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Viewing multiple calendars - OWA

See how to share your calendar with others if you are looking for instructions on sharing calendars. This web page assumes you have access to a number of calendars and looks at the various view options available to you.

Go to the calendar screen, listed on the left will be all the calendars that you currently have shared access to. When you tick the tick-box alongside a listed calendar, that calendar becomes visible on the right hand side of the screen and a colour will be assigned. There is a maximum limit of 5 calendars that can be opened together on this web version (the Outlook client will allow more to be opened).

List of shared calendars

Please note: The next available colour will be assigned as you tick them, so it is the order they are ticked as to what colour they will appear and also the order they will show left to right in the main screen.

You cannot move calendars up and down the left navigation pane once added. As you add a calendar it is automatically placed at the end of the list of the group.


Calendar view options

(All the screenshots below are in thumbnail view, click on those you wish to see more clearly.)

If you wish to see how the different views of Day, Week, and Month compare, see the calendar views/options web page.

When you want to see multiple calendars together (e.g. to see availability to schedule a meeting), it is possible to open 5 calendars simultaneously and with 365 the calendars will be shown overlaying oneanother in every view. However with day view you toggle between side by side and overlay view by choosing SPLIT or MERGE accordingly on the toolbar menu (located under options of day, week, working week, month top right of screen). If your role involves opening multiple calendars on a regular basis and you would like more flexibility in terms of using overlays and/or side by side views, then it may be worth considering using the Outlook client instead - see viewing multiple calendars using Outlook client.

Calendar views:
We recommend that you keep visible calendars to a minimum and when finished viewing a calendar, close it (see reasons why at end of this web page). By default only have ONE calendar visible (it does not have to be your own).
 Day view - merged calendars  Day view - split calendars
Day view - The first screenshot shows the maximum 5 calendars open as an overlay (merged) and the second shows side by side (split). See the cursor position in the screenshots to change the day view. Working week, Week and Month views are only shown as overlays.
 Close a calendar  Closing your own calendar
To close a calendar you can un-tick it in the left navigation or you can choose the X on the calendar you wish to close (see cursor position in screenshot). This one shows that once you have opened another calendar, it is possible to close your own.

Tip: Clicking on the small calendar dates at the top left of screen will help you navigate quickly to the day/week you wish to look at.


Please Note: The more calendars you have open the slower your email mailbox will function. So tick to see calendars as and when you require them and un-tick them before moving back to your inbox view. Outlook will always want ONE calendar to stay visible (but it can be any calendar you have access to).

It should also be noted that calendars with a lot of entries will also be slower to respond to actions. So consider viewing heavily scheduled calendars on their own as much as possible and ensure to close them when you do not need to activately look at them.