How To

There are three basic steps to set up your personal or organization's Google Calendar:

1. Register for a free Google account.
2. Create your calendar
3. Make your calendar public (or leave personal calendars private). Newly Public Calendars will not show up in the Google search for up to 24 hours.

Registering is easy:

1. Start your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox or whatever) and go to www.google.com and click the "Sign In" link.
2. The resulting login page will have a link for those who need to set up an account
3. To create the account, you will have to supply your email address, create a password and click the "agree" checkbox. The email address will also serve as your future sign-in or login name (ID).

Creating your calendar is just as simple, but entering your events may take more time. Google says "If you have events and information stored in other calendar applications (i.e. Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo! Calendar, Apple iCal, etc.), the "Import Calendar" function will allow you to quickly and easily transfer this information from its existing location directly into your Google Calendar." See Google Calendar Help for more information.

To create your calendar:

1. Again go to www.google.com. If you are already signed in, your login name (email) will be at the top-right of the page.
2. Click the "Calendar" link under the "more" dropdown list.
3. Sign in to your Google account (if not already signed in) to start your calendar.

Using the Calendar is simple and briefly described below. There are also some demonstration screenshots in the Calendar Demo section. HOWEVER, please read the Strategy Details before making your calendar public.

• The first time you sign in to the calendar, you will see a screen telling you an email has been sent to verify your address. You can continue on to the calendar, but you will eventually need to click a verification link in that email when it arrives. You will then see this screen:
• Once signed in, you rarely need to sign in again if you do not signout. For each calendar session, start your browser (IE or Firefox or whatever) and go to the Google Calendar link you originally used to create the calendar (numbers 1 and 2 under "Create your calendar" above). You should, of course, place a link to the calendar in Favorites or Bookmarks.
• Your first view of your blank calendar will look like this. Notice the "Add" button above the "My Calendars" list in the left panel. This button (and "Manage Calendars" at the bottom of the list) will be the primary way to configure your calendar(s) including making it (them) public or keeping them private. Each of your calendars can individually be public, private, or through emailed links, shared with specific individuals (such as organization members or friends)
• Because Google Calendar is designed to have multiple calendars "layered" in a single view, you can create more private and/or public calendars for various functions or members such as "Meetings", "Travel", "Birthdays","George", "Mary", etc. This allows color coding events by function. HOWEVER, I highly recommend that the public calendar of each organization be a single calendar and not "layered" by function.
• Members of your organization can have their own accounts and private or selectively shared calendars. One or more members (on one or more google accounts) can be designated to control the organization's public calendar. Limiting the number of people who can change the public calendar might be a good idea.
• To add events to any of your calendars showing in the view, (I find it easiest to use the monthly view) click in the appropriate day and select "edit event details". You will find that the resulting page will show fields for entering various information. Some of the fields are hidden by default, such as the start and end times. Deselect the default "All day" to reveal the time fields. Select a repeat mode in the drop down box to reveal fields related to the repeat cycle.

Please Read the "Strategy Details" before making your calendar public.