Group Scheduling
The group schedule functionality of allows you to organize appointments, meetings and shared to-do items, request responses from attendees and publish items. If you are being invited to an event or to-do, you can reply to it, stating if you will be able to attend, or send a counter proposal, with different arrangements, like a different time or location. You can also publish your free/busy schedule, to let people know when you are available, and request the same information from others.
Currently, schedules events and to-dos using email to transport the data, in a standards based scheme, the IMIP-protocol for group scheduling. Being a standard, IMIP is a used by many other clients too. For example Outlook, Lotus Notes and Novell Evolution. This means that you can share events with other users using one of these clients. is integrated with for receiving, processing, and sending events, event responses, updates, cancellations, For instance, when you get an invitation in , and decide to accept it, by clicking the accept link in the mail body, the event is added to your calendar, and a response to the event's organizer is sent automatically.
If you check the Use Groupware Communication box in the group scheduling configuration, will handle the group scheduling communication for you. In other words, you will seldom need to use the Schedule menu directly to perform the scheduling actions. For instance, if you create an event or to-do with attendees, will ask you if you want to send the invitations to the attendees, so you will not need to use the Schedule Send Invitation to Attendees menu item later. Also, if you change your status as an attendee for an event you were invited to, it will ask you if you want to send your updated status to the event's organizer, so you will not need to use the Schedule Send Status Update menu item later.

Publishing an Event, To-do or Journal Entry
If you simply want to send an event, to-do or journal entry, choose the Schedule Publish Item Information... menu item, when the item is selected. Then a dialog appears, asking you the email addresses which will receive the event or to-do. The item will be sent by email, in the iCalendar format.
Please note that you can use this action to email any item to anyone, not just to the item's attendees. In fact, you can publish an item with no attendees at all, as publishing does not request an answer from the attendees.
An example: you are playing in a band and, from time to time, you give live concerts. To notify your fans about the concerts, you maintain a mailing list. If you use to organize your concert dates, you can just choose the Schedule Publish Item Information... menu item, put in the address of the mailing list and the event gets sent. Mailing list subscribers who use get the concert date automatically inserted in their calendar.
Publishing an event as described above will only inform the receiver about the event, but not give her the option to ask for attendance. Use Schedule Send as iCalendar... if you want to provide that option instead.

Acting as Organizer in Group Scheduling
When you create an event or a to-do, and add attendees to it, you are acting as the event organizer. To add attendees, use the attendee tab, in the Edit Event, or Edit To-do dialog. In the Agenda view, a little icon Organizer Icon is placed in the event, if you are the organizer of a group scheduling event.
The organizer is responsible for sending the invitations, collecting the attendees responses, and for keeping the data of the event or to-do up to date for all people involved.

Sending Invitations and Processing Responses
To organize an event or to-do, create it in and add all the people that should attend using the attendees tab. can send invitations to the attendees, either automatically (depending on group scheduling configuration), or by selecting the event or to-do and choosing the Schedule Send Invitation to Attendees menu item. The attendees get an email containing all the relevant information for the event or to-do. They can respond to the meeting proposal by accepting or rejecting it or by making a counter proposal. They can also delegate or forward the invitation. All this information is sent to you by email again and, if you have configured appropriately, the attendees responses are automatically inserted in your calendar. If there are additional attendees willing to participate (e.g. by accepting a forwarded invitation) you will be asked to accept the new attendees.

Cancelling an Event or To-do
To cancel an event or to-do you have to be the organizer. If you checked the Use Groupware Communication box in the group scheduling configuration, just delete the item, and will ask you to send the cancellation. If not, simply select the item, and choose the Schedule Send Cancellation to Attendees menu item.
This action will send a cancel-message to all attendees, so they can remove the item from their calendars too.

Acting as the Attendee
When you get an email with an invitation and accept it, the event or to-do is added to your calendar. If it is an event, a little icon Attendee Icon is placed in the event in the Agenda view.

Answering an Invitation
If you have an invitation in your inbox you can either press Reject to ignore the request, or press Accept or Accept Cond.. The last two actions will insert the item into your calendar. In any case, will send your response to the organizer automatically.
You can also Delegate or Forward the invitation. When delegating, you can suggest another person as your proxy. Using Forward you can forward the invitation to one or more people not yet invited. When the receiver of the delegation or forward accepts the invitation, the organizer will be asked to approve the new attendee.
If for any reason you changed your mind, edit your status in the item's attendee tab. If you checked the Use Groupware Communication box in the group scheduling configuration, will ask you to send an email updating your attendee status. If not, choose the Schedule Send Status Update menu item to send your status update.

Sending an Alternative Proposal
If you are not satisfied with some of the characteristics of the event or to-do you got invited to, and want to send a counter proposal to the organizer (for instance an alternative location or time), just edit the item and send it back as your proposal, by selecting the item and choosing the Schedule Request Change menu item.
The organizer of the event will get your proposal by email, and will be able to accept it or decline.

Requesting the Latest Version of an Event or To-do
To request the latest version of an event or to-do, select the item, and choose the Schedule Request Update menu item. The organizer should then send you back the latest version of the item.

Free Busy information
The free/busy information represents an availability schedule. By presenting the intervals when one already has previous commitments, others can avoid arranging appointments for these periods. Note that only the times are published, not the events, reasons or attendees.
supports publishing and retrieving free/busy information, either manually or automatically.
To email your free/busy information, choose the Schedule Mail Free Busy Information... menu item. Enter the email addresses you want to send the information to in the dialog and press OK.
Groupware servers usually have a standard location for uploading your free busy information, so that other users can access your data, and you can access other user's free busy schedule. You can configure to upload and download free busy information automatically, using the Free Busy preferences, in the Configure dialog.
To upload your free/busy information to the server set in preferences, choose the Schedule Upload Free Busy Information menu item.

Examples

Entering a New Group Event
In this example, you'll enter an event. You need to arrange a meeting on the next Monday regarding launch of your new Product. Your boss Joan Holden will be the event chairwoman owner, and you, Jack Smith, will be the event organizer. There will be two more attendees (participants): Peter Krzinski and Kirsten Friese. Joan gave you the program of the meeting. The appointment will start at 12 noon and end at 1 pm. The same appointment should be scheduled (recurred) each Monday.
Using the Date Navigator, go to the next Monday.
Choose the Actions New Event..., or select the area between 12 noon and end at1 pm, and start typing the event title.
Enter a suitable title. It's important to choose the right brief description, because this is the only field that can be searched. We suggest that you enter Product launch event.
Enter the detailed event program into the largest rectangle area. For the sake of this simple example, enter Introduction, The Plan, Conclusion on three separate lines.
Go to the Reminder tab. Set the reminder time to 15 minutes, just long enough to brew a cup of tea prior to the meeting start.
Select Appointment from the Categories drop down box.
Go to the Recurrence tab and select the Weekly repeats.
Most work has been done for you automatically. defaults to recurring weekly. Also note that Ends: never is chosen. This means that this event will be repeated each Monday (starting, of course, on Monday August 30, 2010) until the end of time (that is, until you delete it).
Since everything is all right here, click the Attendees tab.
In the Attendees tab you should do the following:
You will see that you are the organizer of the event.
In the first input field enter the email in the Name <email> format. In our example, enter Joan Holden <jholden@thiscompany.com>.
If the attendees are already in your address book, instead of typing the names and emails, you can press the Select Attendees... button to add them.
Choose Chair as the role.
In the next input field enter Peter Krzinski <pkrzinski@thiscompany.com>.
In the next input field enter Kirsten Friese <kfriese@thiscompany.com>.
If you have configured to use groupware communication, you will be asked if you want to send an email to the attendees, with details of the event and asking for a response if the Request response box from the Attendees tab is checked. Else, you can send the invitations choosing the Schedule Send Invitation to Attendees menu item.
Review the event setup by clicking on the tabs. If you are satisfied, click OK.
Congratulations, you've scheduled your first event!