University Computer Help Desk

Before You Begin

You can publish your Exchange calendar through Outlook Web App (OWA) so other people can access it on the Internet. This allows you to share your schedule so others can coordinate with you even if they are not members of the University.

When you publish your calendar to the Internet, you have control over how much detail you want to reveal (availability only, limited details, or full details). You are also given a link you can share with your colleagues. Anyone who has this link can view your calendar.

Your Exchange calendar is not indexed by Google or other search engines and as a result, your calendar cannot be found by those who are searching for it. A person must have the link to your calendar to view it.

Resource Calendar

The instructions below only work for personal Exchange calendars. If you have a resource calendar in Exchange that you want to publish to the Internet, please use the Exchange Resource Calendar Internet Sharing form found in the Support & Requests section of the University Computer Help Desk website.

Publish Calendar

To publish your Exchange calendar to the Internet, do the following:

1. Go to https://owa.illinoisstate.edu and log in.
2. Click Calendar on the left side of the window.
3. Click Share > Publish This Calendar to Internet....
   • The Calendar Publishing window opens.
4. Click the Publishing detail: menu and choose the level of detail you would like published to the the Internet for your calendar events.
5. Using the Publish my calendar: menus, choose how far back and how far forward you'd like your calendar to be published.
6. Under Access level: we recommend selecting Restricted.
   • Choosing Restricted means the link used to access your Exchange calendar on the Internet does not contain your email address. As a result, the Restricted option is more secure than the Public option.
   • Choosing Public means the link used to access your Exchange calendar on the Internet does contain your email address. A link like this would theoretically allow a person to guess the link to another person's publicly shared calendar. Please note that even if you choose Public, your calendar cannot be found by searching the Internet. This is due to the way the Exchange environment has been configured at Illinois State.
7. Click Start Publishing.
   • A new section called Calendar Links appears at the bottom of the window.
   • The first link, Link for subscribing to this calendar:, contains a .ICS file extension and can be used to import your calendar into an application like Outlook.
   • The second link, Link for viewing calendar in a Web browser:, contains a .html extension and is suitable for anyone to view. If you're not sure which link to share, share this one.
8. You can now copy one or both of the links and share them with your colleagues. For example, you could send these links to your colleagues in an email or post them to your website.

As you make changes to your calendar, those changes will be reflected on the calendar available through these links.

Stop Publishing

At any time, you can stop publishing your Exchange calendar to the Internet. Go back into the Calendar Publishing option in OWA to turn it off.

To stop publishing your Exchange calendar to the Internet, do the following:

1. Go to https://owa.illinoisstate.edu and log in.
2. Click Calendar on the left side of the window.
3. Click Sharing > Change Publishing Settings....
4. Click Stop Publishing.
5. Close the Calendar Publishing window.

Your calendar is no longer shared on the Internet and those who could previously access your calendar no longer have that ability even if they still have a link to your calendar.