How to embed an Outlook Calendar in SharePoint (without the headaches)

If you’ve ever tried to display an Outlook calendar on a SharePoint page, you know that it’s not possible with Microsoft’s built-in options, the Events web part or Group Calendar web part. Neither let you showcase events from a specific Outlook calendar. Let’s explore why these native solutions might not meet your needs and introduce a seamless alternative.

The problem: built-in choices have limitations

1. Events web part

The Events Web Part requires you to manually add each event, similar to publishing news articles. This process is not only time-consuming but also prone to errors, especially when managing multiple events.

Manual and Time-consuming

2. Group Calendar web part

The Group Calendar Web Part displays calendars associated with Microsoft 365 Groups. While it integrates with Outlook, it only shows events from the group’s calendar and lacks customization options. Additionally, it doesn’t support displaying individual or shared Outlook calendars, limiting its applicability.

Although using a real calendar, this web part is restricted to Microsoft 365 Groups calendars

The alternative: Outlook web part from SharePoint Store

Just like the Events web part, but for Outlook Calendar

The Outlook calendar SharePoint integration offers a dynamic way to embed your Outlook calendar directly into a SharePoint page and is an alternative to the built-in web parts.

It provides a layout that’s identical to the Events web part, but dynamically displays events from any Outlook calendar, including shared or individual calendars. This integration ensures real-time synchronization, eliminating the need for manual updates.

Key Features:

  • Sync Outlook calendar with SharePoint: Automatically updates in real-time to reflect changes in your Outlook calendar
  • Familiar layout: Mimics the native Events web part, ensuring a consistent user experience
  • Multiple Calendar types: Display events from any Outlook calendar, including shared or individual ones.
  • User-Friendly Interface: Intuitive setup with no coding required.
  • Free to Use: Access core features at no cost, with premium plans available for advanced needs

Step-by-step guide: embedding your Outlook Calendar in SharePoint

→ Watch this YouTube tutorial on how to do this

Step 1: Install the adenin Outlook Web Part

1. Go to the Outlook integration by adenin listing on Microsoft AppSource and click Get it now.

2. This will take you to the SharePoint store where you can click Add to Apps site

3. Follow the prompts to complete the installation process, by selecting to Enable this app and add it to all sites, and follow and approve prompts to grant API access.

Step 2: Add the Web Part to Your SharePoint Page

1. Go to the SharePoint page where you want to display the calendar. Click “Edit” at the top right corner of the page.

2. Click the ”+” sign to add a new web part. Search for “Outlook” and select the Outlook integration web part.

3. Configure the web part settings to choose the desired calendar and display layout

4. Click “Republish” to make the changes live

Step 3: Configure Service Account Mode (optional)

To display events from a specific Outlook calendar, especially shared calendars, configure the web part to use “Service Account” mode:

1. Follow the Service Account setup guide.

2. Use the email address of the Outlook user whose calendar you wish to share on SharePoint.

The result

And that’s all! By simply connecting the web part to your Outlook calendar you can get a beautiful horizontal list of your upcoming events, in an almost identical look to the Events web part, except it’s using live data from your calendar.

Why choose adenin’s Outlook web part?

By integrating the adenin Outlook web part, you eliminate the limitations of SharePoint’s native calendar solutions. It offers a seamless, real-time, and visually consistent way to display Outlook calendars within SharePoint, enhancing collaboration and productivity.

If you want more information, including on what higher usage limits are available on paid plans, or have any questions around how to pick the correct calendar, check out this detailed page.

Download the Outlook calendar web part for free from the SharePoint store now and embed your calendar in the next 10 minutes

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts
Read More

The best replacements for Outlook’s Calendar Board

In June ’23 Microsoft – after just two years – will retire Calendar Board, Outlook’s special calendar view (available on the web version only) that let you add widgets to a personal dashboard. You had a choice of about a dozen different widgets and could arrange them anyway you liked, but the experience was always a little finicky and never saw 3rd party widget support. Released in 2021 at a similar time to Viva Connections, it was showing a degree of UI polish that suggested – when first released – Microsoft was indeed very committed to the idea of creating…
Read More

7 things to consider before building an IBM Watson assistant chatbot

We recently documented our own experiment to build an IBM Watson Assistant chatbot with Atlassian. If you’re thinking about doing the same, you could benefit from the lessons we learned. Docs can work against you To IBM’s credit, there is a lot of documentation on Watson Assistant. However, the way it’s organized makes it surprisingly difficult to sift through to find information on some topics. Sometimes details on key functionality, for example Webhooks, are nested three level deeps into their navigation tree (left). By the end we had ten pages worth of Google search history of ‘how to… in Watson…
Read More

How to make an Adaptive Card with data in MS Teams

Adaptive Cards have become the pre-eminent way to make Cards. They’re simple enough to build, yet interactive enough to be useful for almost any use case. You can read a full insider’s guide about what unexpected pitfalls you should consider. First-time Adaptive Card developers frequently want to make a Card so that it can be sent to a channel or colleague in Teams. So in this guide, we’ll explore two ways you can do this. Both are not without compromises, so be sure to think twice before committing. Official way: Post updates to MS Teams The official way Microsoft recommends…
Read More

Introducing the Microsoft Lists web part for SharePoint

Simplify your team’s workflows with the Microsoft Lists web part, now available for both SharePoint and Viva Connections dashboards! This integration lets you bring your Lists and document libraries into SharePoint pages and Viva Connections, offering an intuitive way to organize, share, and manage information. From project tracking to issue logging, Lists helps your team stay on top of tasks—all from a single interface. Ready to boost productivity? Download the web part now from Microsoft App Source.