Using the Microsoft Outlook Calendar.

Introduction.

Leasey is extremely responsive and performs well within a local Calendar (stored on the computer itself), or within an Exchange Server environment (often referred to as a Shared Calendar as potentially other people can view it if permission has been assigned).

At this time, the Leasey calendar functionality can be used in the Day View only.

Before You Begin.

Prior to getting started, a decision must be made as to whether you would like to use the Leasey functionality for the Outlook calendar or not. From within Microsoft Outlook, press ALT+Windows+D. This is a toggle action. It will enable or disable the special functionality for the calendar. We're going to assume you want it enabled, so press the keystroke repeatedly until you hear that it is so. This setting will be remembered even if JAWS is restarted.

An Introduction to Creating Appointments.

Before you learn about the primary functions available as part of Leasey within the next section, you may not be aware how to create Appointments or All Day Events. An All Day Event occupies an entire day or a number of days, while an Appointment lasts for a specific period within the day, for example 2 hours.

The process of creating an appointment is quite straightforward and presents no accessibility challenges. Therefore, Leasey does not add any special functionality in this regard. Nevertheless, we will describe how to create a simple Timed Appointment.

Creating a Simple Appointment.

Please use the following example to create a Timed Appointment to remind you of a dinner you are going to attend at a restaurant on 4 October 2019 between 8 PM and 11 PM.

1. Having launched Microsoft Outlook, press Control+2 (figure 2 on the main QWERTY Keyboard) to enter the Calendar. JAWS announces the day and date, such as Tuesday 9 July 2019. That is all it should say if you are in the Day View. If JAWS announces other information, such as "Month View, , , 14 total events, 00:00 Monday, 1 July 2019 to 00:00 Monday, 5 August 2019", then you are within a different view. If this is the case, please press ALT+Control+1 to switch to Day View.
2. Press Control+G to activate the Microsoft Outlook “Go to Date” Dialog Box.
3. Type the date you would like to move to, which you can do in the form relative to your regional English language. Microsoft Outlook is quite flexible about the method by which you can enter dates. For example, within the United Kingdom or many other countries you might enter “4 October 2019” or “04/10/2019”, however within the United States of America you could type “October 4 2019” or “10/04/2019”, etc.
4. Once the date has been typed, press the Enter Key.
5. Press Insert+Up Arrow to verify that the desired date has been selected. JAWS speaks the day and date.
6. Press Control+N to create a new Calendar Item. After a short pause, Outlook presents you with the “Subject” field for it. As of later releases of Office, Microsoft now refer to this as the appointment title. The “Subject” field should contain a one line summary of the nature of the Item, such as “Dinner at restaurant”.
7. Once this has been entered, the Tab Key can be used to move from one field to the next. Note that most of the fields are self-explanatory, for example “Start Date” and “Start Time”. Indeed the “Start Date” field will already contain the 4 October 2019 date we previously selected.
8. For the purposes of this appointment, you need only complete the “Subject”, “Start Time” and “End Time” fields. When the details have been entered, press ALT+S to save the Calendar Appointment and return to the day View Window. The Insert+Up Arrow keystroke can be used to verify this fact and if successfully returned to the Day View Window JAWS will announce the day and date.

Moving Through Days of the Week.

There are various methods for locating a specific day of the week.

• You can use the Left and Right Arrow Keys to move through the days.
• Alternatively, Press Control+G to bring into view the Microsoft Outlook “Go To Date” Dialog Box. Type a date in the format appropriate to your country and press Enter. Entry of dates into this Dialog Box was described within the previous section.

However you have chosen to move to a date, JAWS announces (and displays in Braille):

• The day of the week on which the date falls.
• The calendar date and month.
• If no appointments or all day events exist, (and if the Leasey Sounds Scheme is enabled), a sound will play. This is especially useful if you wish to locate days where there is no activity. You can quickly press Left or Right Arrow repeatedly until the sound is heard.
• If all day events or appointments exist, you will hear the total number of these, such as, "3 items".

Here are some other keystrokes which may be useful when navigating through the days.

• Press ALT+Down Arrow to move to the next week and ALT+Up Arrow to move to the previous week.
• Press ALT+Page Down to move to the next month or ALT+Page Up to move to the previous month.

Moving Through Calendar Items.

To reiterate a point from an earlier section, Leasey defines Calendar Items in one of two ways:

• An All Day Event is a Calendar Item which occupies the entire day or spans a series of days.
• An Appointment is a Calendar Item occupying a specific period within the day, for example two hours.

If JAWS had advised you that Calendar Items exist for a given day, and you wish to hear details about them, press Tab. JAWS will announce information pertaining to the Calendar Item which has focus.

Condensed Mode.

As you press Tab to move from one appointment or event to the next, Condensed Mode allows you to hear appointments or event details in an abbreviated form. JAWS will announce the time range the appointment occupies, (such as "2 PM to 3 PM"), followed by the appointment subject. To enable Condensed Mode, press ALT+Windows+C. This setting is remembered across Windows sessions.

Here is an example of an appointment with Condensed Mode disabled.

"Call Jane at home, , , 14:00 to 14:30 Monday, 8 July 2019, Time Busy, Organizer Brian Hartgen. 2 of 3.".

Here is the same appointment with Condensed Mode enabled.

"14:00 to 14:30. Call Jane at home, Has Notes, 2 of 3."

If an All Day Event has focus occupying one day only, JAWS announces the event details without reference to time.

If an All Day Event has focus occupying several days, JAWS will advise you for how many days the event spans. For example, you will hear "11 days". It will also alert you if notes are attached to the item.

If Condensed Mode is disabled, and you press Tab:

• If an All Day Event has focus occupying one day only, JAWS announces the event details without reference to time.
• If a Timed Appointment has focus, JAWS will announce the start and end time of the Appointment, for example, “from 12 PM to 2 PM".
• The Calendar Item subject is then announced.
• JAWS will inform you of any other relevant information concerning the Calendar Item, including the Organiser (the person who has created it), the Status (such as “Busy”, “Free” or “Tentative”), and the location (such as a meeting room number or office).

In addition to the announcement of appointments in full, you will notice that disabling the Condensed Mode does not advise you of whether the appointment has notes. Moreover, it does not let you know if an event spans more than one day.

Regardless of whether Condensed Mode is enabled or disabled, you can keep pressing Tab to move through all your appointments for the focused day. Notice as you do so, JAWS speaks the appointment number followed by the total number of appointments. This is helpful: first because you can be reminded how many appointments or events exist for a given day. Second, you know when you have reached the end of the list. An example of such a count would be, "2 of 3".

If you continue to press the Tab key past the total number of appointments for a date, you will be taken to the next appointment for a date in the future regardless of how far forward that is. Should this occur, and if the Leasey sound scheme is enabled, a sound will play, indicating that you have crossed a boundary and that a number of dates may have been bypassed. As an alternative rather than doing this, on the last appointment or event, press Right Arrow instead to advance to the next date.

Using the JAWS Virtual Viewer.

So far, you have listened to your Calendar Item details and will have noticed there is a great deal of information to absorb. It is likely that even the most experienced JAWS users may wish to examine the contents of the Appointment or Event more thoroughly or slowly. In addition, you may wish to copy the Item details to the Windows Clipboard, perhaps for pasting into an alternative source such as an email message.

Leasey provides a convenient method for accomplishing all of these things which involves placing the Calendar Item into the JAWS Virtual Viewer. Once the Item is in the Virtual Viewer, the Arrow Keys or your Braille display can be used to move through it as thoroughly as you wish.

There are two places in which you may care to work with the Virtual viewer:

• When focused on a day of the week. Press Insert+Tab. The details of all appointments and all day events for the day will be placed there. Use the Arrow keys to explore the information. Press Escape to return to the calendar.
• When focused on a specific appointment, having pressed Tab to reach it first. Press Insert+Tab. The details of the appointment will be displayed, together with any notes which may be associated with it. Use the Arrow keys to explore the information. Press Escape to return to the appointment or event.

Time Slots.

When creating a Calendar Item, rather than entering a value into the “Start Time” Edit Field, it is possible to pre-select this by means of moving through Time Slots for the focused day as follows:

1. First, locate the date upon which you wish to create the Appointment.
2. Press Down Arrow repeatedly in order to move through Time slots for the current day. JAWS will announce a Time slot as you move to it. Each Time Slot occupies a 30 minute segment within the day by default.
3. When the appropriate Time Slot has been reached, press Control+N to create a new Calendar Item. Pressing Tab repeatedly will show you that the “Start Date” and “Start Time” fields are now populated with the pre-selected values.
4. If you wish to enter a simple appointment at the designated Time Slot, (containing just the subject only), do not press Control+N. When focused on the Time Slot, type the subject and press Tab to exit and save.

When you are focused on a specific date, you can now press Up or Down Arrow Keys to move through the available Time Slots. When you reach the time for which you set the appointment, the word, "Appointment", is spoken. Continual presses of down Arrow will cause JAWS to announce this word until the end time has been reached. This method of navigation is ideal if you wish to ascertain when free time in your day exists.

Similarly, if the sound scheme is enabled, Leasey will play a sound whenever you are inside a time slot where there is activity. This allows you to quickly move down the list of time slots to ascertain where available time exists.

Moving Through Appointments, Time Order Versus Actual Time.

If you press Tab repeatedly to move through appointments and events, you will notice that they are presented to you in a logical order. As you navigate to a date, then press Tab, you will find that each timed appointment particularly is presented to you in the order at which it occurs. This gives you a good understanding of how your day is structured and is highly recommended.

However, those people who have worked with the Outlook calendar prior to using Leasey may well find the transition of working in this way a little difficult to get used to. Leasey therefore tries to be flexible, and you can disable this feature by pressing ALT+Windows+T. This is a toggle action, and the setting will be retained, even if you restart the computer.

When this feature is disabled, you can work through the following steps:

1. Press Tab to move to a scheduled appointment. The appointment for example may be at 1.30 PM.
2. Press Down Arrow. You are now at the 2 PM Time Slot.
3. Press Control+N and create the appointment, or alternatively, start typing the subject now.

To repeat, while it can be an advantage to work in this way, our preference is to create appointments using the manner described elsewhere in this Chapter, where the appointment start and end times are entered manually. This ensures that the structure of the day is far easier to understand.

There is a further advantage in using our preference. If focus was at the 1.30 PM appointment, and you felt that you wanted to examine the details of an earlier one, this would require pressing Shift+Tab instead of Tab. A new computer user may well find themselves mystified if the earlier appointment is not sequentially presented in the Tab order.

Creating an Appointment with More Detail.

While not directly related to Leasey functionality, it is worth describing the purpose of some of the fields which are available within the "New Appointment" Dialog Box, activated by pressing Control+N. This Dialog Box is moved through by pressing Tab.

• Location. When in this field, you have a choice. You can type a location, such as "At client's home", or, "Hospital". Alternatively, press Down Arrow to access a list of previously entered locations. When the desired location is selected, press Tab to move to the next field.
• The Start Date, Start Time, End Date and End Time fields are self-explanatory, but particularly if you are adopting our recommendation of presenting the appointments in a sequential manner, do pay attention to the Start Time and End Time fields. You can either type 12 or 24 hour values into the Time fields, and Microsoft Outlook again is quite flexible about how you do this. You might type "2:00 PM" or "14:00". Alternatively, you can press the Up or Down Arrow keys to move through the time slots sequentially. Clearly, if you are preparing an all day event, the fields do not need to be completed.
• Date Picker Buttons. These appear next to the Start and End Date fields. Pressing the Space Bar on any of these buttons causes a grid to appear. You can use the Up, Down, Left and Right Arrow keys to navigate the grid. The Up and Down Arrow keys move by week, while the Left and Right Arrow keys move by date. Leasey has been customised to read these dates in a logical way, such as "09/07/2019, Tuesday". Use the Arrow Keys to find a date and press Enter to accept.
• All Day Event Check Box. Check this box by pressing the Space Bar if the event occupies the entire day.
• Notes. This is where you can type as many paragraphs as you wish so as to attach notes to the appointment. Having reached the Notes field, pressing Tab will cause you to insert a Tab character into your notes, so do be careful. You will know if you have done this because JAWS will report the new cursor position in inches or centimetres. To retrace your steps, press Shift+Tab.

Saving, Deleting and Editing an Appointment.

To save an appointment, press ALT+S. To delete an appointment, press Tab to reach it and press Control+D.

Should you wish to edit an appointment, locate it first by pressing Tab, then press Enter. If the "Location" field has not been previously completed, the focus is likely to be placed there. But given all fields in this Dialog Box are spoken by JAWS as you press Tab to move from one control to the next, this should not be a problem. When the editing is complete, press ALT+S to save.

Additional Calendar Options.

The Microsoft Outlook program provides a vast array of features, and many of these relate to the scheduling of appointments and events in the calendar. They go way beyond the scope of the Leasey documentation. However, you may like to take a look at the Context Menu, activated by pressing the Context Menu key (usually three keys to the right of the Space Bar), or Shift+F10.

In particular, you may like to visit the option for creating a new recurring appointment. This brings into view a Dialog box where there is a good deal of flexibility, available by pressing the Tab key. Most of the options are self-explanatory and it is quite an accessible Dialog Box. Certainly, creating less complex recurrences is very achievable.

Activating a Teams or Zoom Meeting.

1. Open up the appointment by pressing Enter.
2. Press ALT+Windows+I for invitation.
3. The meeting should launch in the desired application.