Microsoft Outlook 365 Calendar

Modified on Wed, 29 Jul at 12:41 AM

Integration Guide

Put Outlook calendars on the screens in your stations as a calendar or a grouped view — shift schedules, meetings, public events, leadership availability. Connected through the Microsoft Graph API in almost all cases.

What we can put on your dashboard

Key features

Single-day, multi-day, multi-week and month-long views
Connects to one or more individual user calendars
Combine multiple calendars onto one page, or spread them across several
Events update as Microsoft’s API reports changes
Optional keyword-based colour coding, or a full colour theme for the calendar

Which calendars, and over what period

Common calendars are staffing, upcoming training, upcoming events, and public education events. Each widget covers the window you choose:

Current day
One, two or three weeks
Month view

Any layout available for Google Calendar can be used here too.

Before you start: what isn’t supported

We do not currently support group calendars or externally shared calendars. Worth checking before you begin, because it determines whether this will work at all.

Group calendars are owned by a group rather than a single user.

Externally shared calendars are owned by someone outside your Outlook organisation who has shared them with someone inside it.

What we need from you

Four values, produced by the Azure setup below:

Client ID
Client Secret Value
Tenant ID
Calendar user email address

Azure setup

Use the relevant account at portal.azure.com. If your account reaches more than one tenant, select your account in the top right and set the portal session to the tenant you want.

In the left-hand navigation choose Microsoft Entra ID, then App registrations → New registration, and fill in:

Name — for example “Sample Department First Arriving Integration”
Supported account types — Accounts in this organizational directory only
Redirect URI — leave blank

Collect the Client ID and Tenant ID

Both appear on the application’s Overview page.

Create a client secret and copy the VALUE

On the Certificates & Secrets page, create a new client secret.

Two things people get caught by here.

We need the VALUE, which is not the same as the Secret ID. They sit next to each other and are easy to confuse.

The VALUE is shown only once. Copy it as soon as you create the secret — if you navigate away you will have to create another one.

Add the API permissions

On the API permissions page, add both of:

Calendars.Read
Users.Read.All

Both permissions must be Microsoft Graph, not Exchange — and they must be application permissions, not delegated. Getting either wrong is the most common reason a connection fails after everything else looks right.

Send the four values to us securely

Open a ticket at our support center saying which calendars and views you want, then submit the Client ID, Client Secret Value, Tenant ID and calendar user email through the First Arriving Secrets Tool and paste the link it generates into your ticket. Please don’t send them by email. Full instructions: Sending First Arriving sensitive information.

The available views

Calendar view

Calendar-style layout for one or more calendars. Supports 3-day, 5-day, 7-day, 2+ week and full month, with colour coding per calendar or per event keyword.

Event view

Events grouped into vertical columns by day, up to five days per page. Multiple calendars can be merged into one view, with optional colour coding.

Week view

A weekly layout, Sunday to Saturday. Events show as blocks in their dates or shifts — blue by default, customisable.

Day view

A single-day layout with events as blocks in their dates or shifts — blue by default, customisable.

iFrame view

Embeds a public URL you provide from your Outlook Web App calendar. Used rarely — the API connection above is preferred and more reliable.

Stuck in Azure, or not sure whether your calendar is a group calendar? Open a ticket at our support center or reach us at dashboards@firstarriving.com and we’ll work through it with you.