The thing to keep in mind is that a private appointment just means that the reason (content) of the appointment is private. The thing to look for is the indicator that shows the time as free, busy or out. One can have a private appointment but still be at the office and be available for meetings.

When creating a meeting, the "Scheduling" tab makes it quite clear when a person is busy or out of the office.

The same applies to the under used "View Group Schedules" tool which can be accessed via the tool bar or the "Actions" menu.

It's the shared calendar view that people seem to have problem with.

• white: free (here and available)
• blue: busy (here but busy)
• purple: out of office (not here)
• striped: tentative (may or may not attend this appointment - inquire with the person)

The Outlook Calendar is a very powerful and useful tool for managing your life. It's one of the products where Microsoft excels above its competition. To truly harness its usefulness you need to use it for all of your appointments. That's what I do and that's why my calendar can get quite filled. Not only do I schedule my work appointments and my personal appointments, I also schedule reminders to myself and the activities of my kids and wife. I need to be aware of their activities as well in order to make appropriate decisions about my time. Furthermore, I download the calendar to my phone which reminds me of my appointments wherever I may be. The phone also lets me check if I have already a work or personal commitment at a certain time.

In the hopes to make it clearer for others, I started to double enter the out-of-office appointments with a public appointment that includes the word "out". Hopefully that will help some.