Syncing Outlook with Google Calendar
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010Why on earth do something like that?
Well, there are a whole host of reasons why you might want to sync your Keene State Outlook Calendar with your Google Calendar. For starters, outlook is a closed system. That is to say that you can access your outlook calendar, and anyone on campus with an outlook account can schedule meetings with you, but no one else can. If you wanted to share your schedule with your students, or other colleagues at other institutions you’d have to either send them an email or set up a separate calendar that you have to manually adjust. By connecting GCal with Outlook, whatever you change in one place appears in the other. Pretty great stuff.
Syncing your calendar with Google
First and foremost, you’ll need to set up a Google account if you don’t already have one. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s free, it’s great. If you already have a Google related account (calendar, gmail, blooger, picassa, etc.) you can simply sign in with that user name and password, easy.
If you’re signing in from gmail, you’ll notice a link that’s in the upper left had part of the browser window (Calendar), you can also click here to be bounced to your google calendar page.
Now that you have an account set up, you’ll need to consider a few things:
Are you planning on creating a public calendar just for students to review?
Would you like to be able to edit your Outlook Calendar from home, and have it show up at work?
As take the next steps, you’ll have to make a choice regarding how your Google Calendar is synced to your Office Calendar.
You’re next step is to head to Google’s Official Blog. Here you will find an application that you’ll need to download and install on your PC that will sync your Google Account with your Outlook Account. Okay, bear with me as I get a little Geeky here…
2-Way – This effectively means that whatever you put on Google is transferred to Outlook, and vice versa.
Pros: This option allows you to create an event on your workstation PC and have it magically transferred to the web where it can be shared with others. It also allows you the freedom of putting things on your work calendar from anywhere you have access to a PC. Book a flight for a vacation and want to put the dates on your work calendar, easy. Want to check with that meeting tomorrow morning is, easy. Did something come up that requires that you change your schedule without going into the office, easy (though for this to appear on the network in the office, you’ll have to leave your workstation on at night).
Cons: You can only assign one calendar to be synced from your Outlook… if you have private entries on your work calendar, they’ll be published publically (kind of, we’ll get there later on). Similarly, while you can have multiple calendars (Personal, Work, Family… basically these are different categories of events) on Google Calendar, your synced calendar is just represented once. In other words, if you accidently add “Surprise party for Kate” to the wrong calendar on Google, it will be transferred to your Outlook Calendar. This mostly doesn’t matter, but if you’re concerned about your work and personal life/plans getting mixed up, you may want to select one of the next options.
1-Way Google to Outlook – This essentially means that whatever you put on Google gets published to your Outlook calendar.
Pros: This is great if you’d like to be able to add things to your work Calendar from the road, but don’t want your work life public. You’ll have the ability to add events to your Outlook Calendar as long as you have access to the internet.
Cons: I’m guessing that this isn’t what you’re looking for. Really, this will leave your student(s) blind in terms of your schedule. This option is really designed for the user who is just looking to update their work calendar with a web utility.
1-Way Outlook to Google – Boiled down, what you put in Outlook gets published on the web. Easy. I think this is the option you’re looking for (or 2-Way, depending on your needs).
Pros: You’ll be able to quickly share your work calendar with anyone you choose. As you change and update your Outlook Calendar, the changes will updated to the Google servers.
Cons: While you can see your work calendar, you can’t change times or events. Essentially this means that you’ve created a read only document. While you can see what you’re schedule is, you can’t change it unless you’re working from the office.
Once you choose how you would like your calendar synced, Google’s little application will quickly update your web calendar with the information from your Outlook Calendar You’ll need to select how often you’d like the calendar updated, then click “save”. Easy. Okay, so now we have a calendar synced between your Outlook and Google Calendar, but we’re not done yet.
Next: We need to select how your calendar is going to be visible on the web
First we need to sign into the Google Calendar account. Once you’re signed in, you should see a screen that looks vaguely like an Outlook calendar. On the left hand side of the browser window you’ll see a few boxes. The top box should contain a thumbnail calendar, the next box should be titled “My Calendars.” In this box should be a calendar called “Work Synced” or something very similar. You can choose a color for your calendar from here, or turn it on and off. At the bottom of this box should be two links, “Settings,” and “Create.” Click on Settings.
Now that we’re on the settings page, you can see all of the different things you can change about your calendar. For right now, we just want to focus on sharing this calendar with someone else. There should be a large mustard colored box in browser window now… the title is “Calendar Settings.” And then there are a few tabs to choose from “General, Calendars, Mobile Setup.” Click on “Calendars,” if it isn’t already displayed.
You should now be presented with a list of your calendars. There should be a link called, “Share this Calendar,” click that bad boy, and let’s finish up this project. Now you’ll be presented with a few final options. How are you going to share this thing:
If you make your calendar public, ANYONE on the web can find it and see it. Now that could be great, or that could feel like sharing a little too much information.
Benefits of making a calendar public:
Well, it means that if you’re calendar is called, “KSC Psych 101 Schedule,” anyone that does a google search for that could find the calendar. Similarly, if I’ve shared a calendar called, “KSC Psych 101 Schedule,” I’m the owner of that particular calendar and if someone searches for my name (say a student) they’ll find the calendar that I’ve created and shared. Additionally, you have the option of just sharing if you’re busy or free on a given day/time. This means that while the calendar will be public, it won’t divulge any of the details of your day. For example, an event called, “Student Advising” would just appear as “Busy” to someone browsing my calendar.
As an alternative, you can choose to share your calendar with just select individuals. If you do this, you’ll have to enter their email address into the field with the heading “Share with specific people.” You can also select if you’d like them to be able to just view your calendar, make changes to your calendar (i.e. if a student wanted to schedule a meeting with your, and saw that you had some free time in an afternoon), and many other options. If you just share your calendar with individuals, they will be sent an email that will prompt them through the next steps. If you make your calendar public, then we have one more step.
That Last Step
Again, take a look over at the left side of the screen and find that link called “settings” that you clicked earlier. Once you’re back to the settings page, this time you’re going to click on the actual link that is your calendar’s name. For example, if my calendar is called, “Work Synced,” I’m going to click on that name. You should now see a page with lots of calendar details, scroll down toward the bottom until you see a field called, “Calendar Adress:”. Okay, now, you’re going to find the blue button to the right that says HTML, and click on it (remember, this is only if you’ve decided to make your calendar public, and need to find the address to send to a student). A new window should pop up that’s got a link in it… this is your public address… you can email this link to a student, and they’ll be able to see what you’re calendar.
Easy, right?
