In response to the requests and feedbacks received from its clients on Outlook UserVoice, Microsoft has added several new enhancements to Outlook, empowering users with the ability to sync shared calendars to phones as well as managing RSVP to recurring events. Now Outlook users can easily and seamlessly:

Sync shared calendars to Outlook

Users can now view and edit shared Office 365 or Outlook.com calendars, just like they can with their own calendars. They can also share their own calendars with others and accept sharing invitations easily right from the app.

Seemingly, Microsoft is still in the process of upgrading existing shared calendars so that users start syncing to Outlook, which means the “shared calendars” feature hasn’t yet reached out to all users. However, Microsoft stated that users who want to try the new experience immediately they can simply re-accept the sharing invitation from Outlook on iOS or Android. Once this is done, their shared calendar will appear. Microsoft added that if a user couldn’t find the original calendar sharing invitation, they can ask the calendar’s owner to re-share and accept the new invite from Outlook and the new experience will appear in no time.

Manage delegate calendars on the go

Probably the most exciting feature recently added is the ability for users to manage someone else’s calendar at work, which can now be done from any mobile device. Today users can use Outlook on iOS or Android to manage delegates, accept delegation requests, and fully view and edit the delegated calendar. Moreover, Users can now more clearly indicate if the received meeting invitations and responses are for their manager’s calendar or their own, so they never confuse the two.

Have Meetups added directly to the calendar

Another exciting feature released by Microsoft is the support for “Meetup” - a new Calendar app in Outlook that brings people together in thousands of cities to do more of what they want to do in life. Now, when a user connects his/her Meetup account to Outlook, they can see their upcoming Meetups directly on their calendar.

Manage Events More Simply

Now it has become easier and pretty simpler for iOS and Android users to:
• Create events with daily, weekly, monthly or yearly recurrences.
• RSVP to a single occurrence of a recurring event series (e.g. decline one instance without removing the entire series from your calendar).
• See their coworkers’ availability when scheduling meetings (available previously on iOS, now available on Android).

The following features are now available on iOS, and coming soon to Android:

• Adding a message when responding to a meeting invite (e.g. explain why you are declining a meeting invitation.)
• Setting an event as private, to keep the details to yourself when sharing the calendar.
• Marking the calendar events as Busy, Free, Out of Office, or Tentative.

Microsoft never seems to run out of surprises, and this emerges clearly from its team periodically enrolling new features to better serve the needs of their customers, which makes Microsoft users hold their breaths for more to come.