Calendar Files

Schedule+ uses a calendar file, which contains scheduling information. Each user has an offline calendar file (named with the person's logon ID and a .CAL filename extension) and an online calendar file (also having a .CAL filename extension, but with a numeric filename). The offline file resides anywhere you want, by default in your SYSTEM32 directory. The online file location is determined by the Mail transport and resides in the CAL directory on the postoffice.

Whenever you want to access the schedules of another user on the postoffice, Schedule+ reads the data directly from the other user's online .CAL file. (You can prevent others from viewing, reading, or modifying your schedule by setting access privileges for the schedule.) When you schedule a meeting with another user, Schedule+ reads the data in the other user's .CAL file to display his or her busy times.

When you schedule an event with others, Schedule+ automatically creates a Request form that you can send to the others asking them to attend the meeting. For more information about the automatic Request and Response forms, see "Custom Message Types for Schedule+," later in this chapter

Merging Online and Offline Calendars

You can use your online calendar while your computer is connected to the Mail server. If you have an assistant, that person can also make changes to your online calendar. You can also use the offline calendar when the Mail server is unavailable or when you are away from the office.

When you work online, Schedule+ keeps your offline file synchronized with your online file. After you have worked offline and then start up online, Schedule+ merges the calendar files as follows:

• Schedule+ adds all of the appointments that you have added offline to the postoffice file.
• Schedule+ deletes all of the appointments that you have deleted offline from the postoffice file.
• When you change an existing appointment, the changes made to the local file always take precedence over the changes made to the postoffice file. If you change the text of an appointment offline and another person changes the start time, both changes will be applied because these changes are not in conflict. If you change the start time, end time, start date, end date, reminder notification time, or reminder notification date for an appointment, all of these attributes will be set to the values stored in the local file.
• When an overlap occurs as a result of merging the online and offline files, Schedule+ doesn't notify you specifically; instead, both appointments are entered in the calendar. For example, suppose you schedule an appointment on January 1 at noon while working offline and your Schedule+ assistant creates an appointment at the same time on the postoffice file. Because your assistant has authority to add to and modify your scheduled activities, it appears to Schedule+ that you made two changes to the schedule at the same time. Schedule+ enters both appointments in the merged calendar files.

Offsite Calendar Files

As with Microsoft Mail, you can work with Schedule+ offline at home or on a portable computer. You can take a copy of your Schedule+ files from your local computer to work with while you're away from the office.

To take your calendar home or on the road, select the Move Local File command from the File menu to copy the calendar to a floppy disk. Then load Schedule+ on the destination computer and select the Move Local File command again. The command moves the calendar file to the location you specify and changes a Registry entry in the Schedule+ key so that it points to your calendar in the new location.

Archiving Old Calendar Information

A calendar file full of scheduling information soon gets cumbersome. Archiving enables you to remove past data from your calendar and store the data for later reference. This minimizes disk space used on the postoffice without having to completely discard past Schedule+ data. You can open and view your archive file as if it were another appointment book.