How to Make the Most of your Online Google Calendar

Google Calendar is part of the suite of free web applications provided by Google. The Google Calendar application allows you to create, share, or publish one or more calendars that include important events, appointments, and meetings. Integration with Google Mail (Gmail) allows users to easily create events directly from within Gmail. Optional reminders for your events may be sent to e-mail, to your mobile phone, or displayed as a pop-up message on your computer. Regardless of whether you need a simple calendar application for your personal schedule, or perhaps need to create and share or publish a calendar for your team or group events, Google Calendar makes organizing your schedule fun, easy, and efficient. In this article, I’ll provide tips to help you get the most from your Google Calendar. If you’re already using Google Calendar, you’ll find useful ways to get the most from this versatile scheduling application. And if you’re just considering or new to Google Calendar, this will provide an overview of just some of the cool features you’ll find waiting for you in Google Calendar. And oh yeah, need I even mention… this is FREE!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• PC
• Google account (FREE)

1. 

   Start the Google calendars web site (http://calendar.google.com) and sign on. If you have not yet created your own Google account, sign up now for a free account that may be used for Google Mail (Gmail), Google Calendar, and other Google applications.

2. 
   Adding Calendars

   You may create multiple calendars, allowing you to isolate events that you do not want part of your own personal calendar. For example, you may have a calendar for an athletic team, a civic group or organization, etc. Or you may just want to have certain categories of information isolated in a different calendar. Finally, you may control sharing on a per-calendar basis, so you may have a civic group calendar that is shared, while your own personal calendar is private. When you have multiple calendars, you may easily turn any calendar on or off, and you may display each calendar in a unique color. To create a new calendar, click “Settings”, then select the “Calendars” tab, then click “Create New Calendar”. You may then enter the name, description, and whether to make the calendar public, etc.

3. 
   Sharing Calendars

   To share one or more of your calendars, click “Settings”, then select the “Calendars” tab. Click the “Shared Settings” option next to the calendar you want to share. This is great for business units or group/team calendars. Also, this is a great way to stay connected with extended family on events and appointments. When sharing a calendar, you’ll be able to specify whether others may have display-only permissions, or edit permissions, or even permissions to re-share the calendar with others.

4. 

   When you have multiple calendars, it’s useful to display each calendar in a unique color. Simply click the small drop-down arrow next to the calendar name to select the color. Also, to toggle the display of the calendar on/off, click the name of the calendar (or click the check-box to the left of the name).

5. 
   Event Reminders

   Since one of the primary reasons for maintaining a calendar is to store information about important events and appointments, we often want to be reminded when those events come due. When editing the event details, in the Options section, drop down the Reminder option to select reminder options. Note that SMS (text message) is offered as an option if you’ve configured your mobile phone. To complete mobile phone setup, click “Settings”, then select the “Mobile Setup” tab. Once you enter your cell number, a verification process will begin. The entire process takes just a minute or so, and once completed allows you to receive reminders for your events and appointments via text message.

6. 
   Maps in Events

   If you enter a location for your appointment or event in the Calendar details, and it’s a location that Google Maps recognizes, then you’ll see a small map displayed directly in the Event details. Clicking on the map opens in a new window to the fully interactive Google Maps website. Note that the location must be an address recognized by Google Maps (which is a pretty loose standard).

7. 

   To synchronize your calendar with Microsoft Outlook, click the Sync option on the top right of your Google Calendar window. You’ll find help and options for syncing with Outlook, Blackberry, Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird.

8. 

   To view your calendar on your mobile phone device (Palm PDA, iPhone, SmartPhone, etc.), simply point the browser in your phone to http://www.google.com/calendar. The interface will be automatically optimized for the device you are using. For additional details, visit the URL here:
   http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=65928&cbid=-glh5dqtmwnv6&src=cb&lev=answer

9. 
   Embedding your Calendar

   With just a few clicks, you may embed your Google Calendar(s) on your web site or blog. This is great for sharing a family calendar, a group or team calendar, church calendars, or even business calendars. For a step-by-step guide, see the following eHow article: http://www.ehow.com/how_4668616_web-page-using-google-calendars.html

10. 
    Buttons for your Blog or Web Page

    If you have a web site or blog, you can offer a button that allows visitors to easily add a particular event to their own Google Calendar. When users click this button, your event or meeting will be automatically added to their Google Calendar. Visit the following site:
    http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/event_publisher_guide.html#individual. Complete the form, then click “Create button HTML” to generate the HTML. Since the HTML code is essentially an HTML link, you can even drop it into an e-mail message. Note that Gmail doesn’t support embedding HTML directly, but you can still insert such a button. Simply create the button as usual, but instead of copying the HTML code as you would for a web page, drag across the actual button just above (so that it’s highlighted), then copy to the clipboard, then paste into your Gmail message body. Of course, if what you want instead is to invite one or more persons to a meeting or event , you can just simply invite as guests when creating the calendar item (see tip in Step 12).

11. 
    Buttons for your Blog or Web Page

    Like the above tip, but want your site visitors or e-mail recipients to click a button to add ALL of the events for one of your Google Calendars? No problem. Visit here to create the button:
    http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/event_publisher_guide.html#public

12. 
    Inviting Guests to Meetings

    If you want to invite others to an event or appointment on your calendar, first create the event as usual. Next, when editing details for the event, click “Invite Guests”. Simply enter e-mail addresses, separated by a comma (or pick addresses from your Contacts list). When recipients receive the invitation, they’ll be able to click whether they plan to attend by clicking a link for “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe”. Outlook and other Google Calendar users will be able to accept and have the event added to their own calendars. Likewise, if you later modify or delete the event, notice will be sent to attendees so that their own calendars are updated as necessary.

13. 
    Publishing Events

    Assuming you are sharing your calendar, you may publish a particular event from your calendar. This is useful in cases where you don’t want to publish the entire calendar, but just an isolated event. Simply click “Publish this Event” from the Options sections of the Calendar details for your event. You’ll be offered an HTML window which you may copy/paste to your web page or blog (or to an e-mail message), creating a hyperlink to your event. Want to publish an entire calendar in the same way? Glad you asked. See the next tip…

14. 
    Publishing Entire Calendar

    When using a shared calendar, you may publish the entire calendar. This allows you to offer a hyperlink that opens a web page displaying the calendar. Click “Settings” from your Google Calendar, then from the “Calendars” tab, click the Calendar you want to publish. Scroll down to the Calendar Address section, and click the “HTML” button. The link will be displayed; simply copy and paste to your web site or blog (or e-mail) to offer the hyperlink.

15. 
    Adding Public Calendars

    In addition to adding calendars for other users (if shared to you), you may add public calendars to your Google Calendars display as well. For example, you may add a calendar to display US Holidays, your local weather, solar/lunar phases, etc. Many public calendars are published by organizations, and you may browse these options by clicking “Settings”, then from the “Calendars” tab, click “Add Calendar” under the “Other Calendars” section. You’ll even find calendars for the campaign events for Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hilary Clinton. Another useful public calendar includes movie and DVD release dates.

Resources

• Google Calendars
• Viewing Google Calendars on a Mobile Phone
• Embedding your Google Calendar on a Web Page
• Creating a button to add a Calendar event
• Creating a button to add an entire Calendar
• Sync Calendar Help Center

[miasavc]

on 12/29/2008 Very useful tips! I will get one for my self! 5*****