Calendar Views and Calendar Overlays

In my last post, I mentioned that there were other views which were available when creating views for a site. One of the other option available is the calendar view. The calendar view would be used by individuals who are seeking to incorporate a dynamic calendar which would be able to list items for different groups or individuals based on tasks which were assigned. This raises the issue of task lists and calendars. First, we will discuss calendars and in the next post I will discuss the use of Task lists.

Calendars are an app within SharePoint. Using the calendar is much simpler than in 2010 in terms of overlays which will allow for a more descriptive use of views.

Calendars in SharePoint 2013 are a useful asset to making a site a service. Items can be given descriptive properties like the importance of the event. Calendars, like normal lists, allow for the distinction between items using views based on properties of the item. This requires planning by the creator to discover the requirements of the calendar before it is used.

After you have created your calendar, you are able to add events to the calendar with many different categories, or you can create your own. 

The calendar has the option to be viewed in daily, weekly, or monthly views. This also includes the ability to expand all of the items within a current date for view-ability with the reciprocal option of collapsing the data. 

Calendar Overlays

Calendar overlays are used when you want to make distinct and different colored items. This includes the use of views, filters and calendar overlays.

In order create calendar overlays, you need to first create a view. On the ribbon, select calendar and select the item in the ribbon called “Create View”.  When you are creating a view, you are filtering information which applies certain categories. When applying filters to get only the values which are unique to this view modify the view to equal some certain parameter, this includes creating another view to see the items that don’t apply to that view. Each calendar is limited to 10 overlays.

For overlays, you need to identify the calendar overlay button on the top ribbon of the page which you are working on.

This will bring you to a page which lists all of the current calendar overlays which are being applied to your current calendar.

NOTE: The calendar overlays are also unique calendars.

When you create your new calendar, click on the new calendar button within the calendar overlay application.

In this calendar you select a name, description and location where the calendar is coming from which you put in the web URL box. The resolve button tells SharePoint to find the calendar which you are searching for and apply the views related to that calendar. If you have any task applications within your site, you may also find that the task list comes up in the list drop-down menu.

This area allows users to select a color for this overlay depending on desired changes to the color or simply have different calendars linked to the calendar distinctly.