UICalendar Oracle Calendar Client: Creating Events

All the instructions on this page assume that you are logged into UICalendar using the Oracle Calendar native client. Unless otherwise indicated, the instructions apply to both the Windows and Mac clients.

1. In either the Day or Week view, click in the (date and) time the event begins, hold the mouse button down, and drag the mouse pointer to the time the event ends.
2. Click the New Meeting icon (for example) on the Toolbar (a clock reading 3 o'clock with a yellow plus to the bottom left).
3. The New Meeting box will open, with the date and time for the event filled in.
4. Give the event a Title: and a Location:.
5. Since we're talking about plain old event, we don't have to invite people or schedule resources, so we'll skip the People/Resources tab.
6. Click on the Details tab, select an Importance level: and Access level: if you want, and type any notes you want about the meeting in the Description: box.
7. If you want a reminder when it's time for the event, click the Reminders tab.
   
8. Click Reminders. Select the type of reminder you want. Note that the Popup reminder will only work if you have Oracle Calendar open when the reminder would go off. Selecting Email will send you an email message; that's useful when notice tells you that it's today, but not useful for an it's-in-10-minutes notice.
9. Click OK.
10. Oracle Calendar will assume that you want to attend the event, so will display the event in dark green on your Agenda. If you decide at a later date that you can't attend, Right-click (Window) or Control-Click (Macs) on the event in your Agenda pane and select Will not attend from the menu. (See Accepting or Declining Meetings in Client: Basics for more information.)

1. Create a Meeting (or Day Event or Daily Note) as instructed above.
2. Click the Repeating... button at the bottom of the New Meeting (or Day Event or Daily Note) box; the Repeating box (Windows) Repeating Date box (Macs) opens.
3. Let's say it's a 10 week long Tuesday and Thursday class.
   1. In Frequency, select Weekly and click to select Tue. and Thu..
   2. In Start and end dates, the Start: date should already be displayed. Click For, type 10, and select Week(s).
   3. If you've entered Holidays and you want them included, click Include Holidays. Likewise if the repeating days might fall on a weekend; click to Include Saturday and Sunday.
4. Check the dates in Results, and click OK.
   
   
5. The generated dates will be displayed, all highlighted, in the box at the bottom of the New Meeting box, each with a blue question mark beside them. This means you haven't checked the appoints against your schedule yet. Click the Check Conflicts button. The items marked with a red X have conflicts.
   
   
6. Click OK to accept the events.
7. Oracle Calendar will assume that you want to attend each event, so it will display them all in dark green on your Agenda. If you decide at a later date that you can't attend one or more, Right-click (Window) or Control-Click (Macs) on those instances in your Agenda pane and select Will not attend from the right-click menu. (See Accepting or Declining Meetings in Client: Basics for more information.)

1. Find any instance of the recurring event that you want to change in your agenda and double-click on the event to open it in the Event Editor.
2. Make any changes you wish.
3. To apply the changes to all the instances of the recurring event:
   • In Windows: Select Tools -> Apply to All from the Event Editor menu.
   • On the Mac: Select View-> Apply to All from the Oracle Calendar menu.
4. Click all of the settings you wish to change with Apply to All (choices are Title, Location, Start time, and so on.)
5. Click OK in the Event Editor.

If the recurring item you're adding is a birthday, it should be a Day Event -- the New Day Event icon is a pointed flag waving, two down from the New Meeting icon on the Toolbar -- rather than a Meeting. Make sure you check Include Saturdays, Sundays, and Holidays in the Repeating box before you click OK. If you don't, Oracle Calendar will not generate items for the occurrences that fall on the weekend.

Creating Tasks:

1. To create a task, double click on the New Task icon, a clipboard with a check on it and a plus sign to the bottom right (to the right of the New Meeting icon). Fill it out as you would a meeting.
2. Oracle Calendar tasks are displayed in the Tasks pane to the left of the Agenda in Daily view. Or you can open Task View, third icon in the second set in the Task bar, which looks like a clipboard with a check on it with a person to its left.
3. Each listed task has a box before it.
   1. An incomplete task that is not overdue has an empty box with a black outline.
   2. An overdue task that is not completed has an empty box with a red outline.
   3. A completed task has a blue check in its box (Windows) or a black check in a blue box (Macs).
4. Double-click on a task's title to edit it. As you progress with the task, click on the up (or down) arrows in the Edit Task window beside beside the percent Completed:; when it reaches 100%, the Completion date: will automatically be filled in.
   
5. Click OK or Cancel to close the Edit Task window.

Deleting Tasks:

Right click (Windows) or Control-click (Macs) the Task name and choose Cut (Windows) or Clear Task (Mac).

1. Select Tools -> Search Agenda... and the Search dialog box opens.
   
   
2. You can search your own agenda or anyone else's that you have at least viewing permissions for. If you want to search someone else's agenda, type their full name in the Search for: box and click the button with the green checkmark on it, or search for the person. Be sure to check As a designate. Oracle Calendar won't allow you to search someone else's agenda unless they've given you permission to do so. (See Access Rights -- Important Privacy Information in the basics page.)
3. The search will be a lot faster specify if you specify search criteria on the Search Options tag. Say, for example that you want to search for all the appointments you've had with Dr. Desai. They are all meetings, and you always put her name in the title, so unselect everything except Search through Meetings and Search in Title.
   
4. Then enter your search string in Search for: on the Criteria tab.
5. You're looking for more than one day, so you have to change the search Period. Click on the part of the date that you want to change and either use the up or down arrows to scroll or just type the value you want. Or you can click the icon that looks like a calendar page and select the From: and To: dates from a calendar.
6. When you're finished entering the criteria, click the Search button at the bottom of the window.
   
   
7. The items found are listed in the Search Results box at the bottom of the window. Double-click on or highlight an event that you want to look at and click Open. The Show button takes you to the event in a Daily View.

1. Select Tools -> Search Agenda... the Search dialog box opens.
   
   
2. Type your search keywords in the Search for: box. If you want to search for an attendee, you can type their name(s, one at a time) in the Attendee: box and use Oracle Calendar's magnifying glass search icon to help you find them if you wish.
3. There is a box in the middle of the Search dialog box with a list of five other options that you can set. Click on the "disclosure triangle" in front of each one to expand the choices for that one. Click the triangle open, select the options you want, and click on the triangle again to close it when you're finished.
   • Agenda of: is obvious -- you have the choice of either your agenda or any agenda that you have access rights to.
   • Period: is also obvious. the time period to search.
   • Through: allows you to choose which types of events to search: Meetings, Day Events, Daily Notes, Holidays
   • In field: allows you to choose the field in the event that you want to look for the search keyword in.
   • Option: has two choices: Full Word and Case Sensitive. Check one or the other or both to turn them on; uncheck them to turn them off.
4. Here is the result of the same search as the Windows one above. (I tried searching for "Dr Frank", but it only returned the one item with the title "Dr Frank".)
   
   
5. Highlight an event that you want to look at and click the Open button. The Show button takes you to the event in a Daily View.

So long as you have permission to do so, Oracle Calendar allows you to open other UICal user's Agendas.

1. In your Agenda pane, select File -> Agenda -> Open....
2. In the Open Agenda box, type some portion of the user's name or their initials (first letter of their first name and first letter of the last word in their last name) and press Enter, or use the Magnifying Glass search icon to search for the user.
3. If you are permitted, UICal will open that user's Agenda pane, showing only the times and colors (accepted, declined, or undecided) of their meetings. You won't be able to edit it or open any of the meetings to see further information.

If someone has appointed you as a designate for their agenda (or if you have appointed someone else to act as a designate for you), you can also open open their agenda as a designate: select File -> Agenda -> Open as a designate.... Then, depending on the level of designation the person has assigned to you, you may have full access (create, view, edit, and reply), view and edit access, or view only access.

1. In the Agenda pane,
   • On Windows select File -> Print, type Ctrl-P, or click the Print icon, the last icon on the Toolbar, which looks like a printer. The Print dialog box opens.
     
     
   • On Macs, select File -> Print Preview. The Mac Print Preview options and choices are the same as the Windows Print options, though they are organized a bit differently. The Layout Options for the Mac are in with the Options...
     
     
2. Oracle Calendar allows you to print your Agenda in any format you want.
3. Use Agenda pages (Windows) or Single User (Mac) to select the type of calendar you want to print, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and so on.
4. In Dates, select the dates you want printed. Note that just selecting dates to be printed doesn't necessarily mean that they all will be printed. By default, Oracle Calendar doesn't print weekends; you'll have to adjust the layout Options if you want to print them.
5. On Macs, you have to click Options to get the Layout options. On Windows, Layout is included directly in the Print dialog box, but you have to click Options... to choose the other options.
6. Be sure to check the options out. Oracle Calendar's default choices might not be what you want for your defaults. For example,
   • I unselected Work days only because I want the weekends to print also.
   • I selected Location to have the Locations printed.
   • If you have a color printer, you might want to select Color Shading.
   • Click Save (Windows) or OK (Macs) to save these Options as your defaults.
     Windows Layout Options:
     
     Mac Layout Options:
     
7. Just to make sure that your printed calendar will look like you want it to:
   • On Windows, click the Preview button (on the right). Click Close to close the print preview. Click OK to print your Agenda.
   • On Macs, click the Print... button, then click the Preview button. Click Cancel to close the print preview without printing or click Print to print it. Click Done to leave Print Preview.

We've talked about a lot of interesting stuff on this page and we'll take some time at discussing how to create and manage a full-blown meeting -- with attendees and rooms -- in the next page (click on UICal for Mac/Windows: Meetings below), but please don't think that's all that UICalendar/Oracle Calendar can do.

Among many other things, we haven't talked about:

• In-tray
• Address books (which you can publish, File -> Address Book -> Publish, and allow specific other people to import, File -> Address Book -> Retrieve Published, if you wish; useful for departmental address books)
• Group views
• Holidays
• Working off-line

Check in the online help for Oracle Calendar for more information on these topics. The help is very well written and easy to understand.