How to Create a Calendar in SharePoint Online [Manual + PowerShell]

Looking to organize team events, project deadlines, or recurring meetings in SharePoint Online? A SharePoint Calendar makes it easy to centralize schedules, automate reminders, and collaborate with your team in one place. 

In this blog, you will learn how to create a calendar in SharePoint Online and the steps to automate this process via PowerShell scripts. We’ll also show you how to add events, integrate your calendar with Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook and Teams, and follow best practices for calendar management.

Before moving forward, let’s understand a user query related to creating a calendar and calendar lists in SharePoint Online.

User Query – Difficulty in Creating a Calendar and Calendar List in SharePoint Online.

After reading the user query we can understand the user is struggling with setting up and managing a calendar and calendar list in SharePoint Online.

Benefits of Creating a Calendar in SharePoint Online

Here’s how using a SharePoint calendar can boost your team’s productivity, and how our SharePoint migration team leverages these benefits in real-world scenarios:

• Provides a centralized scheduling that helps to keep all team events and deadlines in one accessible location.
• Automated notifications help in receiving automatic reminders and updates for upcoming events.
• Offers enhanced collaboration helps to share and manage events with team members which improves coordination.
• Provides customizable views to tailor how you view and manage events. Such as daily, weekly, or monthly.
• It also provides seamless integration with other Microsoft 365 apps for a unified experience.

How to Create a Calendar in SharePoint Online Manually?

Follow these steps to create calendars effectively however we also provide steps to manage them after the creation. Here are simple steps to add a calendar in SharePoint  Online.

• Step 1. Log in to SharePoint Online and navigate to the site where you want to create a Calendar.
• Step 2. Click on “Site Contents” on the left navigation pane.

• Step 3. Select “+ New” Select App from the dropdown.

• Step 4. Click on the “Classic Experience” link on the site content page.

• Step 5. Search for Calendar and Click on the calendar.

• Step 6. Lastly, enter a name for your calendar.

• Step 7. Finally, click “Create”. This will create your calendar.

Customize and Use Your Calendar:

• After creating click on the calendar to open it.
• Add an event in the Calendar.
• Switch between different views (month, week, day) to find what works best for you and your team.

How to Create a Calendar in SharePoint Online Using PowerShell?

For those who want to make this task automated, or find a way to create SharePoint calendars in bulk i.e PowerShell will be the go-to. Remember, this technique needs a high level of technical expertise, otherwise, everything will be ruined while creating a Calendar in SharePoint Online. 

Here are two ways through which you can automate the calendar creation:

• Using PowerShell 

• Using PowerShell CSOM

Note: Without proper admin credentials, one can’t create a calendar. To address this, change site owner in SharePoint Online, or get proper SharePoint credentials.

# Method 1). Using Standard PowerShell

# connect your SharePoint Online site by entering your site URL, make sure you have global admin rights to run it

Connect-SPOService -Url https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com

# Create a calendar in SharePoint Online

New-SPOSite -Url https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite -Owner user@domain.com -StorageQuota 1000 -Title "Calendar Site"

# Method 2). Creating a Calendar in SharePoint Online Via PowerShell CSOM (Client-Side Object Model)

# Load SharePoint CSOM Libraries

Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"

Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"

# Create a Calendar in SharePoint Online Using CSOM

$siteUrl = "https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite"

$username = "user@domain.com"

$password = "yourpassword"

$securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString $password -AsPlainText -Force

$credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($username, $securePassword)

$ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($siteUrl)

$ctx.Credentials = $credentials

$web = $ctx.Web

$ctx.Load($web)

$ctx.ExecuteQuery()

$listCreationInfo = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ListCreationInformation

$listCreationInfo.Title = "Events Calendar"

$listCreationInfo.TemplateType = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ListTemplateType]::Calendar

$list = $web.Lists.Add($listCreationInfo)

$ctx.ExecuteQuery()

How to Add Events in SharePoint Calendar?

After learning how to create a calendar in SharePoint Online you can easily add events to that calendar by following these steps.

• Navigate to your SharePoint calendar.
• Click on “New Event” or “+ Add” depending on your view.
• Fill in the given fields such as title, date, time, and location.
• Click on “Save” which will add the event to the calendar.

Integrate SharePoint Calendar with Microsoft 365 Apps

Till now you have learned how to create a Calendar in SharePoint Online and how to add events to a calendar. Let’s learn how you can integrate the newly created calendar with different Microsoft 365 apps. Follow the below-given steps to efficiently integrate the calendar with Microsoft Outlook, Teams, and To-DO.

1. Outlook Integration

• Navigate to your SharePoint calendar.
• On the ribbon, click the Calendar tab (Classic experience).
• Select Connect to Outlook.
• When prompted, confirm the connection in Outlook.

After following this step your SharePoint calendar is synced with Outlook. Which helps you to view and manage your SharePoint events directly from your Outlook calendar.

2. Teams Integration

• Go to your Microsoft Teams channel.
• Click the “+” (Add Tab) icon.
• Choose “SharePoint” or “Website” depending on your version.
• Paste the SharePoint calendar URL and name the tab.
• Click Save.

This will add the calendar as a tab in your Teams channel for easy access and collaboration. Learn more about using SharePoint pages and lists in Teams, from this official Microsoft site.

3. Microsoft To-Do Integration

• Open Power Automate.
• Create a new automated flow.
• Choose a trigger like When an item is created in a SharePoint list.
• Add an action: Add a To-Do task.
• Map fields such as event title, date, and time.

After following these steps you can successfully integrate a calendar in Office 365.

Reference: Official Power Automate documentation

Best Practices for SharePoint Calendar Management

Once we create a calendar in SharePoint Online, it is required to manage it effectively. Following these best practices makes the management seamless:

• Regularly Update Events – You have to keep the calendar updated by regularly updating events and deadlines.
• Set Access Control – You should define clear SharePoint Online permissions to control who can view or edit the calendar.
• Utilize Alerts – Set up alerts for upcoming events and changes which ultimately helps to get everyone informed.
• Organize Events – You should categorize events or use color-coding for better visibility and organization of events in the calendar.
• Leverage Views –  For a  Clear view of events and meetings you can customize calendar views to match different needs (daily, weekly, monthly) for optimal management.

Bring it All Together!

We have shown the ways through which you can create a Calendar in SharePoint Online. However, we have also discussed the perks of creating a Calendar in SharePoint Online, the steps for creating it, two PowerShell methods for calendar creation, and customization of the calendar. Additionally, we have mentioned how to add an event to the calendar, integrate a newly created calendar into Microsoft 365 apps, and best practices for managing calendars. After going through this blog all your queries regarding calendar creation will be resolved.