SharePoint Document Issues

How to Display SharePoint Events for New Employees in Microsoft 365

Steve K Sep 25, 2026 869 views

Question details

New employees are unable to view company events or calendar invitations that were sent prior to their start date in the SharePoint Events web part.

How to Display SharePoint Events for New Employees

Product: Microsoft SharePoint
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: An administrator or manager is onboarding a new employee and wants them to see upcoming company events that were scheduled before they joined.
Observed behavior: Calendar invitations sent before the employee joined are not retroactively delivered, resulting in a blank or incomplete schedule in the new employee's SharePoint Events web part.

Before you start

Ensure you have Site Owner or Full Control permissions on the target SharePoint site to modify web part configurations and manage event list permissions.

Solution 1Recommended

Use a Shared SharePoint Event List

By storing events in a shared SharePoint list rather than relying on direct email invitations, you ensure all users with access to the site can view the events, regardless of their join date.

The default behavior of Outlook calendar invitations is that they only deliver to attendees explicitly listed at the time of sending. A SharePoint Shared Event List bypasses this limitation by centralizing the event data on the site itself.

Create a shared event list

Navigate to your SharePoint site contents, click 'New', and select 'App'. Search for 'Calendar' or 'Events' to create a centralized event list for company-wide activities.

Add events to the shared list

Instead of sending standalone Outlook invites, add your upcoming company events directly to this new SharePoint event list.

Grant permissions to new employees

Go to the list settings, click on 'Permissions for this list', and ensure that the 'Everyone except external users' group or specific new employee accounts have at least 'Read' access.

Configure the Events web part

Navigate to the page displaying the events. Click 'Edit' at the top right of the page, select the Events web part, and click the pencil icon to edit properties.

Set the data source

In the property pane on the right, change the 'Source' to the newly created shared event list, then click 'Republish' to apply the changes for all users.

Best Practice: Using Microsoft 365 Groups as the permission layer makes this automatic. When a new employee is added to the M365 Group, they automatically inherit access to the group's SharePoint site and its shared calendar.

Solution 2

Forward Individual Event Invitations

If you only have a few specific events the new employee needs to attend, you can manually forward the existing Outlook meeting invitations.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why didn't the new employee receive the original calendar invite?

Outlook calendar invitations are only delivered to email addresses that are on the distribution list at the exact time the invitation is sent. Users added to a mailing list or system afterward do not retroactively receive past invites.

How do I check the source of my SharePoint Events web part?

Click 'Edit' on your SharePoint page, select the Events web part, and click the pencil icon to open the property pane. Under the 'Source' dropdown, you can verify which calendar, site, or list is currently feeding events to the web part.

Can I automatically sync an Outlook calendar to a SharePoint site?

Yes, if your SharePoint site is connected to a Microsoft 365 Group, it automatically comes with a shared Group Calendar. Events added to this Group Calendar in Outlook will seamlessly sync to the SharePoint Events web part when the source is set to 'Group Calendar'.

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