I have found the following article that describes setting up a form of shared calendaring for Outlook users on a LAN. I did the set-up as described to an e-smith ibay called ifb with rw sharing for everyone. Outlook seems to create and read back the .vfb files that are created. Those interested give it a test drive and some feedback. This could be a good solution for Outlook users, in conjunction with the messageware add-on for LDAP as described by Jef Martin in <http://www.e-smith.org/bboard/read.php?f=3&i=2141&t=2114> Regards Sasha Malic Sharing Calendars In Outlook By Woody Leonhard and Peter Deegan, Woody's Office Watch <http://www.mcc.com.au/wow/index.htm> <<...>> Learn how to share calendar data without special software. A small company wants to share calendars with Outlook but doesn't want to invest in Exchange Server and either can't get or doesn't want to use Schedule+. You can use Internet Free/Busy (IFB) to at least allow all users to share meetings, personal time, or whatever. The very term Internet suggests (and many books seem to agree!) that this requires you to use FTP in which case you at least have to set up and maintain an FTP server. On the other hand, if you have an Intranet setup (internal TCP/IP network), you can share calendar information without the need for any special software beyond the network itself. Getting Started <<...>> To begin, each person will need a distinct email name - that is the part of the email address before the @ sign. Next, decide where the IFB files will reside. For example, suppose you pick the folder \ifb in the C: drive of the machine whose name is FileServer. Let's look at an example. Assume your email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Open the Outlook dialog Tools | Options | Preferences | Calendar Options | Free/Busy Options. Check the box labeled "Publish my free/busy information". For the "Publish at this URL" field, enter file://FileServer/c/ifb/user17.vfb Each user fills in their own email name in place of "user17". In the box "Search at this URL", enter file://FileServer/c/ifb/%NAME%.vfb (Note: Each user will fill in precisely the same thing. %NAME% is exactly what you enter, not some kind of abbreviation. It tells Outlook when searching for another user's IFB information to look for a file with %NAME% replaced by the user's email name.) If all the users on a small network set up their Outlook this way, every time you try to set up a meeting (using File | New | Meeting Request or starting an Appointment and clicking Invite Attendees) you enter each meeting attendee. Outlook will then go out to \\FileServer\c\ifb and retrieve their Free/Busy information and display it on the invitee form.
