Have you ever arrived at a meeting room to find it’s been double-booked? Or perhaps you’ve showed up for a meeting only to discover you’re a day early? Have you ever wasted valuable time cross-referencing multiple calendars to identify a free meeting slot with a colleague?
Scheduling conflicts, missed deadlines and appointments, and lost productivity are just a few of the challenges people in enterprise businesses face when they’re trying to juggle multiple calendar sources, from SharePoint lists and libraries, Outlook and Exchange calendars, to Planner plans, and iCal feeds.
But there’s a simple solution. An integrated calendar app can help mitigate these challenges and here’s how.
Benefits of an integrated calendar
1. Complete visibility across teams, departments, and locations
Integrated calendars offer a single source of truth for organizations that often operate across departments, locations, and even time zones, making scheduling complex.
This centralized view means that executives, managers, and employees can keep track of critical meetings, project timelines, and business events without constantly switching between apps and platforms.
It can also reduce information silos that can be created when different teams use separate platforms, leading to improved operational efficiency.
2. Streamlined scheduling & conflict prevention
Overlaying calendars offers complete visibility for scheduling meetings, cross-functional projects and town-halls, freeing up valuable administrative time, as well as reducing the risk of double-bookings or meeting overload.
3. Enhanced team collaboration across time zones
Many organizations have teams working across time zones. Having an integrated calendar makes it easier for teams to self-service availability, reducing the back and forth of unnecessary emails, leading to streamlined communication.
4. Increased productivity & time savings
Research suggests that employees spend around three hours per week managing calendars and scheduling meetings. By streamlining meeting coordination and reducing time spent switching between apps and platforms, teams can reclaim valuable work hours and focus on revenue-generating activities.
5. Integrations, compliance & security
Large enterprise businesses and SMBs alike rely on an ecosystem of tools, from ERP systems and CRMs to project management software, and internal portals.
A robust calendar overlay integrates with these tools, pulling all scheduling data into a unified interface, ensuring teams work from one authoritative source.
Why choose Calendar Overlay by Cloudwell?
Calendar Overlay is Cloudwell’s integrated calendar app. Initially a solution-as-a-service offering for our customers, Calendar Overlay has been designed to make it easy for you to overlay SharePoint lists and libraries, Exchange calendars, Planner plans, and iCal feeds (Asana, Canvas, Sage, and more… ) all in one place.
Calendar Overlay is a 5-star-rated app on Microsoft AppSource and here’s why…
1. Easy integration with Microsoft 365
You can sync and display multiple calendars directly within SharePoint as a web part and Microsoft Teams as a channel tab.
2. Customizable views for your needs
Calendar Overlay is highly customizable and allows you to tailor calendar views to suit different teams, projects, or departments. For example, you can view your events in a monthly, weekly, daily, list, or agenda view and configure default and available views for users. Users can also choose to show/hide calendars for a more personalized view.
I downloaded the app and was able to set up my color-coded calendars in only a few minutes. I love that you can filter Exchange calendars by subject or category and overlay the current user's calendar too. I also was able to add it as a Teams channel tab which my boss loves.
3. User-friendly & scalable for enterprise businesses
Calendar Overlay is easy to configure and manage and can scale as your business grows.
The Calendar Overlay app is extremely intuitive to install and set up. Within minutes, I was able to add the app to SharePoint and Teams and allow my organization to view calendars from my HR system via the iCalender feed alongside Outlook and SharePoint calendars
4. Multilingual support
Calendar Overlay supports 22 languages and adapts to regional settings without extra configuration. Perfect for multinational businesses with diverse teams.
5. First-class support and product improvements
The Cloudwell team is always on hand to support customers and we’re constantly making improvements to our products based on customer feedback.
I booked a demo and Cloudwell were great about sharing lots of use cases I hadn't even thought of and have added even more features since I first acquired the app.
For more on Calendar Overlay and to book a FREE 15-day demo, or cost up use with our dynamic pricing widget, visit our Calendar Overlay product page.
For ideas on how you can get started, take inspiration from the main use cases for Calendar Overlay in the finance sector, non-profit organizations and the education sector.
And did you know, in addition to Calendar Overlay, we’ve produced a suite of productivity apps designed to enhance the employee experience and increase productivity in SharePoint and Teams. Discover more about our products.