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Diary Sharing Walk-through

In this walk-through, we'll show you how to create a Diary and share it with other users in your account. We'll then show you how to control which users in your account can see the Diary, and which can work with it. Once you've mastered sharing Diaries, you should be able to work the sharing system for Contact Groups, Email Folders and Task Lists and Planners, as they work according to the same principles.

Step 1 - Create a Diary

Run the MyOffice windows desktop version as per normal. If you've got MyOffice configured to show the Diary window on startup (as it is by default), then you'll already be in the right place. If not, then click the "Diary" button on the toolbar, or select "Diary" from the "Window" menu to show the Diary window.

With the Diary window now showing, open the Diary Admin window. This can be accomplished by selecting "Diary Admin" from the "Tools" menu, or by right-clicking in the Diary Tree on the left side of the Diary window and selecting "Diary Admin" from the context menu.

If you can't see the Tools > Diary Admin menu option it means that you don't have Diary Admin capability and you need to talk to your Account Administrator who can give you this capability.

 

Your Diary Admin window will look something like the above screenshot, with the obvious difference that yours will contain different diaries. All Diary Admin functions are performed through this window, so it's well worth remembering how to get to it if you're likely to be altering your diaries on a regular basis.

To create a diary, either press the "New Diary" button in the top right corner of the "Diary Admin" window, or right-click in the Diary tree, then select "New" and "Diary" in the context menu. The following window - the Diary Details dialog - will now appear.

 

Now enter your preferred name for this Diary in the "Diary Name" field. Before you click "OK", take a look at the text in the middle of the dialog, below the "Display Appointments in a custom colour" fields. This shows that the Diary you are about to create will be shared with all the users in your account, and those users will be able to both "read" from it and "write" to it. For those not familiar with permissions systems, "Read" (or "Read Only") means a user will be able to see the data in the Diary in question, but will not be able to alter it. "Write" (or "Read\Write") means a user will be able to be both see the data, and also edit it. Now, click "OK".

The Diary you've created will now appear in the Diary tree in the "Diary Admin" dialog. If you now close the "Diary Admin" dialog (click "Close" in the bottom right corner), you'll see that the diary has appeared in the Diary tree in the main Diary window, with a small green Diary for its icon. The green diary icon means you can write to the diary. If the icon was red, it would mean you could only read the diary, but were not allowed to alter its contents.

Because this Diary was set up to allow all users on your account to have read and write access to it, all other users in your account should be able to see this Diary and work with it. If you want to test this, close MyOffice, and log on as another user in your account. You should see the Diary you created in exactly the same place as you created it. If you want to continue to work with your Diarys' permissions, close MyOffice and log on with the user you were using initially.

Tip - If you're not sure which user you've connected to MyOffice with, open the "Help" menu and select "Who am I?". This will show you which user (and account, if you have more than one) you are currently connected to MyOffice with.

Step 2 - Controlling Diary Access Permissions

Now we've created a Diary, and we've got it shared with all the other members of the account, it's time to restrict which members of the account can work with the Diary.

First, open the "Diary Admin" window again, then open the Diary for editing. This can be done by double-clicking on the Diary in the Diary tree, selecting the Diary in the Diary tree and pressing the "Edit" button, or by right-clicking on the Diary in the Diary tree and selecting "Edit" from the context menu.

Once the Diary Details dialog is open, select the "Permissions" tab. You'll see a checkbox at the top of the tab page called "Assign security permissions to this Diary". It is currently unchecked. When there is no check in this checkbox, all the users in your account have read and write permission for the Diary in question.

To begin assigning security permissions to this Diary, check this checkbox. This can be accomplished by left clicking the checkbox.

 

With the checkbox checked, three lists appear on the Permissions tab. These are named "No Access", "Read and Write Access", and "Read Only Access". Users listed in the "No Access" list are unable to see this Diary, those in the "Read and Write Access" list can see the Diary and create, edit and delete appointments in this Diary, and those in "Read Only Access" can see the appointments in this Diary, but cannot change them. As we can see, when we first check the "Assign security permissions to this Diary" checkbox, all the users in the account are in the "No Access" list, so if we press "OK" now, no-one will be able to see the Diary.

To change the permissions for a given user, the user in question should be moved to the appropriate list. This can be accomplished either by dragging the user to the desired list (select the desired user, hold down the left mouse button, and move the cursor over the desired list, and let go of the left mouse button), or by selecting the desired user and pressing the arrow button that points towards the desired list.

 

In the example above, the user called "Admin" (which, in this example, is me) has been moved to the "Read and Write Access" list, and the user called "David Gentry" has been move to the "Read Only Access" list. When "OK" is pressed, this Diary will not be visible to all the users in the "No Access" list, David Gentry will be able to see the Diary and any appointments therein, but will not be able to alter the appointments, and the Admin user will be able to see this Diary and create, edit and delete any appointments in this list.