Outlook Support for FREEBUSY FBTYPE Parameters
==============================================
2007-11-12, Bernhard Herzog <bh@intevation.de>


The Internet RFC 2445 describes the format of free/busy lists in
iCalendar format.  This format allows a parameter for free/busy list
entries that indicates whether the entry marks free or busy time and to
an extent the reason why the time is busy.

This document investigates whether and how Outlook supports this
parameter

Tested Versions
---------------

Windows XP SP2 (German)
Outlook 2003 SP2 (German)
( Toltec Connector 2.2.0 beta1 (German) was installed, but should be
  irrelevant for the functionality examined in this document.)


Background
----------

The RFC allows a parameter FBTYPE for the FREEBUSY entries and describes
for values for this parameter (Section 4.2.9):

     fbtypeparam        = "FBTYPE" "=" ("FREE" / "BUSY"
                        / "BUSY-UNAVAILABLE" / "BUSY-TENTATIVE"
     [...]

   The value FREE indicates that the time interval is free for
   scheduling.  The value BUSY indicates that the time interval is busy
   because one or more events have been scheduled for that interval. The
   value BUSY-UNAVAILABLE indicates that the time interval is busy and
   that the interval can not be scheduled. The value BUSY-TENTATIVE
   indicates that the time interval is busy because one or more events
   have been tentatively scheduled for that interval. If not specified
   on a property that allows this parameter, the default is BUSY.


Test whether Outlook generates FBTYPE parameters
------------------------------------------------

To test whether Outlook can generate FBTYPE parameters, three calendar
entries were created in Outlook, each one with a different value for
"Anzeigen als:" ("Show as"[1]): "Gebucht" ("Busy"), "Mit Vorbehalt"
("Tentative"), "Abwesend" ("Unavailable").

To generate an iCalendar free/busy list, a file:// URL for publishing
free/busy information was configured.  For our German Windows version,
we used

   file:///C:/Dokumente%20und%20Einstellungen/USERNAME/%NAME%.ifb

Replace USERNAME with actual username so that the URL points to a
directory where the user can create new files.

Afterwards, the menu item "Extras" / "Senden/Empfangen" / Frei/Gebucht
Informationen" will create an ifb file in the directory given in the URL.

The tests show that the busy type does not show up in the ifb-File
(email address modified):

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Microsoft Corporation//Outlook 11.0 MIMEDIR//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VFREEBUSY
ORGANIZER:user@example.com
DTSTAMP:20071112T130626Z
DTSTART:20071031T230000Z
DTEND:20071231T230000Z
FREEBUSY:20071102T070000Z/20071102T073000Z
FREEBUSY:20071109T070000Z/20071109T073000Z
FREEBUSY:20071112T160000Z/20071112T190000Z
FREEBUSY:20071116T070000Z/20071116T073000Z
FREEBUSY:20071123T070000Z/20071123T073000Z
FREEBUSY:20071130T070000Z/20071130T073000Z
FREEBUSY:20071207T070000Z/20071207T073000Z
FREEBUSY:20071214T070000Z/20071214T073000Z
FREEBUSY:20071221T070000Z/20071221T073000Z
FREEBUSY:20071228T070000Z/20071228T073000Z
END:VFREEBUSY
END:VCALENDAR



Test whether Outlook uses the FBTYPE in free/busy lists
-------------------------------------------------------

To test whether Outlook uses the FBTYPE if it finds it in iCalendar
free/busy lists fetched from elsewhere, a free/busy list with a FBTYPE
parameters was created:


BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//proko2//freebusy 1.0//EN
METHOD:PUBLISH
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VFREEBUSY
ORGANIZER:MAILTO:user@example.com
DTSTAMP:20071112T142157Z
DTSTART:20071111T230000Z
DTEND:20071121T230000Z
FREEBUSY;FBTYPE=BUSY:20071112T160000Z/20071112T170000Z;
FREEBUSY;FBTYPE=BUSY-TENTATIVE:20071112T170000Z/20071112T180000Z
FREEBUSY;FBTYPE=BUSY-UNAVAILABLE:20071112T180000Z/20071112T190000Z
FREEBUSY;FBTYPE=FREE:20071112T190000Z/20071112T200000Z
END:VFREEBUSY
END:VCALENDAR

This was placed on a web-server and an appropriate URL configured in
Outlook, so that this free/busy list would be fetched for a certain
email-address.

Then the dialog for a new calendar entry was started and the email
address for he prepared free/busy list added as an attendee.  Outlook did
fetch the free/busy list (confirmed in the server logs) and showed all
four times as busy, including the one with FBTYPE=FREE.

As the same Outlook instance was used as for previous test,
we can compare the display of appointments created by Outlook itself
with the entries from the fetched free/busy list.
The Outlook entries show up in the row for organiser and were displayed with
different colors/patterns to indicate the various types of "busy".
This shows that the dialog technically can display different types.

Conclusion: Outlook ignores the FBTYPE parameters in iCalendar free/busy
lists it fetches from elsewhere.


Footnotes:
[1] English translations may not match the English versions of the
Software because they were not checked against the English versions.