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When you try to view another person's calendar in Outlook, the free/busy information is not available

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©2005-©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks

When you try to view another person's calendar in Outlook, the free/busy information is not available

Article ID: 953198 - View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

When you try to view another person's calendar in Microsoft Outlook 2002, in Office Outlook 2003, or in Office Outlook 2007, the free/busy information is not available. Instead, you see only hash marks.

CAUSE

This issue can occur if the person has no meetings or events that are scheduled in the calendar during the date range that is published to the server. When a meeting or event is entered into the calendar during the published date range, you will see the free/busy information for the person.

MORE INFORMATION

To view or set the date range that is published to the server, follow these steps:
  1. In Outlook, click Options on the Tools menu.
  2. On the Preferences tab, click Calendar Options.
  3. In the Advanced Options section, click Free/Busy Options.
  4. On the Permissions tab, click Other Free/Busy.
  5. In the Options section, specify how many months to publish and how frequently to update the server.

Properties

Article ID: 953198 - Last Review: June 3, 2008 - Revision: 1.0
APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
  • Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
  • Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition
Keywords: 
kbtshoot kbexpertisebeginner kbprb KB953198
       

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Karin - macsancats NOSPAM-AT-NOSPAM hotmail.com Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 6/10/2008 9:11 AM
The cause and resolution for this issue are completely incorrect. We have been dealing with this issue for a few years now. There are always appointments in the date/time range where hash marks appear. That is what the biggest problem is. People know there are appointments, but they can't schedule a meeting because they see hash marks instead of freebusy info. Setting the option to publish freebusy is incorrect and also doesn't resolve the problem. The problem, which is all over the discussion boards, is that the freebusy gets corrupt or too large. You must rebuild it on the server side or tell the user to wait a few hours and eventually they will see it again. This resolution is pathetic and I'm sorry to see Microsoft using it. This problem causes us (over 5000 users) many hours of problems and lost productivity.