Color coding a calendar could be an essential tool, either for you as an individual or as a member of a team. A color-coded calendar helps to highlight the most important tasks that need to be completed first. For individuals, it helps them stay focused by identifying their priorities and committing themselves to getting them done.

Color coding a calendar is even more essential as part of an organizational setup, especially when using solutions like SharePoint. The SharePoint site comes with a calendar that can be shared between various members of a team highlighting dates for essential events, meetings, deadlines to be met, and many others. Color coding a calendar will enable users to identify the tasks that should be prioritized.

Color coding a calendar is not only for tasks that should be given priority but also helps administrators figure out which tasks have been assigned to each team member. Fortunately, you do not write any code to successfully color code your share point calendar. In this guide, we look at the steps on how to color-code a calendar.

1. Create a calendar

First of all, you need a calendar to which you will apply a color code. You can easily create a calendar from your SharePoint site by selecting the gear at the top left of the screen if you are using SharePoint 2010, or the top right for SharePoint online users, SharePoint 2013, and SharePoint 2016. You will either see the ‘Add an app’ option or ‘View all site content’ option and from there select ‘Create Calendar’. You will be asked to enter a name for your calendar and click create.

2. Configuring category column

To color-code a calendar, you will first need to insert values that meet your business needs and objectives. To do so, you will select the ‘calendar list settings’ and the ‘category’ column will pop up. Select it and then choose and edit the values that you require. There are various default options you can choose from.

3. Create views

Now that you have selected all the values in the category option, you need to create views on your calendar. Views simply mean the events you have on your list that you might want to be displayed on your calendar. In other words, views are one of the items on your calendar that will be given a color code.

On your calendar tab, select “Create View” and a create calendar view page will pop up. Here you will insert the view name such as  ‘meetings’. Select OK and a view category for “meetings” will be added to your calendar. Repeat this step with other view categories on your list.

4. Create calendar overlay

On your calendar tab, click on the “Calendar overlays” option and select “New calendar”. Fill out all the required details. Here you will be required to name the overlay and then add a description and color. After successfully filling out these details and choosing the color, click “Resolve”. The dropdown window will be populated with the lists you have just created. Select the calendar you created and the view you will like to use from the list view field and then click OK. Repeat the procedure to create an overlay with every list you created.