to MS Outlook, any event within the 'meetings' group in AirSet gets categorized as an event in Outlook with the category '[meetings]', and automatically color-coded blue. See the bottom of this post for instructions on how to set up MS Outlook to do automatic color-coding.
Note: if you use automatic color coding, make sure you leave the 'Label' blank in MS Outlook events, but always set the 'Category' to match your AirSet group names (with brackets around the group name).
Finally, to mobilize my calendar, I use AirSet Mobile on my smart phone (a small monthly fee, well worth the cost). AirSet Mobile supports many smart phone models, but I use a Nokia N95 8GB.
The really cool thing is that now I have a color-coded calendar on my phone, as well as in Outlook and AirSet. Much nicer looking than the native calendar application in the phone.
Another great feature in AirSet Mobile is the abillity to send event reminders to your cell phone via text messages. I really like this, as I hate printing my calendar and carrying it with me (I always forget to look at it, so having an audible / vibrating alert for appointments is a great feature for me).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
By the way, the automatic color coding is set up through MS Outlook's "Calendar Coloring -> Automatic Formatting" feature:
(By the way, I'm using MS Outlook 2003, so the menus may be slightly different for older or newer versions of MS Outlook).
1. From MS Outlook, in the toolbar, click on the square icon with 9 colors (three blue squares in the top row, three red squares in the middle row, and three green squares in the bottom row), and select "Automatic Formatting":
2. In the Automatic Formatting window, click on the 'Add' button.
3. Type a name for the rule in the Name field. For example: 'Show meetings in Blue'.
4. Select the label with the blue color from the Label drop-down list (I had previously renamed this label to "Dark Blue", since it is just a color. I think by default MS Outlook describes the blue label as 'Meetings' or 'Business'. I can't remember what the default is).
5. Click on the Condition... button, which brings up the 'Filter' window.
6. In the Filter window, click on the 'More Choices' tab. From this tab, click on the 'Categories...' button, and select the '[meetings]' category from the list (you can select multiple categories if you want them all to have the same color), then click OK on the Filter window.
7. Define additional coloring rules if desired, by repeating steps 2 through 6 for each category / color combination. When you have finished defining all of the colors you want, click on the OK button from the 'Automatic Formatting' window.
That's all there is to it! Enjoy your new color-coded calendar! :-)
Feel free to send me a message here if you have any questions about these instructions.
- Jay
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Inappropriate?Here's another tip for making the calendar look sharp on your mobile phone:
Use two or three short words in the MS Outlook 'Subject' field, with a longer description in the 'Location' and/or 'Notes' fields. This will keep each event to one line on your phone's display (which is substantially narrower than a traditional computer screen). This way, you can see more events at a time in the list of events on your phone. I can see 8 events per page on my Nokia N95 by following this convention (your results may vary, depending on the type of phone you use).
By doing this, you can still see the longer description in MS Outlook (the location shows up in parentheses for each event).
If you want to see the longer description in AirSet, you can quickly do this by hovering your mouse over the event (AirSet will show the full event details in a pop-up window, including both the Location and the Notes fields).
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