Tutorial : Internet Free/Busy (IFB) & ical – Series # 2

With continuation from the previous free/busy article, now we will focus on Internet Free/Busy (IFB) feature & ical.

What is Internet Free/Busy or IFB?

It is a feature in Outlook 2007 and in Outlook 2003 that allows you to see when others are free or busy so that you can efficiently schedule meetings.

  • Outlook users have the option to publish their free/busy information to a user-specified URL file server.
  • You can share this URL file server with all users, or you can limit it to a specific set of users.
  • The IFB feature allows you to publish your personal free or busy information on a URL file server.
  • You can view the free/busy information of any one of your contacts and setup meetings with other users by using the IFB feature.

So what is an ical or iCalendar..

iCalendar defines a structure for representing free/busy information in a standardized way.

So how IFB associated with ical…

The IFB feature uses a part of the iCal standard named iCalendar, an emerging standard for the format and storage of schedule information.