I have a small group of Outlook users (case workers) who need to assign
appointments to a small group of volunteers for serving clients. Each
volunteer has a unique schedule of availability that does not include the
whole work day. Case workers need to see when volunteers are available and
what tasks/appointments are already assigned (tasks/appointments will have
confidential client names, so it can't be a Public Folder). Volunteers need
to see what appointments are assigned to them. The manager needs to see
which case worker assigned the appointment.
The manager has in mind having different colored blocks of time showing the
volunteers' availability with an overlay of appointments. The text of the
appointments would contain the client family name (and, parenthesized, the
number of family members involved in this appointment), subject of
appointment - often transport to a job center, doctor's office, or public
agency, and the initials of the case worker who assigned this appointment to
this volunteer.
Is there any way I can do this on a single "volunteer" outlook mailbox or
must I assign each volunteer a mailbox, login, password and train the whole
staff in using group schedules?
Even if I do that, is there a more elegant way of showing the irregular work
week of a volunteer than blocking off recurring appointments of "unavailable"
for every hour of the week that they are not going to be available?