Outlook Booking Tool Updated With Support For Office 365 And Resource Grouping

kalmstrom.com has today released version 7.1 of the resource booking application for Outlook, Calendar Browser . The first version was released over ten years ago, and ever since then this Outlook Calendar tool has been improved and adapted to new technologies.

Outlook Resource Calendars
The CEO and creator of kalmstrom.com Business Solutions got the idea to Calendar Browser when he was looking for a good resource booking software for a client and did not find anything on the market. Peter then decided to use what the client already had and liked - Outlook and Exchange - and built an add-on for it.

He let his client save info about the organization’s bookable resources in calendars, and people booked the resources by simply creating an appointment in the applicable calendar. Calendar Browser was born, and since then it has grown to a mature and popular product that is used worldwide.

Multiple installations
One of the new features in the latest release of Calendar Browser is the possibility to make several installations in the same Outlook. For big organizations with many bookable resources this is an important enhancement: Fewer resource calendars must be loaded if you separate them into several installations. Maybe all users do not need to choose between all resources, and then it is convenient for them to never see those resources at all.

Group Calendars after content
With multiple installations the administrator can group the resources in ways that make them easier to manage. Maybe you have rooms at several locations, or maybe you have several different kinds of bookable resources? Group them into separate installations, and the users can add the groups they need to their Outlooks and skip the rest.I have already written a blog article about multiple installations of Calendar Browser, so please read it if you want a more detailed description. There is also a faq on how to perform a multiple installation.

Support for Office 365
As usual kalmstrom.com aims to support the latest technologies, and therefore we have made Calendar Browser V7.1 compatible with Office 365, Microsoft’s new cloud-based platform. This means that all major kalmstrom.com products now have support for Office 365.

View Personal Calendars
Calendar Browser may be used with all kinds of Outlook calendars - public folders, direct booking mailboxes or personal calendars. Therefore Calendar Browser is not only a booking tool but also a tool for viewing calendars. Instead of adding resource calendars you may add the calendar of each user. The Overview feature of Calendar Browser can then display several kinds of views of the content in many people's calendars.

Upgrade or Try
Members of kalmstrom.com Community are welcome to upgrade to version 7.1 of Calendar Browser without any cost. If your organization don’t use this kalmstrom.com tool yet, you are very welcome to download and evaluate Calendar Browser for 30 days without any obligations. We will give you all possible assistance to make it a happy experience!

2011 - An Eventful kalmstrom.com Year

The year 2011 was a year full of action when it comes to world politics, and at the end of the year we have many worries and unanswered questions. You know them as well as I do, so here I will instead concentrate on kalmstrom.com. That makes it possible for me to write a happier blog!

120 blog posts in 2011
One year is a long time in the IT business, where changes happen quickly and we hear news nearly every day. In 2011 I wrote 119 blog articles, except this one, and most of them were about kalmstrom.com events. If you want more info about something I mention here, just use the Search function to the left to find the post or posts.

New staff
In the beginning of 2011 several new people joined the team, and this has had ‒ and will have ‒ a strong impact on the kalmstrom.com software. Most visible has of course been the work of graphic designer Jitendra Joshi, but our three new developers has contributed just as much.

Silver Competencies
One of the new developers, Vijayant Rimza, has tested our products for a Microsoft Silver Partnership. They passed the tests, and as we also fulfilled the other qualifications we could gain no less than two Silver Competencies, first Independent Software Vendor and then Business Intelligence. A warm thank you from the whole team to the Community Members who helped us with references for Microsoft. The Silver competencies, together with Peter’s personal Microsoft certifications, make kalmstrom.com Business Solutions stand out on the market, and we have already noticed an increased interest for our Office applications.

Product updates
All kalmstrom.com products have been updated, and most of them several times. HelpDesk OSP for Outlook and SharePoint and the resource booking application Calendar Browser have new major version numbers, V3 and V7, and PF HelpDesk has reached both 11.2 and 11.3. kalmstrom.com Outlook add-ons, The kalmstrom.com tool for time reporting from within the Outlook calendar had version 4.3 the whole year, but in January 2012 we plan to release kalmstrom.com Outlook add-ons, TimeCard V4.4 with new, interesting features.

iOS apps
During 2011 kalmstrom.com Business Solutions also published two apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod: iNameDays gives you name days in the standard calendar, and with ShareTask you get the SharePoint tasks into your handheld and can manage them with a finger.

Extended compatibility
When Microsoft introduces new platforms the kalmstrom.com developers are usually quick in making our products compatible. In 2011 we extended our product support to Office 365, and the Windows Azure database was added as a third alternative for our Outlook issue tracking tool PF HelpDesk. We also started the development of a new application, HelpDesk OSP Azure, which we first will use for the kalmstrom.com support before we start marketing it.

New Partner
In May kalmstrom.com begun cooperating with a new partner, and for the first time ever we agreed to market a product that is not our own: PamFax. Peter was involved in the development of the first version of this convenient tool for online faxing when he was product manager at Skype, though, and we also use it ourselves. I translated the application into Swedish, and our new Sales and Relations Officer, Siret Toots, made the Estonian translation.

More extensive Tips section
The Tips section of the kalmstrom.com website is popular, and during the year we have added a number of new articles. By the end of 2011 Peter made a series of demonstrations for various useful tricks with Excel and SharePoint.

Now we look forward to the new year with great confidence. There is no crisis in kalmstrom.com! I will come back with a blog post about future development next week, and until then I wish all blog readers a great New Years Eve!

Beautiful Trip To Historical Mandu Brings The kalmstrom.com Team Together

On the second day of Peter’s and Siret’s visit to Indore, the Indian members of the kalmstrom.com team took them to the historical town of Mandu. It was founded in the 10th century and is full of interesting monuments.  The town is beautifully situated among lush hills around 100 kilometers from Indore, and the team had hired their own bus to take them there.

Peter:
"I was impressed by the well-preserved castle from the 15th century. It had indoor plumming, air-conditioning, a theatre and lots of other modern facilities. The only problem seems to have been that there were too many blondes in the harem, but they solved that by adding a lake with henna in the water. I tried to push Siret into it, to see if it still worked, but she was surrounded by admirers who did not allow it."

Above kalmstrom.com CEO Peter with his Indore team, all young and very talented people. From the left Vijayant (Developer), Vipul (Office Manager), Peter, Jitendra (Graphic Designer), Sunil (Developer), Jayant (Lead Developer), Kanak (Developer) and Neha (QA Engineer).

Siret:
"There is India you see as a tourist and then there is India you see when you are traveling with some local friends. Peter Kalmström and I just returned to our hotel in Indore after spending an amazing day in Mandu. Off the beaten track, exquisite architecture, fascinating local life and good food. Thank you Team for taking us there!”

Two Executives. I doubt it is history or architecture Peter and Jayant are discussing here below. Rather some new, fascinating kalmstrom.com product!

The photos from Mandu are taken by Siret, Jayant and Jitendra. Thanks for sharing them!