General questions, tips and tricks. (rev. feb 2 2010)
Q - Can I call
you guys for help?
Q - What is supposed to happen when I
install this application?
Q -
I have a lot of
users, what software or add-in is needed on the workstations? Do people need
delegate access to other users?
Q -
Are there any options
to tweak the performance for my server?
Q - Can I
clean out older items from the GroupCalendar?
Q - Does it work with Outlook 2007 and
Exchange 2007 / OWA 2007? I hear rumors about Public Folders being unsupported?
Q - Can we use your product on our CCR exchange 2007 server?
Q - I
am trying to create a Free/Busy Calendar with your product, basically I
would like to have all the users time shown on this calendar, but no
subject or body information.
Q - I would like to publish the Group
Calendars to the intranet as html page. Is that possible?
Q - And what about SharePoint integration?
Q - I
would like the to
access the public folder group calendar (wireless) from my pda / Blackberry (server)
/ Mobile device
Q - I have Outlook 2003 and items do show up
in the group calendar but it's slow!
Q -
What outlook version do I need?
Q - We have a mixed environment of Entourage, BES, Outlook and Pocket Pc's. Is
that OK?
Q - I don't like to install software on the Exchange server. Is this safe and
can I uninstall it without problems?
Q1 - We want to have a public calendar for the whole
company (A) and then have a public calendar
(B) for each office.
We want to find a way
to populate the global company calendar (A) with the events from each
office calendar (B)
Q2 - No we wouldn't want to put anything on the users
personal calendar. We also want to make sure not to put
anything on the public
calendars that's on the users personal calendar. We want to have a calendar for
each office
so that users in that office can add things to it.
Then have each calendar of each office populate up to a global calendar.
Q - How can I change the username that is being displayed in the items ?
Q
- How can I restrict users from viewing certain Group Calendars?
Q - How
can I restrict users from viewing certain content?
Q - I changed some settings but when I look in the public calendar nothing
happens.
Q -
We use a custom form for calendaring with custom fields. Is that supported?
Q - I understand that by default it picks up everything from
the user calendars and shows it public. Can we change that?
Q - We want to have public calendars to reserve our
conference rooms. We would like to
Q - How to link two different exchange servers in different organizations to
collaborate schedules?
Q - Can I make a
vacation planner with this product?
Q - Can I create a filter in Outlook to see only a certain type of items ?
Q - Is there is a way to change the font size in the monthly calendar display to
show a full line of text for appointments?
Q - Can we use this tool
as an in/out board?
Q - When making an entry into a personal calendar, the default is not 'private'
or 'hidden'. Is there a way to make it so,
in other words can I explicitly
select whenever an entry is deemed to be part of the group calendar ?
Q - We made a customized
form because we use the categories in the appointment to
filter out what we want in the different
group calendars. We would like
to use this form for all users for scheduling appointments... I can do that no
problem,
I simply set the calendar folder properties to "When
posting to this folder user this form" but..
If there any way we can
make
the category field required before sending the appointment...
so users always select a category?
Q - Ok that works fine... but we have
people from outside of our organization sending us meeting
requests and they don't use
our custom form so when we
accept such a meeting the appointment in the calendar is not using our custom
form.
Q - What is the possibility of getting color coding for the person. I know
there is a limited number of available colors…. But in this case we only have
three people on the calendar.
Q - When you send an invitation to several people, each meeting item is shown
separately even when all people are attending the same meeting. Is there a way
to consolidate all identical appointments?
Q - I have 10 departments and they now all have a departmental calendar created
with EGC. Is there a way to combine them all in one company wide calendar ?
Q - I need different content in different public calendars. For instance I only
want to see Out Of Office items in one of my Group Calendars, vacation in
another one and items with "Project X" in the subject in the third.
Q - I need a simple list of all
appointments to print out for our receptionist; (Organizer, Location, start,
end, subject)
Q - Exchange GroupCalendar is not exactly what I need but it comes close.
Q
- We are a VAR and would like to resell Exchange GroupCalendar.
Q - is there a way to give outlook 2003 the looks of outlook xp/2000 ?
Q- How to make it easier to enter group items without reminder
A - Please do. You can reach us during European
and North American business hours. Europe (+31) 186 669194.
/ USA
(315) 849-2560
have you tried the lice chat
button already? It shows anyone is available.
Q - What is supposed to happen when I install this application?
A - The users continue to add / delete or change appointments in their normal Outlook calendars. This tool monitors changes in their calendars and creates a copy (of every item they add or edit) in the Group Calendar folder(s). When the user deletes the item, the tool will delete the copy. The general options allow for narrowing down what should be displayed in the public calendar based on the properties of the appointment item in the users calendar. When the "Public to Personal" option is enabled, selected users can create items in the Group Calendar and they will replicate to the user calendars. Users don't have to give other users delegate access permissions, everything can be configured from the server.
A - There is nothing at all to configure or to install on the workstations. All you need is in Exchange System manager already. (client permissions)
Q - Are there any options to tweak the performance for my server?
For large active directory environments it is now possible to boost performance
of active directory queries and lowering the load on the domain controllers by
defining the root OU.
Example :
The top domain level may be OPUSFLOW.COM but all GroupCalendar users are
located in DC
Netherlands
In that case you change the following config.ini section
[RootDSE]
UsesThisRoot=DC=opusflow,DC=com
into
[RootDSE]
UsesThisRoot=DC=Netherlands,DC=opusflow,DC=com
Another setting is
UsewideProxyAddressSearch=YES
When you set
this to NO, the search for a user in the active directory will be based on
the faster "MAIL" property of the user and not on the ProxyAddress property.
This also lowers CPU usage and boosts performance. After changing the two
settings you should do some testing to make sure that everything still works
correctly in your environment.
Another way of reducing the cpu usage is by
scheduling the check and fix service
to run only at night and not during the day.
You can use the windows task scheduler by creating a batch
file that contains only the follow line:
net start "Exchange GroupCalendar check
& fix service"
and another batch file containing only
net stop "Exchange GroupCalendar check
& fix service"
In the task scheduler you schedule the
first batch file to run daily at 8 pm and the other batch file daily at 7 am.
You can select or clear the Maintain per-user read and unread information for this folder check box on the General tab on the Properties page for a public folder. (exchange system manager / Folders / Public Folders / EGC Root folder /Group Calendar). By default Exchange remembers when a user views an item. For groupcalendars this is no valuable information and only puts an extra load on the server. Uncheck that option and dismount/mount the public folder store for the setting to become effective.
Q - Can I clean out older items from the GroupCalendar?
A - There is no button to
remove only part of the groupcalendar entries. You can however select the users
in step 2 of the gcadmin.exe together with the calendar on the left and click
the clean-up button. This will remove all items of all users from the Group
Calendar. After that you go to step 3, select all users, do un-share/share and
after that click the Import button.
Import all items from a given date. (or only future items)
A -
Exchange groupcalendar is available for 64 bits Exchange Server
2007 (version 2.x) as well as 32
bits versions Exchange 2000/2003 (version 1.4.x)
Microsoft will continue to support Public Folders in the next major
release of Exchange Server, after Exchange 2007.
For detailed info on this subject read
this article by
Jim Lucey (Senior
Technical Product Manager for Microsoft Exchange Server)
Q - Can we use your product on our CCR exchange 2007 server?
A - Yes you can
If
you have a single Mailbox server in your Exchange organization and that Mailbox
server is a clustered mailbox server in a CCR environment, the Mailbox server
can host a public folder database. In this configuration, there is a single
public folder database in the Exchange organization. Thus, public folder
replication is disabled. In this scenario, public folder database redundancy is
achieved using CCR; CCR maintains two copies of your public folder database.
If you have multiple Mailbox servers you can host a public folder database in a
CCR environment provided that there is only one public folder database in the
entire Exchange organization. In this scenario, public folder database
redundancy is also achieved by using CCR. In this configuration, there is a
single public folder database in the Exchange organization. Thus, public folder
replication is disabled.
Apart from the above you can have both public folder replication as well as CCR
however in that scenario the following restrictions apply:
If
a successful scheduled Lossless outage occurs, the public folder database will
come online and public folder replication should continue as expected.
If an unscheduled outage occurs, the public folder database will not come online
until the original server is available and all logs for the storage group
hosting the public folder database are available. If any data is lost as a
result of the outage, CCR will not allow the public folder database to come
online when public folder replication is enabled. In this event, the original
node must be brought online to ensure no data loss, or the public folder
database must be re-created on the clustered mailbox server in the CCR
environment and its content must be recovered using public folder replication
from public folder databases that are outside the CCR environment.
For organization wide replicated Exchange GroupCalendars
however it is always possible to recreate the root folder and sub folders and
fill them quickly with the import button of the gcadmin.exe tool.
A -
- Select the groupcalendar in step #1 of gcadmin.exe and click the override settings button.
- Go to the second configuration form (click next)
Q - I would like to publish the Group Calendars to the intranet as html page. Is that possible?
A - Yes. Type this in your browser: http://ServerName/public/GroupCalendars/GroupCalendar/
Example : http://Jupiter4/public/GroupCalendars/Sales/
The link works only for people with at least read permissions.
Q - And what about SharePoint integration?
A - Yes that is possible, instructions can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sppt/reskit/c4161881x.mspx
PDA ActiveSync is a no-go for non standard folders.. you will need another product.
* Chapura - http://www.chapura.com/pm_ks_compare.php
* Pocket On-Schedule - http://www.odysseyinc.com/* OWA for iPhone, PDA / OWA for WAP - http://www.leederbyshire.com/ (40% discount for EGC licensees)
(Lee also provides a way to access Exchange 2007 Public Folders in non-MS browsers, such as Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome. Something you cannot normally achieve using the standard Basic OWA client GUI.)
BES/BB
http://www.wicksoft.com/exchange_summary.htm
Q - I have Outlook 2003 and items do show up in the group calendar but it's slow!
A - Outlook 2003 uses cached mode by default. It updates the public folder at a regular interval. Disable cached mode to see the real performance of the Exchange GroupCalendar software. Press F9 to have Outlook update your public folders directly.
Q - What outlook version do I need?
A - Any version. It runs on the exchange 2000 or 2003 server. You don't need anything in Outlook. Web Access will work as well.
Q - We have a mixed environment of Entourage, BES, Outlook and Pocket Pc's. Is that OK?
A - Yes. Items created on all those clients will be included in the group calendars.
Q - Can I sync the public folder calendar onto my IPAQ?
A - That depends on the software you use for synchronizing. This 'pocketmirror' software is capable of doing that.
A - Yes it is safe. There are two uninstallers in the control-panel / software section which will remove the installed components. The applications consists of only two files (the gcadmin.exe and the Exchgc.dll) and no other files are copied to or replaced on your server. Before you uninstall you must use the gcadmin.exe tool to undo the configuration steps #2 and #3 to prevent event log messages.
A1 - you simply make every user a member of both his local department calendar as well as the global office calendar. If you don't want to show all items in the global calendar that show on the office calendar, you can create a filter in gcadmin.exe for the global calendar. There are a lot of options and properties that you can evaluate in the filters.
A2
- create a user account and give it a mailbox and calendar; that will be your monitored user.
that 'user' will be publishing the calendar items to a public folder.- when the people in the office put something on the calendar of that account, it will show in the public folder (the office calendar) and also in the enterprise calendar (with some filters to hide certain info)
- and when the users learn the correct code to put something on the group calendar they can even enter it in the public calendar directly
let's assume you name your new AD user account Office Calendar with OC as initials
users can put something in that OC calendar using #OC# subject
and it will go into the 'personal' calendar of the OC account.
That account is being monitored for publishing to the enterprise calendar so with the proper filters and rules set up in our product you can publish certain category items or items with certain words to the enterprise calendar
Q - How can I change the username that is being displayed in the items ?
A - If the user has a value in the 'Initials' field in the active directory then that value will be displayed. If the 'Initials' field is empty then the mailbox name of the user will be displayed in the Group Calendar. This is the default behavior. You can however compose your own naming convention from the general settings in step #1.
Q - How can I restrict users from viewing certain Group Calendars?
A - The Service Account you created (gcadmin) when installing the software is owner of the Group Calendars. Log on to a workstation with that service account and start Outlook. Browse to the Group Calendars in Public Folders and right click the Group Calendar you want to restrict access to. Choose 'permissions' and change the 'Default' Role in 'NONE'. Now nobody can access the folder so you will have to add the users or groups that need access. 'Read' permissions is sufficient for those users.
Q - How can I restrict users from viewing certain content?
A - The software allows for specific configuration settings including transformation in step#1 of the gcadmin tool. Together with public folder permissions this allows for tailored information delivery to your users. They will only have to see what they need to see.
Q - I changed some settings but when I look in the public calendar nothing happens.
A - The software only acts on changes. So items that are being created or changed after adjusting the settings will conform with the new settings. You can run the import routine in step#3 to force a change in existing items.
Q - We use a custom form for calendaring with custom fields. Is that supported?
A - yes,
you can put this in the config.ini file in c:\exchange group calendar
[CustomFieldNames]
FieldName-1=MyFirstCustomField
DefaultValue-1=just testing
FieldName-2=testing
DefaultValue-2=hello there
etc. to max 20 fields
how it works is:
EGC evaluates the messageclass of the item in the user calendars. If it it a non
default form, it checks the config.ini
From there it learns what field names you want to show in the
public group calendar
item.
If the fields are empty and you specified a default value in
config.ini for that field, it writes that as the
value.
A - There are a lot of options (rules) available for that. You can configure that per group calendar or global for all. You can have the software pick up only items that are in a certain category, that have a certain status or that have a certain keyword in the text.
Q -We want to have public calendars to reserve our conference rooms. We would like to :
- create an appointment in our own calendar
- invite the resource calendar as a resource ( and see availability)
- collate all appointments/bookings of our resources in one public calendar folder
A - The answer consists of [1] the standard procedure to add resources and [2] the procedure to list all resources in a public folder.
[1]
- For every resource you will have to create a user account in the active directory and give it a mailbox in Exchange.
- Log on with the username and password of the resource and set up an outlook profile.
- Open Outlook and
- On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click Calendar Options.
- Click Resource Scheduling.
- Click the options you want.
- Click Set Permissions
- Click the Permissions tab, and then click Add.
- In the Type name or select from list box, enter the name of each person you want to grant permissions to, clicking Add after each name.
- Click OK.
- In the Permission Level list, click Author.
[2]
- Open the GCAdmin tool and create the GroupCalendar in step #1 to list your resources in.
- In step #2 Select the GroupCalendar you created in step#1 and select the username of your resource in the active directory. Press 'Connect'
- In step #3 Select the Username of your resource and press the 'key' button to have it show the Green box indicating that the account is being monitored.
- The clients must book all appointments with a specific Outlook technique: On the 'Attendee Availability' tab of a meeting request, click 'Invite Others' to add one or more resources to the Resources box. Make sure you add them as resources. If you add them as required or optional attendees, the resources will not be automatically booked.
Q - How to link two different exchange servers
in different organizations to collaborate schedules?
A - It is possible to share public folders of exchange servers in different organizations.
Please have a look here http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Configuring-InterOrg-Replication-Tool.html
Once you have your replication in place, both servers can run our Exchange GroupCalendar software to publish scheduling information in those interorg. shared public calendar folders.
Q - Can I make a vacation planner with this product?
A - Yes you can! You will probably be creating public calendars, one for every team or group you recognize in your organization. Exchange GroupCalendar will let you assign multiple group calendars to a single user so the only thing you have to do is to create a 'vacation' calendar and then assign every user to that 'vacation' calendar.
configure the GroupCalendar in step #1 of the gcadmin tool in such a way that only free time is displayed.
Q - Can I create a filter in Outlook to see only a certain type of items ?
A - Yes.. (We have a flash movie
about that as well.)
You can create a filtered view to see only free time even while the public
folder holds items that are of category Busy or Out of Office.
Creating views is not difficult if you know how to start. This should help you
along:
- In Outlook, browse to the public folder you created.
- Select the "Define views" dialog.
In Outlook 2000 and XP that's: View, Current View, Define Views.
In Outlook 2003 that's: View, Arrange By, Current View, Define Views.
- Click 'New' to create the new view, give it a name (Vacation) and click OK.
- Press the Filter button and click the Advanced tab to build the query presented in the screenshot.
- Click the Add to List button and your view is ready!
- Now make sure that everyone sees the information in this vacation folder the way you want it by right-clicking the public folder and selecting Properties from the right-click menu, click Administration, and select the Initial view on folder dialog box to select the view you just created.
A - You can do: View - Arrange by - Current view - Customize current view - Other settings and select the Terminal font at 5 pt. size so you see more text in the same available space.
Q - Can we use this tool as an in/out board?
A - Yes . the 'specific settings' form in step #1 has a checkbox to 'show only out of office'. You can have one public calendar that only shows OutOfOffice type of items and another one that shows only Busy type of items.
Q - When making an entry into a personal
calendar, the default is not 'private' or 'hidden'. Is there a way to make it so.
in other words can I explicitly select whenever an entry is deemed to be part of
the group calendar ?
2 answers:
A1 - this is possible using standard Outlook functionality. You would have to do the following as an administrator or other person that is allowed to publish forms in the Exchange forms library(*).
- In Outlook click Tools, Forms, Design a form. - Select Appointment - OK
- Check the Private box at the lower right hand corner. (or to make all items hidden by default type @@@ in the text field)
- Select (In the menu's displayed in the form) Tools, Forms, Publish Form As
- Select the Exchange forms library (you might have to create that first on the Exchange server if it is not in the list)
- Type a name for the form like 'Private_by_default' and press 'Publish Now'
- the form is available for all users when they do New - Choose Form but it can be set as default also
- In the users Outlook folder list you would have to right-click the calendar and select properties.
- Select the General tab and select the form in the drop down list 'when posting to this folder use'
(*) You can create a Forms Library in the exchange system manager on the server. Call for help if you don't know how.
A2 - There are a lot of options to do that. You could use the option that only appointments with a certain property go into the group calendar. This property can be a string or category. The config in step #1 can be used to define those rules per calendar.
Q - We made a customized form because we use the categories in the appointment to filter out what we want in the different group calendars. We would like to use this form for all users for scheduling appointments... I can do that no problem, I simply set the calendar folder properties to "When posting to this folder user this form" but.. If there any way we can make the category field required before sending the appointment... so users always select a category?
A - Yes that's possible. Add the following to the Script page of that custom Outlook Appointment form and publish it.:
Function Item_Send()
if len(item.categories)<= 1 then
item_send =
false
Msgbox
"Please enter a category value",,"NOT COMPLETE!"
end if
End Function
Function Item_Write()
if len(item.categories)<= 1 then
item_write
= false
Msgbox
"Please enter a category value",,"NOT COMPLETE!"
end if
End Function
A - You can fix that with a
macro (or put it in a com add-in). Open Outlook, Do Alt-F11, Double-click
ThisOutlookSession, copy and paste the code on the right, click the FloppyDisk
icon to save the code. And use the red cross to close the editor.
Do tools - macro - security and set it to low so you can test it and restart
Outlook. Send a test meeting to that outlook client.
Dim onMAPI As NameSpace
Dim ofCalFolder As MAPIFolder
Dim ofinbox As MAPIFolder
Dim WithEvents colinbitems As Outlook.Items
Dim WithEvents calitems As Outlook.Items
Private Sub Application_MAPILogonComplete()
Set onMAPI = GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set ofCalFolder =
onMAPI.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderCalendar)
Set ofinbox =
onMAPI.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set calitems = ofCalFolder.Items
Set colinbitems = ofinbox.Items
End Sub
Private Sub calItems_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
If Item.MessageClass <> "IPM.Appointment.yourspecialform"
Then
Item.MessageClass = "IPM.Appointment.yourspecialform"
Item.Categories = "NonPublic"
Item.Save
End If
End Sub
Private Sub calItems_ItemChange(ByVal Item As Object)
If Item.MessageClass <> "IPM.Appointment.yourspecialform"
Then
Item.MessageClass = "IPM.Appointment.yourspecialform"
Item.Categories = "NonPublic"
Item.Save
End If
End Sub
Private Sub colinbitems_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
If Item.MessageClass = "IPM.Schedule.Meeting.Request"
Then
Item.Categories = "NonPublic"
Item.Save
End If
End Sub
'tip: check out http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=28 for possible deployment strategies.
There is an option for color coding based on user
name at the bottom of the Step #2 screen.
You can also do it based on category or subject.
It is possible to use color coding by category as coding by name.
For that to work, every item that a user creates must have a certain category. You can ask people to type that in or do an adjustment to their outlook calendar to automate that.
What you would want is that every appointment they make has a category (their name or initials for instance) already set.
For that you would have to adjust the standard form that the user uses in the calendar.
- In Outlook click Tools, Forms, Design a form. - Select Appointment - OK
- Add the category to the field in the lower right hand. (for instance JDoe)
- Select (In the menu's displayed in the form) Tools, Forms, Publish Form As
- Select the Exchange forms library (you might have to create that first on the Exchange server if it is not in the list)
- Type a name for the form like 'jdoe' and press 'Publish Now'
- Logged on to Outlook as jdoe, in the Outlook folder list you select the calendar, right-click it and select properties.
- Select the General tab and select the form (jdoe) in the drop down list 'when posting to this folder use'
Now every appointment will have jdoe as a category.
You can use that when you configure the groupcalendar to have it change the
items with category jdoe into the color you want.
A -Yes, there's a setting for that (general settings in step #1).
A Yes.... In step #2 of the GCadmin tool, map every user to both the departmental calendar as the company wide calendar.
Q - I need different content in different
public calendars. For instance I only want to see Out Of Office items in one of
my Group Calendars, vacation in another one and items with "Project X"
in the subject in the third.
NOTE: With version 1.30 (sept 2005) or
later it is possible to have different groupcalendars with unique settings but
the answer below still applies if you only have and want one GroupCalendar.
A -Views and Filters are the way to go. You can
define views on a folder if you are the owner (gcadmin) and set it as default
for the users so they see what you want them to see. To create a view:
1-Start Outlook as gcadmin or other folder owner.
2-Select the Public Calendar Folder
3- OL2000 Choose: View / Current View / Define view
OL2003 View, Arrange By, Current View, Define view
4 Click New and give it a name (Out of office view)
5 select Day/Week/Month
6 Select Visible to everyone
7 click the Filter button (*)
8 select the advanced tab
9 Select the "show time as" sub-field from the 'Appointment Item' in the list on
the left.
10 finish by selecting the 'out of office' value on the right.
To make sure that users get this view by default:
11 right-click the public folder
12 choose the administration tab
13 select your view from the list (**)
(*) the filter is what makes the view. You can
filter on anything available in the appointment. To show only appointments
related to "Project X" you would choose the 'subject' field. The
condition would be 'contains' and the value 'project X'.
(**) it's possible to define multiple views on one folder. You can have your
users choose the view they need from the 'advanced' toolbar in Outlook which has
a drop-down list with al views available to them.
A- Again the power of Outlook views and filters can be used for this (here below) but you can use the free export tool also for this.
To create a view:
1 Start Outlook as gcadmin or any other public folder owner.
2 Select the Public Group Calendar Folder
3 Outlook menu option: View, Arrange By, Current View, Define view
4 Click New and give it a name (test view)
5 select TABLE
6 Select Visible to everyone
7 click the Fields button
8 Select ALL APPOINTMENT FIELDS at the bottom left hand drop down.
9 Add the 'organizer' field from the left column to the right column
10 remove all fields but Organizer, Location, start, end, subject
11 arrange the fields from top to bottom into the order of step 10
Now make it easy for the users to select this view with
VIEW, TOOLBARS, ADVANCED
This will show the advanced toolbar and a drop-down box listing all defined
views for that (public) folder.
The user can click that view when they need it and print it at will.
If you copy this view and use the Filter option
in it as well, you can further narrow down the information that is being
displayed. You could f.i. create a filter that shows only appointments that are
out of the office or with a specific keyword in the subject. The users can
switch between the different views defined for a Public Group Calendar folder,
picking the view from the advanced toolbar in outlook.
Q - Exchange GroupCalendar is not exactly what I need but it comes close.
A - OpusFlow can adjust the workings to fit your needs. Building Exchange and Outlook tools according to client specifications is a substantial part of our business.
Q - We are a VAR and would like to resell Exchange GroupCalendar.
A - contact us (info@opusflow.nl) for details.
general outlook questions
Q - is there a way to give outlook 2003 the looks of outlook xp/2000 ?
http://www.slipstick.com/emo/2003/up031029.htm#classicview
Q - How to create an appointment in the group calendar for another user without that item having a reminder set in the personal calendar of the user.
A - Use the instruction on the public to personal page to learn about creating items for other users in the groupcalendar. To create such an item without a reminder you need to be on EGC version 1.4.17 or higher and set the reminder time to zero minutes when you create the item in the groupcalendar. This will result in a personal item without a reminder set.
Q - How to make it easier to enter group items without reminder
A
Function Item_Open()
item.reminderset = True
item.ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = 0
End Function
you could also add #*# to the subject and the function change in this
item.reminderset = True
item.ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = 0
item.subject = "#*# "
End Function