How to Add a Shared Room Calendar to Outlook

How to Add a Shared Room Calendar to Outlook

Outlook Desktop App (Windows or macOS)

“New” Interface - Windows and macOS

These instructions are for the “new” interface of Outlook. These instructions are not for the Legacy/Classic interface.

  1. Switch to Calendar view

  2. From the menu bar click “Open Shared Calendar

  3. Specify the room ID which looks like an email address and then click the button to add it

Special Instructions for “Hidden” Room Calendars and the macOS Version of Outlook Running With the “New” Interface

If the calendar you want to add has been configured to be hidden and not searchable by everyone else on campus, you won’t be able to directly add it in the macOS version of Outlook if Outlook as been configured to run with the “new” interface. In this case you can only add the hidden room by doing so using the Outlook Web Interface (OWA) and then waiting for your Outlook desktop app to sync changes which in turn will cause the room to show up in the Outlook desktop app.

If after adding the hidden room calendar using the Outlook Web Interface and syncing your Outlook, you still don’t see the hidden room calendar in your Outlook desktop app, you can try deleting your cached Outlook data to see if that fixes the problem. Do the following:

  1. Ensure the Outlook desktop app on your computer is fully closed and not open at all in your Dock. To fully quit the app, from the Outlook top menu bar select Outlook → Quit Outlook

  2. Open the “UT Self Service” app which will be in your Applications folder

  3. In the search field specify “office” without the quotes and then run the “Microsoft 365 Rest Tool” item that appears in the search results

  4. Once the tool starts, enable just the “Remove cached Outlook data” option and then click the Run button. Wait until the action complete which can take 5-15 minutes.

  5. Open Outlook and then from the top menu bar select ToolsSync. Then check to see if the calendar you added in the Outlook web interface appears.

“Legacy/Classic” Interface - Windows

  1. Switch to Calendar view

  2. Right-click over “My Calendars

  3. From the right-click menu that appears, select Add Calendar -> Open Shared Calendar...

  4. Specify the room ID which looks like an email address and then click the button to add it

  5. From the top menu bar select “Send/Receive”. Then press "Update Folder" button in order to refresh your listing of calendars which will then display the newly added calendar

“Legacy/Classic” Interface - macOS

  1. Switch to Calendar view

  2. From the menu bar click “Open Shared Calendar

  3. Specify the room ID which looks like an email address and then click the Open button to add it

Outlook Web (OWA)

  1. Log into the Outlook Web (OWA) website. Link for the website is available on this page: Link

  2. Switch to Calendar view

  3. Click “Add calendar” on the left side

  4. Select “Add from directory

  5. In the “Individual Calendars” field specify the room ID which looks like an email address and then press the “Save” button.

Common Problems

Unable to Remove a Shared Calendar From Outlook Desktop App

If when trying to remove a shared calendar it re-appears a short time later with an error message about not being able to be deleted, try the following:

  1. Fully close/quit every instance of Outlook for Desktop or Outlook phone app you have open everywhere. You don’t want any non-web version of Outlook to be open which may be causing the shared calendar to not be able to be deleted.

  2. Log into the Outlook Web (OWA) website. Link for the website is available on this page: Link

  3. Go to the Calendars view and remove the shared calendar there.

  4. Now relaunch your Outlook for desktop app and see if the shared calendar is now gone. You may need to wait a few minutes for your Outlook to sync or you can try forcing it to sync by pressing the menu bar button to do so.