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The spec for vCalendar v1.0 can be found at http://www.imc.org/pdi/pdiproddev.html. The spec for iCalendar (vCalendar v2.0) is in RFC5545. In general, the newer is better, and that is true for Outlook 2007 and onward, but not for Outlook 2003.
The spec for vCalendar v1.0 can be found at http://www.imc.org/pdi/pdiproddev.html. The spec for iCalendar (vCalendar v2.0) is in RFC5545. In general, the newer is better, and that is true for Outlook 2007 and onward, but not for Outlook 2003.


== Outlook 2016 for Mac - fixes for missing features ==


==== How do I import an .ics file ====
There is no option to import an .ics file in the import menu, however you can just drag&drop the .ics file to the calendar where you want to import it!!
==== How do you copy a meeting in outlook 2016 on mac ====
At the moment it's not possible to copy and paste a meeting in the calendar. Sorry, no fix available.
However with apple key pressed you can copy appointments with drag and drop.
Sources:
* https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/336746/how-do-you-copy-a-meeting-in-outlook-2016-on-mac<br>
* https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/293343-outlook-for-mac/suggestions/13874721-add-copy-paste-function-to-calendar-meetings
==== How to I select multiple appointments in outlook for mac?  ====
Source: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-to-i-select-multiple-appointments-in-outlook/97f73d02-ea54-4566-b4d2-54a7473d4b5d
* Enter 'List' View by pressing CTRL+COMMAND+0 (zero)
* Multi-select the items you want to delete. Delete them.
* Switch back to 'Calendar View' by pressing CTRL+COMMAND+0 (zero) again..
==== iCalendar sync feeds not supported ====
Support for importing from or synchronizing with iCal is not yet available in Outlook 2016 for Mac.
However there is a workaround:
  src: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/ical-feeds-for-outlook-2016-on-mac/3dfeedea-1ffa-4896-a5d0-31658ed5b85e
  .
  Support for importing from or synchronizing with iCal is not yet available in Outlook 2016 for Mac.
  .
  Workaround
  .
    Create a Google account
    Go to Google calendars
    Settings
    Add calendar
    From URL
    Paste the url for your ics feed
    Add the Google account to Outlook
==== Cannot open Free/Busy shared calendars ====
This seems to be a long known problem, but until today Microsoft didn't fix it:
              https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2876443/user-with-free-busy-permission-can-t-open-another-calendar-in-outlook
              <br>             
              Symptoms
                <br>
                A user grants you Free/Busy permission to their calendar, but when you try to open that users calendar in
                Microsoft Outlook 2016 for Mac or Outlook for Mac 2011, you receive the following error message:
                <br>
                Outlook cannot open the folder. You do not have permission to open this folder. Contact <user_name> for
                permission.
              Cause
              <br>
              Outlook for Mac cannot open another user’s calendar when the user’s Calendar folder permission level is set to
              Free/Busy. This feature is available only in Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 for Windows.
              Resolution
              <br>
              To open a shared calendar in Outlook for Mac, the user must grant you permissions of Reviewer or higher. Or,
              you can view the user's Free/Busy information by creating a new meeting request and then adding that user in
              the Scheduling Assistant.
The only workaround is:
     
          ask somebody to give you 'reviewer' rights,
          or go in the browser to https://mail.ru.nl  -> in the browser it works
   


[[Category:Support]] [[Category:AllPages]]
[[Category:Support]] [[Category:AllPages]]

Revision as of 11:29, 27 May 2019

Radboud University's central Calendar is using an exchange server for which the main client is outlook but other clients are also possible.

Each university employee has an email account on this exchange server which is both used for your ru-mail as your ru-calendar. By default your account is:

In Exchange one can share calendars with each other, which makes making appointments easier.

Next to a calendar your Exchange account gives you access to your Exchange Mail . For the iCIS staff is by default the ru-mail forwarded to the science-mail account.

The iCIS policy is that every staff member must at least give full read access to the management assistants so that they can more easily plan meetings, and can see if somebody is at the university or away.

Clients

For basic usage the web client suffices, however for more advanced usage you can better use the Outlook desktop client from Microsoft which is available for both Windows as Apple computers.

Web client

Outlook client (windows/macbook)

Outlook is both an email as calendar program. Both are setup at once. To setup see the Email page at the Exchange mail section .

Other clients

For manuals how to set up email or calendar for other clients please visit this page. You can find manuals for:

IMPORTANT: if you use another client than outlook then read carefully how to respond to meetings in the section below, because these clients do not fully support responding to meetings in a correct manner. Only the outlook clients implement this correctly.

Good documentation in pdf documents

The following two pdf documents give you a good intro how to work with the outlook calendar:

  • Media:Outlook2016-Calendar.pdf : In this workshop we will investigate the Microsoft Outlook 2016 calendar views; customizing the calendar appearance; creating and modifying appointments, meetings and all day events; setting reminders, privacy, and recurrence properties.
  • Media:Irregular_recurring_meetings.pdf : Outlook is limited to setting up a meeting series in a rigid pattern. Use this work-around to create a more flexible meeting series pattern. This approach is suitable as long as there is a stable recurrence pattern with a few exceptions.

Appointment or Meeting

When you add an event to your calendar you have the choice between:

  • an "appointment" (for just 1 person):
    • an event which is put in only one persons calendar; your own calendar or the calendar of another person where you have editor rights
    • you can always add attendees later, causing the appointment becoming a meeting
  • a "meeting" (for multiple persons)
    • an event with multiple persons
    • you can plan a meeting from any calendar where you have editor rights. The owner of that calendar becomes the organizer of the meeting and on his/her behalf all the meeting invites are send.
    • by default the meeting is put as tentative in the other attendees calendars
    • each attendee can the either accept/reject the meeting in which he can choose whether to inform or not to inform the organizer
    • when you accept the meeting becomes fully visible in your calendar (not tentative gray anymore)
    • when you reject the meeting is removed from your calendar
    • when a meeting is planned with an distribution list as an attendee then every member of the distribution list gets an meeting invite
    • when a new member is added to the distribution list after the meeting invites were send, then the new member won't get an invite for that already invited meeting. You can then just add the new member as an extra attendee to the original meeting and let outlook after this update send only invites to the new attendees added to this meeting.

You can also appoint a so called 'delegate' for your calendar which can fully control your calendar. The delegate gets all your meeting invites, and the delegate can accept/reject meetings on your behalf. You can even configure that you yourself don't get any invites and only the delegate gets them. You then fully give the management of your calendar to your delegate. You can even give the extra right to also read your private appointments which are by default also not readable by even a delegate. However it must be noted that even with giving all these rights to a delegate you still are able to edit your calendar yourself.

In the Outlook Web App you can easily appoint somebody as your delegate and can immediately finetune which persons get the meeting invites, that is both or only the delegate. See the section set or change sharing permissions of your calendar in the outlook web application (OWA)

Respond to a Meeting Invitation

src: https://www.cedarville.edu/help/Outlook-Respond-to-a-Meeting-Invitation

When you receive a meeting invitation in Microsoft Outlook, you can respond to the meeting to accept, decline, or indicate that you are tentatively attending.

Meeting invitations will come to your inbox like an email message and will appear as events in your calendar that you need to respond to. Meeting invitations can be opened like emails and calendar events and contain a subject line, information on the people who sent and received the meeting invitation, and any further information on the meeting in the text area below. In addition to responding to the meeting invitation, you can also respond with an email to the meeting organizer or other recipients of the invitation.

How to respond to a Meeting Invitation

In outlook client you can choose one of the following responses:

  • Accept: You can attend; Outlook will put the meeting on your calendar.
  • Tentative: You may be able to attend; Outlook will put the meeting on your calendar as tentative.
  • Decline: You cannot attend; Outlook will not put the meeting on your calendar.
  • Propose New Time: You can propose a new time to the meeting organizer; if you tentatively accept and propose a new time, Outlook will put the meeting on your calendar. This option only appears if it is enabled by the meeting organizer.
  • Respond: Send an email message to the meeting organizer; Outlook puts the meeting on your calendar as tentative and notes that you still need to respond. This option only appears if it is enabled by the meeting organizer.

Once you select a response, choose one of the options from the dropdown menu:

  • Edit the Response before Sending: You can write a message to the meeting organizer to send along with your meeting response (accepted, tentativly accepted, declined).
  • Send the Response Now: Outlook will automatically send an email to the meeting organizer with your meeting response (accepted, tentativly accepted, declined).
  • Do not Send a Response: Outlook will record your meeting response in your calendar but will not send an email with your response to the meeting organizer.
  • Propose a New Time: If you chose "Propose New Time" as a meeting response, you can use the scheduling window to suggest to the organizer a new meeting time.

Accept/reject meeting only in your calendar without sending the organizer a response

As organizer you can invite people for a meeting with disabling the option for requesting an response. The organizer just wants to invite people but doesn't care whether you accept the meeting. An invitee will only see an Accept/Reject/Tentative buttons without dropdown menu. If you accept the meeting it will be put as an accepted meeting in your calendar, but the outlook client will never send the organizer a response email. So the organizer isn't informed who did accept/reject the meeting. But that is ok, because he doesn't care, and just doesn't wants these response emails.

IMPORTANT: unfortunately alternative clients then the outlook client don't implement the request for no response. A solution to this problem is to add '(please do not respond)' as suffix to your meeting request. Then when you receive a meeting invitation with a subject that contains '(please do not respond)' and you use

  • apple calendar: then do not accept nor reject the meeting but just don't do anything and leave the meeting tentative, because the apple calendar will always sends a reply message to the origanizer when you accept/reject.
  • thunderbird calendar configured for exchange with lightning and tbsync plugins: the accept/reject buttons still have a dropdown menu and don't change to just simply buttons a is done by outlook. This is because thunderbird doesn't recognize the 'do not repsonse' attribute in the invite. However by looking at the subject we see that the organizer doesn't want a response. To confirm with this request we can choose in the pulldown menu accept/reject without sending a reponse. Note that thunderbird also doesn't support the feature 'Edit the Response before Sending' in the pulldown menu.
  • thunderbird calendar with lightning plugin but not correctly configured for exchange: in newer clients you don't get the buttons if thunderbird is not correctly configured for outlook, but if you have an older thunderbird version you still can get accept/reject buttons. However they then just don't work, so it doesn't matter whetter you press them or not.

The best solution is just to accept/reject meetings in either the outlook web app or the outlook desktop application. Then everything works!

Copying appointments (within or between calendars where you have editor permission)

  => select multiple in one agenda -> CTRL-C
  => go to other agenda, click on date of first appointment
  => CTRL-V
  
  note: if you copy in list view then you don't have to click on date of first appointment in the 
        agenda you want to copy to
        
  • mass delete appointments:
    go to list view
    select an agenda
    filter items with "BLOCK"
    CTRL-A  and press DELETE  
    
    => all "BLOCK" appointments deleted          

     Hold CTRL and click on all except one of the appointments that you wish to move.
     Click and continue to hold down your mouse button when selecting the last appointment.
     Release CTRL but still hold down your mouse button.
     While still holding down your mouse button, move the selection to the preferred time slot.
     Release your mouse button.

Distribution list and security group

Two kinds of groups:

  • distribution list:
    • is a mail group: from your ru-mail you can send emails to a distributionlist;
    • is a calendar group: within the outlook calendar you can plan a meeting with a distributionlist
    • by convention all distributions lists are distinguished by the suffix '-L' in their names
  • security group:
    • is a security group: in the outlook calendar you can share you calendar to people in a security group
    • by convention all security groups are distinguished by the prefix 'agendabeheer' in their names

We have configured above groups in such way that :

  • the scientific programmers and Simone Meeuwsen can only edit these groups
  • only members from the "agendabeheer iCIS instituut" security group can use these groups.

Group act as role

By using a group for a role in the organization instead of using the specific person directly we are more flexible in changing the configuration when that specific person leaves and is replaced by another person. Eg. to be flexible in (temporary) change of a management assistant in a section we created a group per section to which you can give the "Editor" permission:

  • Agendabeheer iCIS DaS management assistant
  • Agendabeheer iCIS DiS management assistant
  • Agendabeheer iCIS Sws management assistant

You can then give the permission to your section's specific group. Then when the management assistant in your section changes, then this group will be updated by some administrator and you don't have to change anything. Note that otherwise when we would give permission to a specific management assistent that under a change the whole department would have to change their permissions.


Distribution Lists for iCIS

Groups to invite for a meeting:

  • ICIS Data Science-L
    icisdatascience@hosting.ru.nl
  • ICIS Digital Security-L
    icisdigitalsecurity@hosting.ru.nl
  • ICIS Software Science-L
    icissoftwarescience@hosting.ru.nl
  • ICIS Instituut-L
    icisinstituut@hosting.ru.nl


  • ICIS Scientific Programmers-L
    icisscientificprogrammers@hosting.ru.nl
  • ICIS Scientific Staff-L
    icisscientificstaff-l@hosting.ru.nl
  • ICIS Staff Lunch-L
    icisstafflunch-l@hosting.ru.nl

Agendabeheer groups for iCIS

Groups to which you can share your calendar:

  • Agendabeheer iCIS Institute
  • Agendabeheer iCIS DaS
  • Agendabeheer iCIS DiS
  • Agendabeheer iCIS Sws


  • Agendabeheer iCIS All management assistants
  • Agendabeheer iCIS DaS management assistant
  • Agendabeheer iCIS DiS management assistant
  • Agendabeheer iCIS Sws management assistant


  • Agendabeheer iCIS Scientific Staff
  • Agendabeheer iCIS Scientific Programmers

iCIS Policy

Policy: every staff member must at least give full read access to the management assistants

By default people within the Radboud University can only see when you are free or busy, but they cannot see the details of your appointments. People outside the Radboud University cannot see anything.

Every staff member must at least give full read access to the management assistants. The reason for this it that they can more easily plan meetings, and can see if somebody is at the university or away. Finally to let a section's management assistant plan meetings between people of different sections within iCIS you have to grant full read access to all management assistents.

However for the management assistants it is preferred that they all are granted full read and write rights. However you are free to choose whether you want to allow this. To make this easy for you we have created the group "Agendabeheer iCIS All management assistants" to which you can give full read and write access and then all management assistents in this group get full read and write access.

For better cooperation withing iCIS it is also preferred to give everyone withing ICIS the right to view your calendar.

Agendabeheer groups to implement the policy

You have to minimally give full read access to "Agendabeheer iCIS All management assistants" by giving the "Full details" permission in the outlook web client, or the similar "Reviewer" permission in outlook Desktop Client. "Full details" permission and "Reviewer" permission are different names by the two different clients for the same permission.

It is however preferred that

  • you give the managements assistants full read and write permission by giving the "Editor" permission to all management assistants. Note: the "Editor" permission name is used by both desktop as web client.
  • you give read permission to all members of the iCIS instititue by giving the ""Full details" permission in the outlook web client, or the similar "Reviewer" permission in outlook Desktop Client.

Preferred sharing settings

The minimally required sharing settings according to iCIS policy is:

  • "Agendabeheer iCIS All management assistants"  : "Reviewer" permission

The preferred sharing settings according to iCIS policy is:

  • "Agendabeheer iCIS All management assistants"  : "Editor" permission
  • "Agendabeheer iCIS Institute"  : "Reviewer" permission

Set or change sharing permissions of your calendar

in the outlook desktop application (OPA)

set/change permissions

  • Open the outlook desktop application.
  • In the bottom left corner click on the calendar icon to open your calendar.
  • Right mouse-click on the "Calendar" in the right column to open a context menu.
  • In the context menu select: "Sharing permissions..."
  • Then an popup window appears:
    • select the person(s) you want to share your calendar with; click the "Add" button to add the person first if the person is not listed yet.
    • in the "Permission Level" dropdown box select the permission you want to give to that person.
    • for the preferred settings according to iCIS policy do:
      • "Agendabeheer iCIS All management assistants"  : "Editor" permission
      • "Agendabeheer iCIS Institute"  : "Reviewer" permission

in the outlook web application (OWA)

IMPORTANT:

 Only use the OWA if you want to set or change sharing permissions with a single person.
 - 
 Because when using the OWA to change sharing permissions everyone granted a permission gets an email message!  
 For example if you share read right to the "ICIS institute" using OWA then everyone in ICIS gets an email. 
 -
 So it is better to use the  Outlook Desktop Application (OPA) instead in which 
 you can change your calendar sharing permissions without sending emails!!
 -
 If you don't have the Outlook Desktop Application (OPA) installed, you can temporarily add your account 
 to a colleague's OPA. Change the permissions there, and remove the account again. No emails will be sent.

set permissions

  • Login to: https://mail.ru.nl
  • Select on the top right "Calendar"
  • Left mouse-click on the "Calendar" in the left column to open your own calendar.
  • Right mouse-click on the "Calendar" in the right column to open a context menu.
  • In the context menu select: "Share calender"
  • Then on right side a column opens:
    • choose the person(s) you want to share your calendar with
    • behind each person's name you can choose the permission you want to grant to this person
  • click "Send" in the top left corner of the side column. Each person gets an message.

change permissions

  • Login to: https://mail.ru.nl
  • Select on the top right "Calendar"
  • Left mouse-click on the "Calendar" in the left column to open your own calendar.
  • Right mouse-click on the "Calendar" in the right column to open a context menu.
  • In the context menu select: "Permissions..."
  • Then on right side a column opens where you can change the assigned permissions.
  • click "Save" in the top left corner of the side column. Each person gets an message specifying the permission update.

Permission rights you can choose when sharing your outlook calendar

The outlook desktop client allows you to set sharing to the following permissions:

  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  |   Permission    |                                         Description                                          |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |      Owner      |The Owner role gives full control of the folder. An Owner can create, modify, delete, and read|
  |                 |folder items; create subfolders; and change permissions on the folder.                        |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |                 |The Publishing Editor role has all rights granted to an Owner, except the right to change     |
  |Publishing Editor|permissions. A Publishing Editor can create, modify, delete, and read folder items and create |
  |                 |subfolders.                                                                                   |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |     Editor      |The Editor role has all rights granted to a Publishing Editor, except the right to create     |
  |                 |subfolders. An Editor can create, modify, delete, and read folder items.                      |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |Publishing Author|A Publishing Author can create and read folder items and create subfolders but can modify and |
  |                 |delete only folder items that he or she creates, not items created by other users.            |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |     Author      |An Author has all rights granted to a Publishing Author but cannot create subfolders. An      |
  |                 |Author can create and read folder items and modify and delete items that he or she creates.   |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |Nonediting Author|A Nonediting Author can create and read folder items but cannot modify or delete any items,   |
  |                 |including those that he or she creates.                                                       |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |    Reviewer     |A Reviewer can read folder items but nothing else.                                            |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |   Contributor   |A Contributor can create only folder items and cannot read items.                             |
  |-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |      None       |The None role has no access to the folder.                                                    |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
    src: https://www.marquette.edu/its/help/emarqinfo/permissions.shtml

The outlook web client has a different naming convention for the sharing permissions. The following list displays the mapping of the named permissions in the Desktop client with similar ones in the Web client:


  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  |Calendar permission role in Desktop Client            |Calendar Sharing equivalent  in Web client               |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Owner                                                 |No equivalent - displays as Limited Details              |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Publishing Editor                                     |No equivalent - displays as Limited Details              |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Editor + View Private Items                           |Delegate                                                 |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Editor                                                |Editor                                                   |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Publishing Author                                     |No equivalent - displays as Limited Details              |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Author                                                |No equivalent - displays as Limited Details              |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Nonediting Author                                     |No equivalent - displays as Limited Details              |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Reviewer                                              |Full Details                                             |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Contributor                                           |No equivalent - displays as Limited Details              |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Free/Busy time, subject, location                     |Limited Details                                          |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |Free/Busy time                                        |Availability Only                                        |
  |------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------|
  |None                                                  |Doesn't display in list                                  |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
     src: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/benw/2015/01/21/the-mystery-of-calendar-permissions-explained/


Notes:

  • Only in the outlook desktop client you can change your default sharing permission of the calendar. By default this permission is set to "Free/Busy". You cannot change this in the web client.
  • In the outlook web client one can choose permissions for "outside the organisation" however these are ignored by the server. People outside the organisation have no permissions.
  • Only in the outlook web client one can set the permission to "delegate". This is the same as the "editor" permission but with the extra feature that invites for meetings are also send to the delegate. So the delegate can accept/reject meetings for the person sharing his calendar.



Course schedules from http://persoonlijkrooster.ru.nl/

Using the website http://persoonlijkrooster.ru.nl you can retrieve a schedule of all the courses you teach/follow.

For general introduction how http://persoonlijkrooster.ru.nl works view the video at https://www.ru.nl/english/vm_syllabus_plus/helpandinfo_viewer/ or look at the help page at https://persoonlijkrooster.ru.nl/help

There are two ways to get the courses from the website http://persoonlijkrooster.ru.nl into your outlook calendar:

  • subscribe to a iCalendar feed: do not use this option, because the feed will be synchronized in a separate calendar which is not visible for other people, and then they cannot find a free slot to plan a meeting with you!
  • import an .ics file: from the website http://persoonlijkrooster.ru.nl you can export your schedule as an .ics file and import that to your calendar.

The disadvantage from importing the .ics file is that if the schedule is changed you have re-import your schedule. However fortunately that doesn't happen that often. In the next sections it is described how you can import and optionally re-import a course schedule.

Import course schedule in to your agenda

src: https://persoonlijkrooster.ru.nl/help#download-ical

  • Go to https://persoonlijkrooster.ru.nl/
  • Click the Download button Download button.
  • Choose iCalendar.
  • A window is displayed. Here, choose the date range you want to display in the file.
  • If desired, you can also set options such as deduplicating of activities or warnings before the start of an activity.
  • Click the Download button.
  • Open in outlook your personal calendar.
  • Drag and Drop the downloaded .ics file on your personal calendar. Everything in the .ics will be imported into your calendar.

If your course schedule is changed then you can just download a new .ics file and import it again. However before importing it is better to delete the old course schedule, for which the instructions are in the next section. Explanation: each appointment in an .ics file has an unique identifier, so changes to appointments are automically applied, however appointments which are removed from the old schedule are not known to the new schedule and can therefore not be removed. So to prevent this it is better to remove the old course schedule before importing a new one.

Remove course schedule from your agenda

  • open outlook desktop application
  • open in the "Search" tab/ribbon "Advanced Find/Search"
  • search for your course code "NWI-xxx"
  • select all found items
  • right-click and in the context menu select delete


Note: It isn't possible to search your calendar if your organization is using the 2013 version of Outlook Web App. In the case you haven't the outlook desktop application installed, just walk to the office of your management assistant and ask her to remove these appointments for you in your agenda.
src: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/calendar-in-outlook-web-app-5219c457-d1fe-4c2f-9032-1a816b88e936

About iCalendar standard (.ics/.vcs)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar

The Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) is a MIME type which allows users to store and exchange calendaring and scheduling information such as events, to-dos, journal entries, and free/busy information.[1] Files formatted according to the specification usually have an extension of .ics.

iCalendar's design was based on the previous file format vCalendar created by the Internet Mail Consortium (IMC). It has the .vcs file extension.


https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1310420/difference-between-icalendar-ics-and-the-vcalendar-vcs

Both .vcs (vCal) and .ics (iCal) belongs to the same VCALENDAR camp, but .vcs file shows "VERSION:1.0" whereas .ics file uses "VERSION:2.0".

The spec for vCalendar v1.0 can be found at http://www.imc.org/pdi/pdiproddev.html. The spec for iCalendar (vCalendar v2.0) is in RFC5545. In general, the newer is better, and that is true for Outlook 2007 and onward, but not for Outlook 2003.

Outlook 2016 for Mac - fixes for missing features

How do I import an .ics file

There is no option to import an .ics file in the import menu, however you can just drag&drop the .ics file to the calendar where you want to import it!!

How do you copy a meeting in outlook 2016 on mac

At the moment it's not possible to copy and paste a meeting in the calendar. Sorry, no fix available.

However with apple key pressed you can copy appointments with drag and drop.

Sources:

How to I select multiple appointments in outlook for mac?

Source: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-to-i-select-multiple-appointments-in-outlook/97f73d02-ea54-4566-b4d2-54a7473d4b5d

  • Enter 'List' View by pressing CTRL+COMMAND+0 (zero)
  • Multi-select the items you want to delete. Delete them.
  • Switch back to 'Calendar View' by pressing CTRL+COMMAND+0 (zero) again..


iCalendar sync feeds not supported

Support for importing from or synchronizing with iCal is not yet available in Outlook 2016 for Mac. However there is a workaround:

 src: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/ical-feeds-for-outlook-2016-on-mac/3dfeedea-1ffa-4896-a5d0-31658ed5b85e
 .
 Support for importing from or synchronizing with iCal is not yet available in Outlook 2016 for Mac. 
 .
 Workaround
 . 
   Create a Google account
   Go to Google calendars
   Settings
   Add calendar
   From URL
   Paste the url for your ics feed
   Add the Google account to Outlook

Cannot open Free/Busy shared calendars

This seems to be a long known problem, but until today Microsoft didn't fix it:

             https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2876443/user-with-free-busy-permission-can-t-open-another-calendar-in-outlook
             
Symptoms
A user grants you Free/Busy permission to their calendar, but when you try to open that users calendar in Microsoft Outlook 2016 for Mac or Outlook for Mac 2011, you receive the following error message:
Outlook cannot open the folder. You do not have permission to open this folder. Contact <user_name> for permission. Cause
Outlook for Mac cannot open another user’s calendar when the user’s Calendar folder permission level is set to Free/Busy. This feature is available only in Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 for Windows. Resolution
To open a shared calendar in Outlook for Mac, the user must grant you permissions of Reviewer or higher. Or, you can view the user's Free/Busy information by creating a new meeting request and then adding that user in the Scheduling Assistant.

The only workaround is:

          ask somebody to give you 'reviewer' rights,
          or go in the browser to https://mail.ru.nl   -> in the browser it works