Posted: October 13th, 2009    By: Devin Walker   

Import SharePoint Calendar IconSharePoint makes it very easy to export Calendars from SharePoint to Outlook.  But what if you have an Outlook calendar that you want on SharePoint?  This becomes more difficult and you could quickly find yourself lost on how to complete this task.  Don’t worry though, it’s not that hard.  The following article will explain a common method of moving pre-existing Microsoft Outlook calendars to a new SharePoint calendar list. 

For Outlook 2007 Users:

  1. Create the new calendar in sharepoint, and link it to your Outlook
  2. Open the source Outlook calendar (either from exchange or as a PST, however you have it).
  3. Go to folder view and open the source calendar
  4. With the source calendar open, go to view menu, current view, and select all appointments.
  5. Hit CTRL-A to select all the appointments, or just get the ones you want.
  6. Drag-and-drop the selected calendar Items to the linked sharepoint calendar
  7. DONE.

For Outlook 2003 Users:

  1. Create a new calendar list on your SharePoint site.  You can do this by clicking Site Actions > View all Site Content  then…
    Import Outlook Calendar Step 1
    click Create And select Calendar

    Import Outlook Calendar Step 1a
  2. Now that our blank calendar is created we can now work on getting the items imported… which is the objective of this article: Open your Microsoft Outlook Calendar and copy the Public Folder by (a.) right-clicking on the Calendar Icon and (b.) copying it into a new folder called “Calendar Copy” located in your mailbox folders (you will have to create this folder before copying). Import Outlook Calendar Step 2Import Outlook Calendar Step 2b
    Above: Depending on how old the Calendar and its size it could take 2-20 minutes to copy. 
  3. Now in a nutshell it’s time to export your Outlook Calendar into a Excel file format with the following columns:
    • Subject
    • Location
    • Start Date
    • Start Time
    • End Date
    • End Time
    • All Day event
  4. We can do this by selecting the “Calendar copy” folder that we just created and clicking File > Import and Export…


    Import Outlook Calendar Step 3
    This will bring up the Wizard view 1.  Select Export to a fileImport Outlook Calendar Step 3b
    Now select Microsoft Excel 97-2003Import Outlook Calendar Step 3c
    Select the location you wish to save the file.Import Outlook Calendar Step 3d
    This will bring up the date range configuration popup.  
    Select the appropriate dates.

    Select the appropriate dates
    Confirm the actions and finish the Wizard.Import Outlook Calendar Step 3f
    If you need more help please check out the following Microsoft Help about Microsoft Outlook Import and Export.
  5. Now that your data is in the Excel file let’s open it up and see what’s in there.  At this point you will notice the Start Date and End Date are in two separate columns.   Now before we do anything to this data we will need to go back to the blank Calendar list in SharePoint and switch to All Event View.  You can do this by entering the list and clicking Modify View > All Events ViewImport Outlook Calendar Step 4
  6. Export this empty view to a Excel Spreadsheet and open it.  You can do this by clicking Actions > Export to Spreadsheet


    Import Outlook Calendar Step 5
  7. Open this exported Outlook Calendar, merge Start Day and Start Time to a single column.  I’m not going to get into the detailed specifics of how to merge these columns as it may differ for individual users, but… In a high-level overview how to merge the columns you can use a formula similar to:

    =CONCATENATE(B:B,” “,C:C) or =CONCATENATE(D:D,” “,E:E) for a blank column in the same workbook to merge 2 column’s data. 

    The “B:B” is the column containing the Start date, the ” ” adds a space, and the “C:C” is the End Date.  If your data is in another you must column change the letters correspond to the appropriate column. Import Outlook Calendar Step 6
    Above: In the image above you can see column M and N hold both Start/End date and times.
  8. Merge End Date and End Time to another single column. Both of these two column should have two spaces between date and time and YY as year, not YYYY or 4 digits.
  9. Copy all Subjects from the exported Calendar to Title column of the Calendar list. The rest are straight forward. Do not put anything to WorkSpace column since it’s read-only.
  10. Correct any errors if you have any and please post them within this article’s comment for a solution. Then sync this list to the SharePoint calendar.

Final Result:
Import Outlook Calendar Step 7
All items from Outlook are now on our new Calendar.

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  • http://tech4eleven.com cory

    I’ve used this a few times. Thank you. It’s a wonder that this procedure is NOT more widely known. Thanks again.

  • shanRan

    Will a repeat of this process be necessary to view newly added outlook calendar entries in Sharepoint?

  • http:/www.dlocc.com Devin Walker

    No, once you do this process the Calendar will update regularly with Outlook.

  • Wei Zhu

    Following yuor instruction, I can import outlook calender into sharepoint. But I have a question there, how often will the sharepoint caldenr be updated?

    I tried to add an appointment in outlook, but it didn’t show up in sharepoint.

    Thanks a lot!!

  • http:/www.dlocc.com Devin Walker

    Hello Wei,

    You’re going to have to connect a SharePoint calendar to Outlook in order to have the calendar update directly from Outlook. Currently, you have it backwards and are exporting an Outlook calendar into SharePoint. This should be visa versa. Let me know if this helps!

  • Jim C

    You seem to contradict yourself – does it update sharepoint from outlook or not. First you respond to
    “Will a repeat of this process be necessary to view newly added outlook calendar entries in Sharepoint?” with “No, once you do this process the Calendar will update regularly with Outlook.”

    Then you respond to “I tried to add an appointment in outlook, but it didn’t show up in sharepoint.” with “You’re going to have to connect a SharePoint calendar to Outlook in order to have the calendar update directly from Outlook. Currently, you have it backwards and are exporting an Outlook calendar into SharePoint.”

    Both users seem to be asking the same thing – which is also my question – how to get the sharepoint calendar syncing automatically. I have a large number of users that would all need to sync.

  • http:/www.dlocc.com Devin Walker

    @Jim C

    If you have an Outlook Calendar and import the items into a SharePoint calendar you will have to connect that SharePoint calendar to Outlook. You couldn’t continue to use the old one as usual, which makes my previous response to “Wei Zhu” incorrect.

    Connecting SharePoint calendars to Outlook 2007 is easy, simply go into the calendar, click Actions > Connect to Outlook. The problem with this, it does not work for Outlook 2003 users. They cannot update from Outlook.

    Hope this helps.

  • Gordon

    Hi, my company has users using both Outlook 2003 and 2007. The manager wants to build a system to share everyone’s outlook calendars so people can view and even change other people’s calendar appointments. Should I use SharePoint or other Microsoft products?

    Thank you

  • Andrew

    Thank you, Devin. I’ve been trying to do this with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and Office Enterprise 2007 Outlook. I think it is all updated. But when I go to drag an item from the Outlook Calendar to the Sharepoint Calendar that I’m viewing in Outlook, Outlook consistently crashes on me.

    Any suggestions? Thanks!
    Andrew

  • Jenny

    When I connect my SP calendar to Outlook, when the SP calendar appears in Outlook it has my tasks in there from my personal Outlook calendar. I can’t delete the tasks from the SP calendar within Outlook b/c it then deletes the tasks from my Outlook calendar – how do I create a calendar and have it not copy over my tasks? This is going to be a group calendar and I don’t want to clutter it up with my stuff.

  • Dave G

    When I try to merge, I get StartDate StartTime in one column, but no data descending down the column. The column is blank underneath the title of StartDate StartTime. Also, when trying to paste data into the blank exported excel calendar view I get an error message: “The location column is a read-only column that cannot be modified”. Can you assist Devin?

  • Val

    Hi, I followed your instructions on the top of the site. We’re using Outlook 2007. You said the events were supposed to sync?

    I’m a bit confused from the previous responses. If I understood correctly, events added in Outlook should automatically be added to the SharePoint calendar? Is this correct? If not, is there any way to achieve that?

    Right now I have imported my Outlook calendar into SharePoint, but it is not syncing up. Also, I’m sorry for posting on such an old entry.

    Thanks
    -V

  • Angel

    Hi Devin,

    I was trying to migrate the Calendar Contents from Outlook 2007 to the SharePoint 2007. But the recurrent meetings are being duplicated. At the first time, it looks good but after refreshing it shows multiple entries of the same meeting.

    Please advse.

    Thanks
    Monica

  • http:/www.dlocc.com Devin Walker

    Hmm, Angel you may have to spend some time removing those duplicates. Sorry, but it’s been awhile since I’ve run into that problem.

  • Awrex

    So this sounds like it makes a static calendar vs a dynamic calendar.  How do I make this a dynamic calendar?

  • Steve

    How does this work with Outlook 2010?  I want to publish an existing Outlook 2010 calendar to a SharePoint calendar, then publish all events continuously to it – i.e. when I add a new meeting to my outlook calendar, I want it to show in outlook.