UICalendar on the Web Basics: Login, Password, Help

This Web page describes the new Web client for UICal: Oracle Calendar for the Web Version 10. It is very much improved from the previous version. Please try it out; I think you will like it even if you found the previous Web client lacking.

• What's New
• Logging In
• Logging Out
• Documentation and Getting Help
• Your Agenda
• Changing Preferences
• Accepting or Declining Meetings
• -- Attendees and Repeating Dates
• Your UICalendar Password
• Access Rights -- Important Privacy Information
• -- Giving Additional Access Rights: Designate
• Global Agendas -- Sharing Your UICal Calendar with Anyone

Some of the new features in the Version 10 Web client.

• Repeating instances can be added to existing events.
• Selected instances can be deleted from repeating events. The Delete All button is no longer necessary and has been removed.
• When modifying an instance of a repeating event, you can now apply specific properties and changes to other instances of your choice, with more control. The Update All button is no longer necessary and has been removed.
• Resource searches can now be limited to available resources.
• In the New/Edit entry page, or when opening Advanced Search from the New/Edit entry page, searches for users now include entries in your address book.

1. The UICal on the Web URL is: http://uical.uic.edu
2. Type your UIC netid in the User Name box and your ACCC common password in the Password box and click Sign in.

The LogOut icon is the last icon on the right of the Toolbar at the top of the Agenda; it looks like an open door with an arrow pointing out. Click it to log out of UICalendar.

The Oracle Calendar Web client has extensive online help. Click on the purple question mark to the left of the Sign Out icon on the right side of the Toolbar, and Oracle Calendar Web online help pages will open in a separate Web browser window.

The help is clear, complete, well organized, and well illustrated -- it shows each icon and explains what it means. The online version has a table of contents and an index that have active links into the text. In addition to the online version, we have made the HTML files available as a single PDF file.
PDF version of Oracle Web client Help (37 pages)

Please do check the help out. It will give you a really good idea of what UICal on the Web is all about.

After you login, your Agenda will be displayed. The initial default is Daily View, Planner Mode. Note that while nothing is underlined, all the blue text are links, as are the title of the meeting and the tasks. The links in UICal aren't underlined until you point your cursor to them.

Also in this new version of UICal on the Web, everything that looks like it might be clickable is.

Figure 1: Default UICal Daily View, Planner Mode

1. The gray bar below the UICalendar logo is the Toolbar; if you pause your mouse courser over an icon in the Toolbar for a short while a description of its function will be displayed.
   • The first three icons are for Daily View, Weekly View, and Monthly View, respectively.
   • The fourth icon is for Task View (tasks are also shown in Daily View, above).
   • The next four are (add) Create a Meeting (a clock ), Create a Task (a pad with a check mark), Create a Day Event (a yellow flag), Create a Daily Note (a push pin). Note the yellow plus marks, +, to the lower left of each icon; that is the "Create a" part of the icon.
   • The first of the seven icons at the right is the person in a wheelchair in a circle icon -- the switch to Accessibility mode toggle . Click it and the display for each day will change a simple column, without the separations by rows. It changes from List Mode to Planner Mode (the links are on the left, by Daily View). To get the grid back, click on the Accessibility icon and Planner Mode. The Accessibility icon makes minor changes in Weekly and Monthly View.
   • The next group of four are the Tools menu,
     • Edit Preferences
     • Edit Access Rights
     • Password, but that doesn't work at UIC
     • Manage Groups
   • Then Help, a purple question mark
   • And the last icon on the right is Sign Out
     
     
2. Beside the Daily View, which is the current view, there are Planner Mode, which is black, indicating that the display is in Planner Mode, and List Mode, which is blue, because it is a link. Clicking List Mode will change the display to List Mode, where the info is displayed as a list, rather than a table.
   
   
   
3. The next "toolbar" is a row of links immediately above the calendar:
   • Day and date range of the displayed calendar is on the left.
   • In the center, click on Today to display the calendar for today if you are in Daily View, or this week or this month if you are in Weekly View or Monthly View, respectively.
   • Also in the center, click on the number "27" calendar page icon to display a monthly calendar to pick a specific date to display.
   • Click on the arrows to the right and left of "27" page icon move ahead and behind one day and one week when in Daily View. It's one week and one month when you're in Weekly View and one month and six months in Monthly View.
   • On the right: Click the Printable page link to format the page for printing.
   • You will see other link on the right: E-mail Agenda if you've set the email agenda Security Preference allowing it. The E-mail Agenda link emails the URL for a page that shows all of your busy times without requiring anyone to have a UICal account. See Global Agenda Viewing -- Related Privacy Information below for more information on E-mail Agenda (including how to turn it on).
     
     
4. The day of the week for today's date will be written in red, as is the Wednesday in Figure 1. Otherwise it is written in black.
   
   
5. Ada has a meeting in Figure 1 from 2-2:30pm; double-click on a meeting title (in Daily or Weekly View) or meeting icon (in Monthly View) to display it. This meeting is green because Ada Byron has confirmed that she will attend it. The default meeting colors for UICal agenda views are:
   • dark green for accepted meetings; light green for accepted tentative meetings
   • bright red for refused meetings; pink for refused tentative meetings
   • dark blue for unconfirmed meetings; light blue for unconfirmed tentative meetings
   You can alternatively color meetings by their importance or their ownership.

If you're using UICal on the Web for a personal calendar, there are some preferences you will probably want to change. In particular, you'll probably want to include weekends on its displays. If you'd rather have the Weekly Planner, say, as your default view, you can do that too. To do that in UICal on the Web:

1. In UICal on the Web, Preferences icon (two purple boxes with a big white arrow) , the second icon on the right side of the Toolbar.
2. Click Edit Preferences, click the Display tab.
3. Click in Show Saturday and Show Sunday.
   
4. From the Default calendar view dropdown list, select the view that you want.
   
5. Click OK.

The section above on the Agenda pane described the default colors of meetings in UICal; green for accepted meetings -- ones you've said you're going to attend -- red for rejected meetings -- one you've said you won't attend -- and blue for unconfirmed meetings -- ones that you haven't replied to yet or that you've said you will accept or reject at a later time.

How do you accept, reject, or put off confirming meetings? There are two ways.

The old way: Click on the meeting's title or icon in a UICal on the Web Agenda display, click the General tab, select the correct Your Reply from the dropdown list, and click Update.

The new way:

1. In Daily, Weekly, or Monthly View, click the Reply icon in the meeting in question. In the meetings in Figure 1, it is a blue question mark in a white circle and a green check in a white circle. The blue question mark means that Ada will confirm later, the check means that Ada has accepted, and the white circles means she's going to be busy. It is a check if you have said you're attending, an X if you said you are not attending, or a question mark, ?, if you have said you will confirm later. Or if you are in Planner Mode, click anywhere in the entry's box except for over the title.
   
2. The Your reply dialog box opens. Select your reply from the reply dropdown list and whether you're going to be busy or free from the other dropdown list.
   
3. Click Update.

For both meetings in figure 1, there are three small icons beside the title of the meeting. Not all meetings have all three icons, but when they occur, they are each clickable, and they allow you to:

Check the attendees, the two people:

See the date list for a repeating meeting, the two arrows pointing at each other:

See or change your meeting reply the check or question mark in a circle, as described above:

Passwords for UICalendar accounts can only be set using the new ACCC Password Changing Utility Web page, which allows you to select a single strong ACCC Common password that will be used for your ACCC accounts on argo, icarus, mailserv, tigger, and UICalendar. The UICalendar Web client's password changing tool will take you to the ACCC Password Changing Utility. Click the Change Password icon -- it's a gold key -- in the right-hand side of the main Toolbar.

Change Your ACCC Common Password

Access rights control who can see your schedule and send you meeting invitations, and, for advanced users, are used to appoint designates who can manage your schedule for you. (We should all be so lucky.)

By default, no one can see your UICal calendar or Task information or invite you to meetings unless you give them permission to do so, either specifically, by name (if the person has a UICal account), or generically (for everyone who has a UICal account).

The smallest UICal permissions that you can give (above none, that is) is that people can see a calendar for you with the times that you are busy marked out. There are higher levels of access that you can give to specific people (who must have UICal accounts), up to and including, full access to edit and manage your UICal calendar and Tasks for you.

If you'll need to share your calendar with people who do not have UICal accounts, turn on your UICal Web Global Agenda so you can send them its URL. It's a Web calendar showing your busy times with a link to send email to you.

You can also allow individual people, groups of people, or everyone with UICal accounts to invite you to meetings.

UICal isn't worth much as a collaborative system if you don't share your online schedule with your colleagues or allow at least some people to invite you to meetings. So please take the time to do the following to add access to your calendar to those people who should have it.

1. Click the Access rights icon -- three people with a key in front of them -- the third icon on the right side of the Toolbar.
2. The Edit Access Rights page opens.
3. With Default: Any unlisted person highlighted, click the Edit Access Rights button.
   
4. The one permission you might want to give to Default: Any unlisted person is to invite you to meetings; check the Can invite me to Entries box. Click OK.
5. Use the User Search box at the top to enter specific people to give the viewing rights to. Add a person you want by typing all or part of their last name and clicking the Find button. The person's name will be added with an asterisk beside it; that indicates that they have the default access permissions (which is none).
   
6. Click on the name of the person you've added.
7. Click Edit Access Rights.
8. Click Customize on each section of the Viewing section that you want to give the person specific access rights to.
9. Click on each of the entries in the View times only column to allow the person to see the times of all of your appointments. While the person is selected, go through the sections in the Access Rights box and select their viewing rights. Ada has View times only for meetings, events, and notes, the default None for Tasks, and Can invite me to Entries selected under Scheduling selected for Charles.
   
   
10. Click OK to accept your changes.

Would you like to allow another UICal user to have more access to your calendar and tasks? Then you can appoint them as your designate. (Note that this has to be a specific UICal user; you can't appoint Default: any unlisted person to be a designate.)

1. Click the Access rights icon -- three people with a key in front of them -- the third icon on the right side of the Toolbar, and the Access Rights page opens.
2. Type all or part of the name of the person you want to give rights to into the box and click the Find button and then select his/her name from the box below and click the Edit Access Rights button.
3. Designate rights are at the bottom of the Access Rights window. The default for Designate for Meetings, Day Events, Daily Notes, and for Tasks is None for all levels of confidentiality.
4. Click the Customize button for the Designate section. The Designate Access rights have precedence over the Viewing Access rights, so you don't have to set Viewing rights if you're setting Designate rights.
   
5. Select the designate levels that you want for this person. If you want the person to have full access to your calendar and tasks, give them Modify access.
6. Don't forget to give everyone the right to invite you to Entries. (If that's what you want. It seems useful to me.) (An x in this box means that the person can already invite you to meetings.)
7. Click OK.
8. Click Done to return to UICal.

The levels of designate rights are:

• Modify: The designate can create, view, edit and reply to Entries in your name.
• View/Reply: The designate can view and reply to already existing Entries in your name.
• View times only: The designate can only view the times of your Meetings. The designate will not see Daily Notes or Day Events, as they do not occupy specific blocks of time.

UICal on the Web has a neat feature that is related to privacy rights that you might also want to give some thought to. Global Agenda viewing is a Web option that allows you to send a URL to anyone you want -- they do not have to have to have a UICal account and they may not have anything to do with UIC at all -- that will allow them read-only access to a view of the times that you are busy.

First you have to turn your UICal Global Agenda on:

1. Login to UICal on the Web (https://uical.uic.edu/) and click the Edit Preferences (second icon on the right side of the main Toolbar) link.
2. Click the Security tab/link, click Allow Global Agenda Viewing, and click OK.

Now you've turned on the Global Agenda.

When you get back to your UICal Daily, Weekly, or Monthly View, you will see a link on the right side above the tool bar saying E-mail Agenda which opens a Web page that allows you to do just that.

Your friend will receive an email message with a long, strange URL that will give them a read-only look at your busy times with a Normal access level and a link that opens an email message to you. This URL will not expire; it will always display your current agenda.

Note that the Global Agenda will give people View access to agenda items with an access level of Public. (That means that anyone that you give the URL to will be able to read the text of those agenda items.)