Show All

Hide All

Paydays, company holidays, and company events are important to everyone in your organization, and keeping everyone up to date about these red-letter days isn't just about planning or process efficiency or the effective use of information. It also shows your commitment to keeping employees well-informed, and their understanding of that fact will aid you as you attempt to manage and retain them.

One of the first things many people do when they come in to work is check their daily calendar. In a few simple steps, you can ensure that everyone's daily calendar includes important company dates.

The Outlook holiday file

You might already know that Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 comes with predefined holidays that you can add to your calendar. But did you know that you aren't limited to those predefined holidays? You can customize Outlook to display reminders about benefit enrollment periods, performance review deadlines, training reimbursement deadlines, and more. Why not use this feature to place important company information where it's most likely to be seen and acted upon?

This article explains how to use the Outlook holiday file (Outlook.hol) to create a customized set of events that everyone in your organization can use. There are four steps to the process:

1. The HR department creates a customized Outlook holiday file.
2. The HR department distributes the new file to all employees.
3. Employees replace their existing holiday file with the customized one.
4. Employees use the new file to update their Outlook calendars.

Customizing the holiday file

To display events and holidays in the Outlook calendar, Outlook uses information stored in the holiday file (Outlook.hol). You can modify this file so that events and holidays particular to your company are stored there along with the predefined holidays.

 Note   It's always a good idea to back up a file before making changes to it, in case you want to restore the original file contents.

Create a custom holiday file

1. Exit Outlook if it is running.
2. Open the Outlook.hol file in a text editor, such as Notepad.
3. Press CTRL+END to position the insertion point at the end of the file.
4. Type a new header and its related events in the following format:

   [Country or Description] ###
   Event or holiday description, yyyy/mm/dd
   Event or holiday description, yyyy/mm/dd

   In this format, ### is the total number of items listed for a particular country/region or description. Be sure to include a space between the closing bracket and the number and a carriage return at the end of the line. Note that on each event line, there is a comma and space between the event or holiday description and the date, and a carriage return at the end of the line. For example:

   [Company Events and Holidays] 3
   Bonus Program Payment, 2004/01/15
   Benefit enrollment period ends today, 2004/02/27
   Deadline for submitting expense reports for previous quarter, 2004/03/15

5. Save and close Outlook.hol.

The next time you run Outlook, you will be able to add these event dates to your calendar.

Distributing the customized holiday file

After you have customized the Outlook.hol file, you can distribute it to others so that they can use it to add those dates to their calendars.

To distribute the file:

• Send an e-mail message with the customized holiday file attached and include directions for installing it.

— Or —

• Place the file in a commonly accessible location or shared drive on your network where other people can copy it.

Replacing the current holiday file

To use the customized Outlook.hol file for their calendars, employees must replace their existing holiday files with the new one.

To do so:

1. Exit Outlook if it is running.
2. In Microsoft Windows Explorer, locate the following file:
   
   drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\1033\Outlook.hol
   
   
3. Rename the file. For example, you can call it Outlook_hol.old.
4. Place the customized Outlook.hol file in the same folder.

Updating the Outlook calendar with customized events

The final step is for employees to update their calendar with the new holiday file.

To update the Outlook calendar:

1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. On the Preferences tab, under Calendar, click Calendar Options.
4. In the Calendar Options dialog box, under Calendar options, click Add Holidays.
5. Select the check box for your customized set of events and holidays, and then click OK. For this example, select the box labeled Company Events and Holidays.

 Note   It's possible that a set of holidays or events observed in your country/region has already been selected in the Add Holidays to Calendar dialog box. If you try to add the same country/region again, you see the message, "Holidays for country are already installed. Do you want to install them again?"

• Click No. If you click Yes, the holidays and events are installed a second time, and you will see duplicate holiday and event entries in your calendar.

Everyone benefits

The Outlook holiday file can be updated whenever new events require it. Distributing updates on a timely basis will help you make everyone in your organization realize that you know the importance of keeping them "in the loop" with regard to critical dates and events.