There is another method available to configure access to a shared user's address book, calendar, or any object. It can be set from webmail by the Administrator for all users in advance. I like this method much better for configuring group resources for all users. When configuring sharing with this method, Outlook users will see the objects they have access to on their next login. Here is how to configure this Folder Alias sharing method:

In this example the name of one account on the system is named public.The public account is a non-human system account sharing a Calendar to a user account named dmaradona. The domain in this example is booker.local which is the default domain on my system.

dmaradona is a regular human user of the system. Therefore in this example we have 2 user accounts with the names dmaradona@booker.local and public@booker.local.



All of these settings are configured in webmail and this can be done by the administrator for the users. I am using the "basic" interface (sometimes named "***") to have one interface to reference. Other Webmail skins have these features, but their interfaces may present them in different locations or with navigation methods. It is not necessary to deliver the ability to share and subscribe to these resources directly to the end user after the user is configured with the resources they need. You can customize skins or change account settings to hide the more complex or power user features.



Part 1 - Share the resource

1. We first confirm that public@booker.local is sharing the Calendar Object in the public@booker.local account to dmaradona@booker.local. Start by loging to webmail of public@booker.local



2. Click on the Folders Link and select the Calendar folder that you wish to share. Optionally you can create a new Calendar object for public@booker.local and give it any name you wish such as 'Group Calendar' for example.



3. Once you have selected or opened that object, either via the direct link or from the 'Folders' page you will arrive at a view for this folder as shown below. Click the link named 'Folder Management' to navigate to a the page where you can adjust the Access Control List (ACL) for this specific Calendar object.



Switch to Folder management buy following the link above in the open Calendar object.



note: All Objects are IMAP Folders on the server side and the data contained in those folders tells the system how to display them. This is why Sharing the Group Calendar is really sharing a folder to another user on the system.

4. Make sure dmaradona is listed as a client that can access this folder. Add their user name to the left hand side field and select the options you wish to grant permissions or access for:

Lookup
Select
Seen
Flags
Insert
Post
Create
Delete
Admin

You can click help to find what privileges each of these options grant. These are the standard IMAP folder sharing ACLs.



Click Update after setting the ACLs

5. Once the permissions are how you desire them to be, select update and log out of the public@booker.local account



Part 2 - subscribe to the recource using the Folder Alias method

1. Login to the webmail of dmaradona and select Settings -> Folders



2. You should create a folder Alias for the public Calendar by entering any alias name you prefer in the Alias Name like "Company Calendar" and then enter the folder name as "~public/Group Calendar" Where Group Calendar is the name of the folder you configured ACLs for in the public@booker.local account.



You can then confirm your subscription to this resource by navigating to Settings -> Folders -> All Subscribed Folders and viewing the new Group Calendar alias you added to the dmaradona@booker.local account.



Part 3 - Reviewing the Shared Calendar in Outlook

Open Outlook for dmaradona and the folder Alias should appear in Outlook after a login. Outlook will need to download all of the information on the first try, but after it should access the data faster on the second and all following logins with Outlook.



Another View



Summary

This Folder Alias method works different from the shared folder method and may be easier to deploy for your environment because the configuration can be performed by the administrator for all users. However, it is also flexible enough for some users to configure. There are other sharing methods but I personally prefer this one because the object just appears in outlook and I do not see the account name that owns the object unlike the Folder Sharing method.

Also worth noting in the case of CalendarData that you can view calendars you have permission to view with a link to the calendar data. Some calendar clients like SunBird on Windows or iCal on Apple use this method. If you try this with SunBird, the like would look like this:

http://mail.domain.com/CalendarData/~user/Calendar.ics