Have you ever fancied for:
1. An online diary that can be shared
2. An e-diary which can be kept private & confidential
3. Sharing your activities on a daily basis with the team and at the same time view theirs
4. Having selective authorization to members in accessing calendar entries segregated on factors like personal, official, etc.
If yes, Google calendar has an answer. Please note this is not a marketing or advertising article for Google. It’s purely based on my quest to find an appropriate solution that can fit in various scenarios. May be this is possible in other platforms which I have not explored. I felt the ease and market cap of Gmail would definitely rank highest with its cloud infra & 0 cost.
At our work, we often have our calendar packed with meetings and that’s no surprise. In some corporates:
- There’s a good practice of intimating the co-workers about your leave through a calendar entry so that it’s easily and readily available
- Also, when there are some key activities like UAT we often block the calendars of key members to ensure the environments are kept stable
- The calendars are shared with co-members
Imagine your calendar cluttered with all these additional entries or the need to look for details from multiple calendars. There could also be a scenario where an important stakeholder in the intiation list is left out. The arduous task of scanning through to get the required details could cause misses and flops. This leads to excess unnecessary information available and kills the privacy element.
Now, let’s dive into this less marketed solution from Google Calendar. I have mentioned “less marketed” only because even with different search queries I could see no mention of this awesome use of Google Calendar.
Here are the steps. I have tried giving the exact mechanism with no screenshots to test my written abilities in having my thoughts conveyed:). Actually, exploration is fun.
1. In the Gmail calendar, go to Other Calendars and hit the ‘+’ icon
2. Then select the Create new Calendar option
3. Give it an appropriate name to match the need like Daily Diary, Operations Activity, Team Planner, etc.
Bingo. Your new calendar is ready and gets displayed in the section ‘My calendars’. Now, this can be shared with the members with whom you would need to collaborate. I am not giving the steps as this would a hands-on exercise:). (Hint -> Go to ‘Settings and sharing’ of this calendar)
Now this confirms we have sailed through the first part of the exercise. Now, lies the most thrilling journey ahead of us. The members with whom the calendar has been shared can view this new calendar. Any entry made in this new Calendar can be viewed/edited by all the shared members. The only caveat here is to ensure the entry is created in this new Calendar as by default the entries get registered in the primary calendar. Few tips as permissible are:
· Ensure only the check box for new Calendar is selected
· Select the new Calendar in the drop down of the entry form
· Open the entry from Calendar and use ‘Copy To’ new Calendar option
As a final measure, select only the new Calendar and ensure the entry created is visible here.
This is a very small list from the plethora of benefits. Anything that has a relation with date or schedule can be accommodated here.
1. Meets the information Triad of CIA(Confidentiality, Integrity & Availability)
2. Saves lot of effort and time in search for the required details
3. Can have focused calendars for different objectives both personal and official
4. Scalable, efficient and effective with the Cloud benefits
5. Easy access from the touch of your email/calendar
6. Gives better ability to have your primary calendar with only critical items
7. Option to subscribe is available within the organization
8. Reduces the inflow and outflow of email invites/entries to a large extent
For all the Outlook fans, there is also an option to have this new Calendar integrated with quick and easy process (available in the internet). The bottleneck is that the new calendar is only permitted for Read mode in Outlook. I am not sure on the reason for this restriction. I look forward to have it enabled for edit as well for the benefit of Outlookers’.
Hope I have done a good job in giving you the boosters to use this very powerful feature in your personal and official roles. I am on my way in having this as part of my organization’s agenda. You can reach me [email protected] for any queries and I would be more than happy to assist and get an opportunity to foster my learning.
Happy Learning. Stay connected; Exchange knowledge and reap benefits. Wishing you all the best.