How To Create Calendar Overlays Using Single Calendar App (OOTB)

Introduction

In this article, we will see how to create calendar overlays in SharePoint 2013 using a single Calendar app. Here, I have explored how to achieve this using Out Of The Box (OOTB) functionality.

Scenario

Working with a single SharePoint calendar, we can keep track of the events in an efficient way. We will look into how the term calendar overlay takes effect with the look and feel of the single calendar app concept.

We will implement the calendar overlays functionality using Single Calendar app.

Implementation

In this section, we will go through a step by step implementation of the same.

Step 1

Go to Site Contents > Add an App > Calendar.

  >     >   

 

This will add the Calendar app to the site.

Step 2

Here, for demonstration, I have created a calendar on the site called Test Calendar. Once the required base calendar (with no events in it) is created, I created different Views of the same calendar.

To create a Calendar View, first, click the "Create View" icon on the top-ribbon.

Then, select Calendar View from the Settings window.


Example

Here, I have created a Calendar View and specified the name as Holiday View while keeping the rest of the properties to their default settings. It’s important to set the filter where we set the Category equal to Holiday.


The categories which we are talking about are the values of the choice fields of the Calendar Test Calendar.

To check or change the categories, go to List Settings of the calendar and click the Categories column to see that the following categories are present in the column as multiple choices by default.

• Meeting
• Work hours
• Business
• Holiday
• Get-together
• Gifts
• Birthday
• Anniversary

These categories can be changed or can be user-defined as per your requirement. Here, we will be working with three custom Views -Holiday, Meeting, and Birthday.

Similarly, I have created two custom Views, Meeting View and Birthday View, selecting their appropriate categories. Once the respective Views are created with the desired categories, we can simply add the events in the corresponding categories.

To add events to your Calendar, you just have to select the date and click +Add on the given date.

Step 3

After creating all the required Views, it’s time to create the Calendar Overlays. In this case, we have Test Calendar D as our Base calendar.

On Test Calendar D, go to Calendar tab in the ribbon and click on "Calendars Overlay".

This opens a new window. Click on the "New Calendar" button as shown below.



The New Calendar window opens, so you give any name,  description, and color that you want to. Specify your web URL and click on "Resolve" to see a list of all the available calendars on your site.

Make sure the type of calendar is selected in SharePoint.

Example

I have named the calendar as Holiday Calendar, specified the color Dark Teal, provided my Web URL; and upon resolving, I get a list of all the Views on this calendar and I chose Holiday View for this.

Similarly, I have created a couple more Calendars by Calendar Overlay and named them Meeting Calendar and Birthday Calendar with ListView, Meeting View, and Birthday View respectively.

Here also, we can add a maximum of 10 calendars in a Calendar View.

In the window below, we can see all the calendars created on the base calendar Test Calendar D’s Calendar View.

Now, once the calendars are overlaid, the Test Calendar D will not show the views on it. Hence, I have achieved it using the following trick.

We need to modify the default View of the calendar - Test Calendar D - and bug it with the filter which applies Category equals to null.



After all the settings, the final Test Calendar D looks like this with all the other specified Views of the same calendar overlaid on it.

Final Output

I hope this article was helpful.