Tanja talked about many of the basics of the Calendar feature in her first post about the new Windows Live Mail Beta. In this post, I wanted to call out three of more powerful features, specifically:

· Reminders

· Importing & subscribing

· Sharing

Receiving reminders

Having one place to track all your upcoming events, appointments, and birthdays is great, but it’s even better when that place reminds you about them. If you’re signed in to Windows Live Mail Beta, you can receive calendar reminders in three ways:

1. In email

2. On your mobile phone

3. In Windows Live Messenger, if you’re signed in with the same account that has your calendar info

By default, you will receive reminders in email, but if you’d like to receive them on your phone or in Messenger, that’s easy to configure. Just click here:

You might need to sign in on the web page that opens, then just select your preferred delivery methods, and you’re done!

Importing calendars & Subscribing to calendars

Windows Live Mail doesn’t currently include entry points to import or subscribe to calendars, but we will show those calendars once you’ve imported them or subscribed to them via Windows Live Calendar (http://calendar.live.com).

For example, let’s say you wanted to subscribe to a Seattle Seahawks game schedule. In Windows Live Calendar, click on Subscribe:

Then, on the “Import or subscribe to a calendar” web page, fill in the calendar URL, type the calendar name you’d like, pick a color, and click “Subscribe to calendar.”

Voila! The calendar now appears in your Windows Live Calendar list:

And, when you go back to Windows Live Mail, there it is as well:

Note that if you don’t see the new calendar, it means Windows Live Mail needs to sync – the easiest way to force that is to go to your Inbox and then back to Calendar. You could also select “Sync all calendars” on the Tools menu.

To import a calendar, you would follow the same process, just select the “Import from an ICS file” on the “Import or subscribe to a calendar” web page. Importing a calendar is a onetime operation and the events will not be updated when changed on the original calendar. Importing is a great mechanism for moving calendar data to Windows Live from another online calendar product. Search help in your previous calendar for “export ical” to learn how to save your calendar into an ics file which Windows Live Calendar can import.

Sharing calendars

We often hear users clamoring for the ability to share a calendar with spouses, friends, or co-workers. Through Windows Live Calendar, you can do this, and Windows Live Mail will show those calendars and give you full power to edit them and keep them up-to-date.

For example, I’ve got a calendar where I track my daughters’ activities (gymnastics, art class, and the like) and it’s been super useful for me to share that with my husband. Here’s how I did that:

In Windows Live Calendar, I clicked on “Share” and selected the Girls calendar:

On the “Sharing settings” page, I selected the “Share this calendar” radio button and the “Share your calendar with friends and family” checkbox.

I typed in my husband’s email address and selected which permission level to give him.

I clicked “Save” and was done. My husband then received an email inviting him to share the calendar, he accepted, and the Girls calendar showed up in his calendar list in both Windows Live Calendar and Windows Live Mail. In Windows Live Mail, we’re both able to add events or edit events, really helping the two of us make sure we’ve got our girls in the right place at the right time each week.

So, there you go – hope this helps you take further advantage of Windows Live’s new calendar features. And thanks, as always, for being a beta user!

Stacia