Yesterday, Microsoft released a new service pack for Outlook 2011 that (among other things) opens up sync services to third parties.

Until today, Outlook 2011 for Mac customers were unable to sync their calendars with Tungle because of Microsoft’s limited access.

With yesterday’s release, we’re happy to welcome Outlook 2011 for Mac customers into the Tungle.me fold.

To sync, you’ll first need to install the service pack from Microsoft. You can find it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads

After you’ve installed, go into the “Tools” menu in Outlook and expand the “Sync Services…” menu. Check “Calendar” to sync it with your iCal first, then install the Tungle Mac connector (you’ll find it under “Calendar” > “Sync calendar / contacts” in your Tungle account).

This will sync your Tungle account to your Outlook 2011 for Mac calendar.

Need a quick way to meet with a group? Simply separate Tungle.me URLs with a comma!

For example, my URL is tungle.me/erin, Jason, our Head of Support’s is tungle.me/jason, and Jonathan, our VP of Marketing’s is tungle.me/jonathanlevitt.

If I type tungle.me/erin,jason,jonathanlevitt (see how I used the commas?) into my address bar, I get an instant group page for all three of us.

(click to enlarge)

I can use this page to schedule meetings between the three of us, or send the URL to others so they can see our collective availability and request meetings with the group.

Saving Groups

You could simply bookmark that URL for future use, or create a saved group in Tungle.me. Here’s how:

1. Expand the “Show Contacts” tab on the left of the calendar
2. Click “New Group”
3. Name your group, add members and save
4. Select the “Groups” radio button
5. Mouse over your new group

At the top of the popup, you’ll see a URL. The structure is http://tungle.me/[profile]/[groupname], so take that into account when naming your group.

Copy that URL and send it out to people who want to meet with your group.

Non-Tunglers (those crazy folks)

You can even add non-Tungle.me members to a group using just their email address. Even if you’re using the comma method, simply add an email address to include that person.

For example http://tungle.me/erin,jason,address@email.com

Of course, their availability won’t be displayed, but they will receive, and be able to reply to, all meeting invitations without signing up.

There are two ways to use Tungle.me for scheduling. What are they? How are they different? Which do you use and when? Let’s get down to it:

Two Ways to Schedule

We call them “inbound” and “outbound”. With inbound, others send you meeting requests through your profile page – you are the invitee.

With outbound, you send meeting requests to others – you are the organizer.

How they’re Different

One’s easiest for you while the other is easiest for your invitee.

With outbound, you do the work of creating the invitation and selecting times (and by “work”, we mean a bit of info, a couple clicks and you’re done). All your invitees do is submit their availability.

With inbound, the roles are reversed – someone else creates the invitation while you simply pick a time.

What to Use When

As a rule of thumb, when you want to meet with someone, use outbound – you’re doing the asking, so you do the work.

When someone wants to meet with you, send them your profile URL and have them schedule it with you – inbound.

However, sometimes you have a very important meeting with a very important person. They’ve said they want to meet with you (hooray!), but you know they’re tricky to pin down and you don’t want to miss the opportunity.

Use outbound.

Better yet, rather than have Tungle.me send the meeting invitation, get a private URL for the invite (the last step of creating the invitation – preview – gives you this option). Paste that URL into an existing email thread or Skype conversation.

This way, all your very important person has to do is click the link, pick a time and book it.

Learn More

Every Tuesday during the Tungle.me 101 webinar, we demo inbound and outbound scheduling (among other things) live. The webinar is free and you can register here.