Project Deadlines Calendar
The project team keeps every due date, milestone and review in one calendar, and the client sees the same dates through a link. Nobody has to collect dates from chats and e-mails before a status meeting.
What you set up
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Calendar name | The project or the client, for example “Website relaunch: Contoso” |
| Categories | Deadline, Milestone, Client review, Release, Internal |
| Permissions | Restricted: the project manager is an owner, the project team are members |
| Views | Month for the coming weeks, Quarter or Year for the whole project |
| Share link | View-only, for the client |
One calendar per client. A share link shows every entry in its calendar. If each client gets their own link, give each client their own calendar. For internal projects with no link, one calendar with a category per project works too: open Categories in the toolbar to show one project at a time.
1. Create the calendar
Create a calendar named after the project or the client.
Click the calendar name to open its settings. On the Categories tab, remove the default categories and add the five above, each in its own color. On the Permissions tab, leave Private calendar unticked, set Permission mode to Restricted, add the project manager to Calendar owners and the project team to Calendar members.
2. Add the dates
- A deadline is an all-day entry on the due date: click the day, type what is due in Subject, tick All day, choose Deadline and save.
- A phase, such as a design sprint or user testing, is an all-day entry from its first to its last day.
- A review call is an entry with a start and end time. Paste the Microsoft Teams or Google Meet link into Meeting Link.
- A regular check-in, such as a weekly status call, is one entry set to repeat Weekly. The whole series counts as one entry toward the 15 entries of the free plan.
When a date moves, open the entry, choose Edit and change the dates.
3. Share it with the client
On the Sharings tab, choose Can view all details and click Publish, then Copy URL and send the link to the client. The client opens the calendar in a browser and needs no Microsoft account.
Before you send it, check what the client will see. The link shows every entry in the calendar with its subject, dates, description, meeting link, categories and attendees, including the attendees’ e-mail addresses. Keep internal notes out of the descriptions of a shared calendar, or keep internal dates in a second calendar.
The link works until you click Unpublish, and stops working at once when you do. If you publish again later, the calendar gets a new link. See Sharings.
4. Keep it in the project channel
Add the calendar as a tab to the project’s channel in Microsoft Teams. Each project channel can show its own calendar, and the same calendar can appear in several channels.
What this calendar does not do
It shows dates; it does not track tasks, their status or their dependencies, and it sends no reminders before a deadline.