Fantastical 2.2 for Mac: Native Exchange Support

First things first, Fantastical 2.2.1 is now available and is a recommended update. If you purchased Fantastical on Mac App Store you can update by opening the App Store app. If you downloaded Fantastical directly from our website you can update by selecting Check for Updates from the Fantastical menu in the app.

With that out of the way, it’s time to start digging into Fantastical 2.2 for Mac’s new features! Fantastical’s new Exchange support allows it access to more of Exchange’s functionality. This post will detail some of these features and how they work in Fantastical 2.2.

In-app account management

In a change from older versions of Fantastical, you now need to sign into Exchange directly in Fantastical’s Preferences instead of via Apple’s Calendar app. This is a significantly more straightforward process, but just in case you’re not familiar with adding calendar accounts in this manner please take a look at our Help Book for full details.

Push updates

Having calendars refresh in the background at set intervals is a necessary but less-than-ideal solution for many services. As of 2.2, any changes you make to your Exchange calendars in Fantastical will be instantly sent to the Exchange service and vice versa — no refreshing necessary! Push updates are automatically enabled if you connect to Exchange 2010 or later, or Office 365.

Responding to invitations

Earlier versions of Fantastical were unable to respond to invitations in the same manner that iCloud, Google Calendar and other services were. Now, you can use Fantastical allows you to respond to Exchange invitations directly in the app.

Global Address List (GAL) lookup

GAL contains details of every group, user and contact within an organisation. Previously, contacts had to be added to OS X’s Contacts app for them to be found by Fantastical. Fantastical 2.2 will now automatically search your organization’s GAL. This allows you to quickly find your colleagues from the invitee field without having to manage them in your Contacts app!

Meeting room and resource scheduling lookup

Searching for meeting rooms is now possible directly from Fantastical 2.2. When creating an event, simply type the name of the room in the location field and a list of matching rooms will be shown. You’ll see a check or a cross next to the name of the room, indicating whether that room is available at the time of your event. Finish creating the event and the room will be booked for you.

Support for shared and delegated calendars

Shared and delegated calendars are one of the most convenient ways to organize personal appointments with friends and family, and the corporate world practically requires them to function efficiently. With Fantastical 2.2 you can manage your shared and delegated directly in Fantastical. Open your Accounts preferences, select your Exchange account, then click Manage Delegates to add or remove delegated calendars.

Moving Exchange events to other calendar services

It has always been possible to move events across CalDAV accounts — such as from iCloud to Google Calendar — but Exchange events were locked to a single account. Now, events created in Exchange can be freely moved between services without issue, affording you a greater deal of flexibility when managing your events. Right-click an event and choose whichever calendar you’d like your Exchange event to be assigned to.

We hope our Exchange customers find that these new features greatly enhance Fantastical! As always, please feel free to send us a message and leave us your feedback. Oh, and if you’re a Google Apps user and are feeling a little envious of these new Exchange-based features, stay tuned. We have a few surprises for you in our next post!