How can I create a recurring event that spans multiple days in a Sharepoint 2010 calendar?

Question

I am currently using a workaround where I create recurring events for each of the separate days in the event, but I would like to just create one recurring event that spans over 7 days. As is, the events show a separate visual block for each day, creating more visual noise than is desired.

Answer 1

You can't.

Recurring events that span multiple days are not supported in SharePoint 2010 Calendars.

To test I tried creating one with a SharePoint 2010 Calendar connected to Outlook 2010. On an Exchange Calendar in Outlook, I can create this type of recurring event. When performing the same creation activity on a Sharepoint calendar I received the following message:

The recurrence pattern you selected for the current appointment is not supported by SharePoint. Select another pattern or remove the recurrence.

Answer 2

Here is another (tedious) workaround:

1. Create your event
2. Check Recurrence
   • Set your pattern
3. Set Start Time to the first day's start time
4. Set End Time to the last day's end time
5. Save the event series
6. For each event in the series:
   1. Click the event, click Edit Item
   2. Change End Time date to last day for that event's recurrence
   3. Click Save

This will create all the events in the series so they are manageable from a single event and change the events to better reflect its' time span.

NOTE: If you Edit Series after editing each item, those changes will not be reflected in each event. But you can Delete the entire series.

At least this way, you don't have to create a series for each day in the recurring event (managing separate series is annoying) and it gives the single bar look. A major drawback is if you have a lot of events to manually adjust.

I use this method to create a lot of similar events, but they span multiple days and they don't exactly fit the pattern set (e.g. Every 3rd Thurs except some months it needs to be the 2nd Thurs).