Add Appointments and Tasks to Calendar in Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 considers an appointment to be an activity you do alone at a scheduled time. Activities involving at least one other generally calls for creating a meeting request. OK, you wouldn't create a meeting request for an upcoming game, but you get the gist.

Jump to the date of the appointment to start entering its information. Move the pointer to the start time and double-click to enter the details of the appointment including the Subject, Location, Start and End dates and times. Click "Save & Close."

Tip: Quickly create a new appointment without opening the appointment window by moving the mouse pointer to the appointment start time on the calendar and enter details.

To change an appointment time, date or both, drag and drop the appointment.

Make an appointment longer or shorter by moving the pointer over the bottom of the appointment until you see the two-sided arrow cursor. Click and move up to shrink the time or move down to stretch the appointment time.

Appointments also help colleagues who need to schedule a meeting that includes you. They check your availability by checking the status on the shared calendar. They'll see if you're Free, Tentative, Busy or Out of Office. Outlook defaults to Busy when creating a new appointment or meeting. However, you may change the status by selecting the availability status from the Show As drop-down in the Options group within an appointment or meeting.

All Day Events are activities that last all day like birthdays, anniversaries, travel days, holidays and other events that you want to appear in your calendar, but not at a specified time. Events don't block out your time.

To enter an Event, click Actions from the menu and select "New All Day Event." Outlook checks "All day event" so you don't have to enter a time. Just fill in the Event, Location, dates and notes.

A Task is an activity that you do that doesn't have a scheduled time, but you want to see it on the Calendar. You can enter a task with a start and due date. Should you not complete the task on the scheduled due date, Outlook moves it to the current day and continues until you reschedule the task or mark it as complete.

To add a new Task, click "New" from the File menu and "Task." Enter the Task name into Subject and Select the Start and Due dates. If you want a reminder, click the box next to "Reminder," and select the date and time as needed.

Tip: Reschedule a task from the Week view by dragging the task to another date in the same week.