Sharing Free/Busy Times

Scheduling becomes efficient when you and your contacts share free/busy times. As a GoldMine user you can publish your free/busy time in an iCalendar recognized format, making it available to non-GoldMine users for easy scheduling and to save time when proposing and counter-proposing meeting times between participants.

GoldMine users can view a contact’s published free/busy time in the GoldMine calendar when scheduling an activity. GoldMine's ability to publish and to read calendar data also provides efficient collaboration with non-GoldMine users.

Shared Free/Busy Times Example

The following table displays some scenarios where you can use the various options to improve your ability to work with outside contacts, and with users who might not have immediate access to GoldMine:

Action The Automated Process action is the activity performed when triggered.	GoldMine	Outlook
Configuring user free/busy settings	Tools > Options > Calendar > More Options > Free/Busy (.ifb)	Tools > Options > Calendar Options > Free/Busy Options (.vfb) See the Outlook online Help for more detailed information.
Initializing user free/busy publishing	Automatically: After the Free/Busy tab is configured, GoldMine begins publishing based on a specified time. Manually: Web > Publish Calendar > Publish Free/Busy Times.	Automatically: After the Free/Busy Options are configured, Outlook begins publishing based on a specified time.
Reading a contact's published free/busy time	Select contact record and then Edit > Record Properties > Contact Details > Free/Busy tab (.ifb)	Select Contact and click the Details tab Structured, user-defined information associated with each Contact Record.. Complete the Internet Free-Busy Address.
Scheduling based on free/busy times	Select Schedule > Select activity and configure Detail, Resources Commonly requested items such as: conference rooms, projectors, demonstration products, company vehicles., and Free/Busy. Click Options and select Show Contacts.	In Calendar, select Actions > Select activity. Select Attendee Availability > Invite Others. Select contact with published free/busy information.
Distributing your free/busy URL Uniform Resource Locator. The global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. to others	Copy and paste the URL into an e-mail message to send to a contact.	Add to the Details tab of your Contact record and save as vCard (.vcf). When you send a vCard with your signature, the free/busy URL is included.