Hi,

We have some shared calendars in a public folder. Unfortunately, these calendars can not be accessed via smart phones (WP7/8, Android). I found out that the phones synchronize only calendars in the user's mailbox. I had the idea that the ICS feature can help here. However, I couldn't get the calendars from the public folder to publish. So I started with a calendar from my mailbox to see if the basic concept works.

I shared the calendar via ICS. Then, I tried to import the ICS into OWA by right-clicking on "My Calendars" and "Open Calendar" and inserting the path in the bottom text box. This created a new calendar. However, the calendar was empty and did not seem to synchronize for quite a while.

Then I tried to do the same thing via Outlook 2013 (Right-click on "My Calendars", "Add Calendar", "From the Internet"). This created the calendar successfully with all contained entries. However, the calendar was not in my mailbox but in a separate data file called "Internet Calendars". I tried to move the calendar to my mailbox via the "Folders" UI. But this seemed to crash the update functionality. I.e. the calendar in my mailbox did not receive updates from the ICS stream.

Is there any way to get a self-updating ICS-subscription into my mailbox so I can read the contents from a phone?

These experiments are part of a restructuring of our calendar management. It might turn out that the public folders are not the best choice in the end (instead of a site mailbox). Any experiences with central calendars and how to synchronize them with several software (Outlook, Thunderbird, phones) are highly appreciated. I would prefer to avoid additional synchronization software.

Nico

Is there any way?  I suppose you could write code to do it.