Why You Need Schemax Calendar

MS Outlook is one of the most widely used business applications in the world, but its calendar has frustrated many users who want to view the schedules of a number of resources simultaneously. When more than a few calendars are displayed side-by-side most of the useful information is lost to heavy lines and shading (see example below). Furthermore, Outlook is limited by its display to a maximum of one month at a time so the user has to scroll to review periods of more than a few weeks.

Outlook Calendar
Fig 1 - Outlook 2003: Display of side-by-side calendars

Booking meetings with several resources in Outlook 2003 typically requires the user to create a draft meeting, add users and then scroll around the timeline looking for time slots when all resources were available. Outlook 2007 has made some improvements with its new Scheduling Assistant (requiring an upgrade to Exchange Server 2007); however, the interface is still cumbersome and not particularly intuitive.

There are a number of off-the-shelf software products that have attempted to enhance or replace Outlook's calendaring functionality. However, they have tended to sacrifice other features, introduce redundant data management systems and/or generate proprietary formats.

Schemax Calendar works within Outlook. You retain all the functionality of Outlook and gain an innovative tool to help you view and forecast resource activity, book resources and resolve scheduling conflicts.