Outlook Calendar bookings need to be visible in Wrike, Wrike tasks need to be visible in Outlook Calendar

(This topic was brought up in the March 16th Wrike CAB sessions chat by Karen Reijneveld. In internal discussions at Sanoma Pro, we realised that we have a huge gap to be bridged between the information silos Outlook Calendar and Wrike. I did also add this to two earlier community threads, both started already in 2018: Import Outlook Calendar meetings to Wrike and Sync whole Wrike "My Work" to Google / Outlook Calendar.)

We have numerous user complaints about the problems caused by having two completely separate scheduling systems, which both are competing for the user's working hours, each without knowing what claims the other has already made, and the user's impossible situation of trying to simultaneously maintain two calendars: Outlook Calendar and Wrike.

Both Outlook Calendar and Wrike are essential for performing one's work duties, but Outlook Calendar bookings aren't visible in Wrike, and vice versa.

Still, we must consult Outlook Calendar in order to schedule our Wrike tasks, and vice versa we must consult Wrike in order to decide on accepting or declining invitations to Outlook Calendar events.

Reserving blocks of time for a task in Wrike would need to be displayed as "busy" in Outlook Calendar, so that reservation is respected when others in the user's company/department/team are organizing meetings, workshops, all hands events, etc.

Also, when users reserve vacation time and other out of office events in Outlook Calendar, those should be displayed in Wrike, both for the users themselves, when they schedule tasks themselves, and for anyone who schedules tasks for internal resources.

Everyone's Outlook Calendar contains meetings, workshops, all hands events, vacations and other out of office events that affect their availability, but in Wrike a resource's Outlook Calendar bookings are invisible (except if the Wrike user really maintains a duplicate of their Outlook Calendar in Wrike - which is too much to ask of any employee). Which means that e.g. project managers or team principals can't respect the resource's existing bookings, and leads to an unacceptable amount of back and forth between the one doing the resourcing/scheduling and the resources themselves.

Wrike’s “My To Do” task list should show up as a calendar you can subscribe to in Outlook Calendar. And the user's Outlook Calendar bookings should be made visible in Wrike's various views, where the user's available time is being booked for performing project tasks.