A good calendar system for a school is invaluable. It is crucial for everyone to know where people are and will be to help plan important meetings and visits. A good calendar system is vital for effective school communications. Yet for so many organisations, the calendars are a mishmash of different providers, on different devices all trying to find some cohesion.
One of the reasons we use Office 365 is the strength of the calendar module. At first glance it looks like a standard calendar but the more you delve into it the more you realise what it can do.
Sharing calendars is a revelation. From having a “School Calendar” to being able to see clearly when colleagues are available means you save a lot of time and effort. When you share your calendar you can give different people different access. One colleague can just see you are “Busy” while the Head Teacher can see you are in an important safeguarding meeting. You can also view all your calendars and the ones shared with you in one place without constantly switching between different providers.
You can even set up virtual meetings with Skype for Business incorporated into the Office 365 calendar. Suddenly there is no need for everyone to be in the same place. So long as everyone has an Internet connection they can video conference with all other attendees over a secure connection.
It is also important to keep track of rooms for meetings or community events. Fortunately the calendar system can also do this. Enabling you to schedule a meeting, book a room and invite all the attendees from a single place.
If you need equipment to be logged then a calendar can also do that. Keeping a log of what equipment is where and who it is loaned out to.
Yet the real power is how the calendar integrates with the rest of the Microsoft Office Suite. You can invite colleagues to a meeting and attach the agenda to the calendar. Participants can then add items to the agenda before the meeting with everyone working off a single document. Once the minutes are started they appear on the calendar item and can be updated in real time. And all this happens behind a secure system which provides GDPR compliant levels of protection for the data.
And this power isn’t limited to your laptop. You can also do all these tasks on a mobile phone, tablet or desktop from anywhere you have an Internet connection.
If you want to advance your knowledge of calendars in Office 365 or transfer calendars from other providers then let us know on (01902) 555555.