title: How to program availability check and to create new meeting to Outlook?
body: <p>I am creating a Java web app to manage meetings between a set of students and teachers. All of them already use Outlook to manage their email and personal calendar. </p>
  
  <p>I would like to know if it's even possible to build the schedule feature of my web app using Exchange, Office365 or Sharepoint Team Calendar via REST service in order to check the availability and create a meeting for a student and one of the teachers available:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/fp142380.aspx" rel="nofollow">SharePoint 2013 REST service</a></p>
  
  <p>So far, the most promising mechanism I have found is Microsoft Sharepoint Server's calendar, which collaborative features makes possible to create a meeting and check availability for a list of users. The downside is that it does not support one to one meetings but for the entire team (as far I have found).</p>
  
  <p>My second option would be to require everyone in the group (students and teachers of the department) to make public their personal calendar so the web app be able to check the availability of both student and teacher and send a meeting request. The obvious problem is the privacy/security concern derived from this approach.</p>
  
  <p>My last option (and by far the less favourite because it feels like re-inventing the wheel) is to build a proprietary calendar within the web app and send iCal requests to each person. The obvious problem with this approach is synchronisation between the two separated calendars. </p>
  
  <p>In addition, this feature must be a pretty common need so there should be tons of blogs explaining how to take advantage of Exchange/Sharepoint/Office365 to implement it (other platforms are not considered since my employer's infrastructure is based on Microsoft). However, whether it is so obvious that nobody talks about it or I have not searched in the right place. Any advice to point me in the right direction?</p>