Working with Additional Calendars

We have already gone through some of the steps in creating an event, setting it to become a reminder and working on some other aspects of the Calendar app such as changing its background and updating it by syncing some information to it coming from other sources such the built-in Email and People app and as well as downloaded once such as Facebook and Skype.

The Calendar app on your Windows 8.1 machine normally shows some information about the birthdays of your friends and it is configured with one calendar which is the one that is associated with your Microsoft Account. However, if you have other calendars coming from other sources such as the “Exchange”, “Office 365” or even from “Outlook.com” which bears some other important information about work and business appointments then you can add these calendars using the options available in the Settings charm simply by adding the related account. The details on this plus some other things that you can do with additional calendars are what we are going to discuss in this tutorial.

How to Add a Calendar from another Account

Adding a calendar that is linked to a different account is very simple. First, you will need to open the Calendar app from the Start Screen. To do this, simply press on the Windows Key or you can also click or tap the Start Button. Once the Start Screen opens, simply click on the Calendar tile.

Once the Calendar app opens in full screen, you will need to access the Settings screen either through the Charms bar or by pressing the Windows + I keys. To access the Setting screen through the Charms simply press the Windows + C keys on your computer’s keyboard and once the Charms bar appears, just click on the icon at the bottom which is labeled “Settings”.

Once the Settings screen appears, you will see all available options and settings for the Calendar app. From here, simply click or tap on the menu that says “Accounts”.

After doing so, you will be directed to the section where you can see the current account that is linked to the Calendar app and as well as a link that says “Add an account”.

You will need to click on the “Add an account” link so you can start adding the calendars that are linked to your other accounts. After clicking on the link, you will be taken to a screen which will give you two options of the type of accounts that you can link with the Calendar app; simply click on the one that corresponds to the account which you would like to add.

After clicking on the account of your choice, you will now be able to enter the email address that is linked to your account and its password. After inputting all of these required information, simply click on the “Connect” button found at the bottom of the screen.

Linking Additional Calendars

Once you already have more than one calendar associated with the Calendar app on your Windows 8.1 machine, you can select to which one of these calendars you will save a new event on. You might just want to save all personal events on the calendar that is linked to your Microsoft account and the other appointments that are related to work and business to the other calendars that are linked to your other accounts such as Outlook and Exchange. To save an event on a different calendar, simply click on any date or time slot on the Calendar app.

Next, there will a small box containing options which will allow you to choose which calendar the new event will be saved on. Simply click on the Calendar of your choice then click or tap on the “Add details” link so you can add even more details to the event you have created.

Now on the event detail screen, you will need to enter some important information which is required for the event to have a good description. First, you will need to select when the event will happen and you can specify this information under the “When” input box. To choose a date, simply click or tap inside the box and choose a date on the small calendar box that appears.

Next, you can specify the starting of the event. This is the exact time of the day of when the event which you have created will start. Simply enter your desired values to each of the boxes for the hour, minute and portion of the day (AM/PM) by clicking inside the boxes provided and selecting the time value from the box that appears.

The next box will then allow you to specify how long the event will take. You can set between the shortest value which is “0 minutes” and the highest one which is “All day” which is typically set for birthday events.

Moving down, you will then encounter the “Location” input box where you can simply type the location of where the event you created will happen. Just type in whether it will happen “At home”, “In the office”, etc. The next portion is labeled who and this is where you can enter the people whom you want to invite to the event you have created. When you enter a friend’s name which is registered on the People app, you will notice that his/her email will appear on a small Window. This is because the invitation will actually be sent via email.

Now, at the bottom-most portion next to the “Who” input box is a link that says “Show more”. If you click on it, there will be more options that will appear which will help you add more detail to the event and even set it as a reminder for you to remember it. The first option that will appear after you click on the “Show more” link is labeled “How often” and this will set the value of how often will the Calendar app would remind you about the event by displaying information on your computer screen or sending an email to your inbox. Simply click inside the box and the options will appear which you can simply choose from either by clicking or tapping.

Moving on next right below the “How often” option is the “Reminder” input box which you can click to choose how long before the start time of the event will the reminder start reminding you so you won’t forget about it. The shortest time is five minutes and the longest is up to one week.

Finally, the last option will let you choose the Status. The options available are “Free”, “Busy”, “Tentative” and “Out of office”. Just select the one that best pleases you and finally you can save the event by clicking on the “Save” button found at the top-right portion of the screen.

Another way of saving an event is by pressing on the CTRL + S keys. Once the event gets saved, you can send it to the people whom you would like to invite by clicking on the “Send invite” button found at the top-right portion of the screen just beside the “Delete” button.