Google Calendar is an often overlooked feature of Google Apps for Education (GAFE). Don’t overlook Google Calendar; it’s real and it’s fabulous. Google Calendars can be private, shared, and public. Keep a private calendar for yourself, share another calendar with write privs to collaborate with a group, keep another public calendar for public events, and pull them all together when you view them in your calendar view. Too many events? Overwhelmed? Click off the view on the calendars not currently of interest. Want to pull in someone else’s public or shared calendar to your view? Click a link and add it as an “other” calendar. Need a month view? Click “Month.” Need to concentrate on individual events? Click “Agenda.” Taking a look at the Google District calendar shows many of the advantages. The District Google calendar embedded into the District website and into Aspen is really several Google calendars pulled together into one view. Notice that every school has their own calendar, so when they add an event, it automatically shows up on this consolidate public calendar. Have private events? Keep them on a private calendar so only you (or your team) sees the private events. Above is what an embedded calendar looks like… as in when you view it on a website. Here is what Google calendar looks like from your Google calendar interface, which is available when you have logged into your district Google account. Some practical applications of Google Calendar Want to keep a calendar of important teacher deadlines and events? Create a new calendar called “Teacher Events,” make it public, embed it into a website, or simply share the link to it with your staff, who can then add it to their Google calendar. Any events you add, modify, delete, etc., will then be updated on the shared instances for anyone adding the public calendar to their view of Google calendar. Want to work with a small team? Make a new calendar and share it with write privs with all team members. Don’t make it public, so that only the invited participants can see it. Want other ideas? See Using Google Calendar for Appointment Slots.

You can set up appointments on your calendar that people can reserve. For instance, professors can have their students reserve time during office hours each week. Please also see Getting the Most out of Google Calendar for more tips on setting up and leveraging Google Calendar. Set up & share appointment slots Create appointment slots Using your school account on a computer, open Google Calendar. Make sure that you’re in Week view or any Day view. Click anywhere in the calendar. In the event box that pops up, click Appointment slots. Enter the details, including a title, and pick the calendar where you want the event to show up. To add more information, like a location or a description, click Edit details. Add others to the appointment To add others to the appointment, click the Add Guests field. Note: Don’t invite people who want to reserve an individual appointment slot. Anyone that you add here will be invited to every appointment throughout the block of time, and will also get an email each time someone reserves an appointment. Invite others to book appointments After you’ve set up appointment slots, you can invite people to book time. To invite people to book appointments, don’t invite them to the appointment slot. Instead, get a link to send them for your appointment slots page: Open Google Calendar. Click the appointment slots event to open it. Copy and paste the calendar’s appointment page link found at the top of event. Send this link to people who want to book an appointment. Note: People need to use Google Calendar to make a reservation. They need to use their CPS Google accounts. How appointment blocks show on your calendar Your appointment block will show as a single event on your calendar and the calendars of anyone you invite. You can see that the appointment block is different from other events by the grid symbol in the upper left corner. Make an appointment Visit the link for the appointment page. You may get this in an email, or in a calendar that’s been shared with you. Find and click the link for the appointment page. On the appointment page, click an available appointment button > Save. If you later want to cancel the appointment, delete or decline the appointment event from your calendar. Then others can book the appointment. Please also see Getting the Most out of Google Calendar for more tips on setting up and leveraging Google Calendar.