Outlook 2010 top 11 cool things – #3 Overlay mode and Group calendars

First up group calendars. Yes I know they’ve been around for a while in Outlook, but I think they’re pretty cool and worth a mention before moving onto Overlay Mode.

Basically from the calendar ribbon I can select Calendar Groups->Create New. From here I can create a calendar group from a distribution list. This creates a group with links to all the peoples calendars that are in that distributiuon list. Best of all is that my list of calendars will stay up to date as people leave or are added to the distribution list!

Now the next cool feature of Outlook 2010, Overlay Mode. From my list of calendars I can select those I want to view. I then get a nice colour coded view of all our calendars.

I can then use the arrows to the left of the persons name in the “calendar tab” to overlay all the calendars into a single view. This is really helpful when trying to identify when you can fit in that meeting!