Enable sharing of the course catalog calendar view to the organization Outlook calendar

Introduction

Learn365 allows for the automatic sharing of scheduled course sessions with a shared Outlook calendar in an organization. In this way, course sessions in a course catalog can be viewed from this shared calendar directly in Outlook. By opening this shared calendar alongside their own, users can find sessions that take place at a convenient time, according to their schedule.

In this article, we go through the steps on how to set up the calendar view of a course catalog so it becomes available in a shared Outlook calendar in an organization.

 

Enable sharing 

Required role: catalog admin.

To enable course sessions to be shared with an Outlook calendar in an organization, follow these steps: 

1. In the Learn365 Admin Center, go to Catalog settings in the navigation menu and select Notifications.

2. From the opened Notifications page, select Microsoft 365 Connection Settings. 

3. From the opened Microsoft 365 Connection Settings configuration panel, toggle Share course sessions to organization calendar to the On position. This opens the Shared Outlook calendar email address field.

4. Enter an email address in the Shared Outlook calendar email address field. The email address can be a shared mailbox.

For more information about how to create a shared mailbox in Exchange Online, navigate to the Microsoft documentation. 

The email address must be different from the one specified in the Connected account field. This is because the Connected account email address is already used to send email notifications, book rooms for sessions, and create Microsoft Teams meetings for the current catalog, and it receives personal training invitations that would become publicly available in the shared calendar if this email address is also in the Shared Outlook calendar email address field.

 

 

The specified email address will receive meeting requests for course catalog calendar events when, for example, a new session is added, deleted, or updated. The email address won't receive notifications for events that were present in the calendar before you recorded the Shared Outlook calendar email address.

 

5. Select Save. To cancel the action, select Cancel.

 

Control access to sessions in a shared calendar

As soon as the calendar view of the course catalog is published in the shared Outlook calendar, all the sessions in this calendar will be displayed with an active link to join the virtual session in Microsoft Teams. Selecting this link from the shared calendar, any user may join the session in Microsoft Teams.

To ensure that only relevant people join sessions, configure the Microsoft Teams meeting lobby feature that is managed from the Microsoft Teams admin center. There, you can create defaults for the types of meeting participants who can bypass the lobby, those who must wait until they are admitted to the session by the organizer.

For more information on configuration of the Microsoft Teams meeting lobby, see the articles: 

• Configure the Microsoft Teams meeting lobby for sensitive meetings - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
• Control who can bypass the meeting lobby in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

 

What happens when sharing is enabled?

When sharing of the course catalog calendar view is enabled in the Learn365 Admin Center, it may take up to 10 minutes for the synchronization with the organization's shared Outlook calendar to complete. Once synchronized, users will be able to see the sessions of the current course catalog in the shared calendar.

Users will be able to select a session in the shared calendar to view its details. If a user has access to the course catalog, they'll have an option to accept the invitation. Expanding a session, the user will find the following session information: course name, the location/meeting URL, the start and end date of the session, and a link to the course home page.

If a user has access to the shared calendar but doesn't have access to the course catalog, they can view session details but they won't be able to navigate to the course home page or accept the meeting.

Users who are enrolled in the session can select the Join button to join a virtual session. If the lobby feature is enabled for Teams meetings sessions, users who aren't enrolled in a session will be able to join a session only after the organizer has admitted their request from the meeting lobby. Otherwise, these users can join a session by selecting the Join button.

 

 

What information is displayed in the shared calendar?

The current view of a course catalog in the Calendar View will be available to the users in the organization who have access to the organization's shared Outlook calendar.

If a user has access to the shared calendar but doesn't have access to the relevant course catalog, they can view session details but they won't be able to navigate to the course home page or accept the meeting.