Thanks for a bug report. I do not see which exchange provider you are using, is it evolution-ews or evolution-mapi?

ad 1) You might open a separate bug report against translation team

ad 2) both evolution-ews and evolution-mapi offer this option. Having installed both and have them available in the main menu would confuse users. This way it's clear to which account the option belongs (users can have multiple EWS/MAPI accounts configured and enabled at the same time). Nonetheless, you are right the option is too hidden, you are not the first user having trouble finding it. Maybe a more elegant way would be to do what for example Thunderbird does when an account name is selected, instead of the folder - the panel where message list is shown and the mail preview is replaced with some common actions which can be done with the account - one of them could be the Subscribe to other user's folder.

ad 3) I do not know how your server is setup, but if you can browse folders of a different user without them giving you permission, then it's a security breach. Again, I do not know how your server is setup. Users can usually search in Public Folders, which are available from Folder->Subscriptions menu.

Do you know the Exchange server you connect to, please?

By the way, you set this bug report as version 3.16.x and an operating system Windows. Is it correct? I'm not aware of a native Windows port of the 3.16.x, except of cygwin.

1) done: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=761291
2) evolution-ews is what I am using.
3) I don't know either what server version it is.  Although from an exchange server configuration standpoint this never was a security breach of having access to other users minimalistic calendar info (aka knowledge of availability of colleagues only, it allows you to plan for a proper date & time for a meeting based on everyone availability without showing you the actual content of each-other calendar appointment information)

And yes, adjusted according... version 3.18 and linux (now updated to ubuntu 16.04 alpha).

thnx.

(In reply to Vincent Fortier from comment #2)
> 3) I don't know either what server version it is.  Although from an exchange
> server configuration standpoint this never was a security breach of having
> access to other users minimalistic calendar info (aka knowledge of
> availability of colleagues only, it allows you to plan for a proper date &
> time for a meeting based on everyone availability without showing you the
> actual content of each-other calendar appointment information)

Right, it is called Free/Busy information and servers have it enabled by default. This information is visible in the evolution only if you create a new Meeting (or edit an existing), then you can click Free/Busy icon in the editor, which shows you availability of the participants, if available. [1]

I understood from your initial comment that the 3) is about being able to browse foreign user folders without their permission. I see now that I misunderstood it, I'm sorry for that. Evolution is able to read Free/Busy information from an Exchange server using the evolution-ews connection.

Did this make the 3) clear, thus only the 2) is missing here?

[1] https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/calendar-meetings-sending-invitation.html.en
points also to:
https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/calendar-free-busy.html.en

Almost:  3) could simply be stated as inability to see free/busy information when subscribing someone else calendar folder.  Having the information only at meeting creation time is insufficient and inefficient.

Thus both 2 & 3 are missing here.

To that extend, 4) inability to create groups of calendars is also lacking.  This allows you to group people and rooms (at least in MS Outlook) and quickly activate the entire group in order to highlight free periods that may be suitable to all.  Really useful when managing multiple activities/projects with many different people.  This implies that you can add people calendar numerous of time within different groups.

Thus 4) is missing as well and further emphasis the usefulness of 3) ;)

[Side-note] Oh, I hoped you'll also see that having one bug report for three different things is quite inconvenient and pretty hard to follow the bug report as such, not that you'll add one more different (even slightly related) thing to it. There are mailing lists for it (evolution-list [at] gnome [dot] org), where users can help with things which might not be always clear.

Ad 4) Maybe I just do not follow your work flow. The thing with groups sounds to me like a Contact List. You create it with people you often write to, to a "group", then you simply write to this Contact List. This kind of thing is possible to do in the Evolution, in the Contacts view.

(In reply to Vincent Fortier from comment #4)
> Almost:  3) could simply be stated as inability to see free/busy information
> when subscribing someone else calendar folder.  Having the information only
> at meeting creation time is insufficient and inefficient.

I'm sorry, I do not follow. I know that Evolution is not Outlook, they can be compared, but they are different in various ways. I'd still like to know and understand this part (the above quoted). Could you point me what exactly (step by step) you do in Outlook (and which version of Outlook), and what you see and where, thus I'll have an idea what to look for, please? I'm sorry for a lame question, but the things you mention don't look familiar to me. I hope it'll make it clearer when I realize your work flow.

For example, "to see free/busy information when subscribing someone else calendar folder" looks like a very useless thing to me, because "subscribing someone else calendar folder" is a one-time operation and means to see content of the other user's calendar between your own calendars. Why would it be interesting to see free/busy when subscribing some folder, when the content of the folder can change before you start to schedule the first (the second, the 3rd,...) meeting with that person? The main occasion when I usually search for availability of my co-workers is when I schedule the meeting, when I know actual date and time when I want to have the meeting and I want to check whether others have the proposed time free before I send the invitation.

It's possible we do not use the same terminology, thus it confuses me. I'm sorry for that.

item #4) Indeed this is a totally different workflow.  I agree that the typical usage is through contact list groups and creating calendar events but sadly this is way too static and often I only want to know when some is available and not necessarily be creating another formal event.

Lets bring that to a more dynamic level...  Here is what I do using Outlook 2010 from the calendar panel:
1- Right-click and select create new calendar group (name: activity XYZ)
2- Right-click and add to group a calendar from the global address book
2a) add all staff related to activity ABC
2b) add all "rooms" that we usually use for meetings

This create a "group" of calendars from which I can activate/de-activate to see free/busy periods from all members over my own calendar.

This allows you within one click to generate a dynamic view for any given group at any given time to know who's available and when without having to formally create a calendar event (quite useful to make on-the-fly decisions when managing a groups/projects)

The outcome is similar to:
[X] My Calendar
[X] Calendar group ABC
-> [X] user 1
-> [X] user 2
-> [X] user 3
-> [X] room A
-> [X] room B
[-] Calendar group DEF
-> [-] user 1  <-- Note that I can add a user within multiple groups!
-> [-] user 4
-> [-] user 5
-> [-] room C

--

now, going back to item #3) adding someone's calendar folder within my calendar view does not show the his free/busy periods:

- In Outlook its simply a matter of right-click -> add a calendar -> from the global address book and it adds the calendar from that specific person to my calendar panel.
- In evolution it is "subscribe to folder of another user..." then select the appropriate user then the calendar folder and then it adds it to my calendar view.

Difference is: outlook shows free/busy while evolution does not.

--

So the issues are:
item #2) menu option to subscribe to someone's calendar is way too hard to find!
item #3) I cannot see free/busy periods from subscribed calendars
item #4) I cannot crate groups of calendars

Hopefully this is getting a little clearer?  Don't hesitate to ask if you need more info.

Thnx in advance!

Thanks for the update, I didn't know about such functionality in Outlook, thus it makes sense now.

(In reply to Vincent Fortier from comment #6)
> item #2) menu option to subscribe to someone's calendar is way too hard to
> find!

Agreed, let's keep this bug report for this part.

> item #3) I cannot see free/busy periods from subscribed calendars

Evolution treats calendar you have added as your calendars, not as calendars of other users. You tried to use it as a replacement for the 4), but it's not it. Free/busy is read when needed, it's asked the server to provide it.

> item #4) I cannot crate groups of calendars

That's a feature request, should be filled as such. Those "groups" do not provide real calendar data, but Free/Busy information for the users in the group. I am unsure how to nicely do this in the evolution, because those groups are related to Exchange servers and might not work in CalDAV calendars, neither the calendar tree on the left allows the sublevels in a way you have shown users there. I mean this feature might be complicated to implement, but looks like a useful feature.

item 2) ok.
item 3) understood and this behaviour may be wrong with subscribed calendars.  It is not a replacement to 4) but rather complementary as I need to access other users calendars anyway, grouped or not, for free/busy info.  This item could be renamed as: allowing free/busy lookouts on subscribed calendars from other users.  Improvement request, maybie.  Compliance with a standard exchange server feature, probably...
item 4) Indeed a feature request.  Note that within outlook the groups are created at will by the user.  Also the created groups are being kept on the server-side as I have access to them as well within Outlook Web Access (OWA) afterwards.  And I just noticed that "add group of calendar" is fully available as well within OWA so this has to be a standard exchange server feature.

item 3) 
I've the same Setup as Vincent has (Exchange and Evolution with EWS-Plugin). I'm only able to open a shared calendar, if I got the full read rights (read all details) on the other calendar. 
In Outlook, am able to "reduce" the calendar permissions to "Free/Busy Time, Subject, Location" or even "Free/Busy Time". We tried this with a colleague of me. In both cases, I'm able to open the Calendar in Outlook, but I wasn't able to open it in Evolution. He had to give me the right to read all details of his calendar. After he did this, I was able to open it in Evolution. 

The Use Case behind this scenario is, that somebody calls me an ask me if I know where a team member is. So I can open his shared calendar an see the Subject and Time of his meeting. For example "Meeting in Berlin, Today and Tomorrow", so I know he is out of office this day. But I can't read all the details (eg. Agenda, Participants, Attachments) of this Appointment.

(In reply to Jan Sippli from comment #9)
> item 3) 

Thanks for the update, that's a pretty important detail on the matter. Please open a new bug report against evolution-ews for this item, because it has nothing to do with the translation or other things (and it's significantly better to deal with one item per bug report).

I'm closing this due to a mess in the 4-in-1 bug report. Please open separate bug reports for each part in case it's still valid in the current stable, which is 3.22.3, but basically and 3.22.x would work as a reference. Thanks in advance.

I opened bug #782826 for the item 3) (comment #9)