Keeping track of everyone’s schedules and availability can be tricky, especially when you need to collaborate with team members on meeting room availability, scheduling team activities, or coordinating travel. A Google Calendar makes it easy to track your own schedule and see when others are free to meet — but what if you also want to keep track of your coworkers’ availability? How can you conveniently share your Google Calendar with your team? Our lives are more connected than ever before, thanks in part to the rise of virtual assistants, such as Alexa and Siri. As a result, software developers have created many apps that allow us to connect with one another from anywhere. Whether you work from home or in an office, there are plenty of ways to stay connected with your team using Google Calendar.
Why is it so important to share your Google Calendar with your team?
Google Calendar has become the default calendar for most office workers. It’s easy to use, syncs with your phone and computer and is accessible from anywhere. However, you may want to share your calendar with your team to make sure that everyone is on the same page. If you need to coordinate a group project or manage a team that works remotely, it’s helpful to see when everyone is available to meet.
This makes it easier to find times that work for everyone and ensures that nothing slips through the cracks. If you share your calendar with your team, you can invite them to view and/or add events, and also receive updates on their availability. This allows you to keep tabs on your team members and make sure that you’re not double-booking meetings or missing deadlines.
Which apps make it easiest to collaborate with your team?
- Google Calendar: The first way you can share your calendar with your team is by simply linking your Google Calendar with theirs. To do this, click on the drop-down menu in the top right corner of your Calendar, select ‘Other calendars,’ and click ‘Add another calendar.’ On the next screen, select the team member whose calendar you want to add, and that person will be prompted to accept your invitation.
If you want to share your calendar with specific people, you can send them a link to your Calendar.
- Trello: Another great way to collaborate with your team is to use Trello. This app is a virtual bulletin board that allows you to create different boards (or lists) for different projects, and assign team members to each board. You can also create columns for tasks, due dates, resources, and more – and share your Trello board with team members.
Which apps make it easiest to view and manage a shared calendar?
- Google Calendar: If you want to invite your team members to view your calendar but not edit it, click on the drop-down menu in the top right corner of your Calendar, select ‘Other calendars,’ and click ‘Add another calendar.’ On the next screen, select the team member whose calendar you want to view, and they will be prompted to accept your invitation.
- Asana: Another great way to view a shared calendar is to use Asana. This app is designed to help teams manage projects, and you can add a calendar to your Asana Board to keep track of meeting times and deadlines. Once you create a Calendar Board, you can invite your team members to view and add events.
Which apps make it easiest to privately track individual team members’ availability?
- Doodle: If you want to privately track availability for one-on-one meetings, you can use Doodle to privately send availability requests to your team members. You can also use this app to create a poll and ask your team members to vote on a preferred meeting time.
- Google Calendar: If you want to privately track availability for larger meetings, you can use Google Calendar to send availability requests to your team members. You can also use this app to create a poll and ask your team members to vote on a preferred meeting time.
Conclusion
Whether you work in a traditional office or remotely, keeping track of your team members’ availability is key to staying organized and on-task. You can use one of these apps to keep tabs on a shared calendar, or even create separate calendars for different teams or projects. For example, if you manage a sales team and a marketing team, you could create separate calendars for each team and invite them to view and/or add events to their own calendars. This way, you can easily keep track of when each team is in meetings, and they can view their own calendars even if they’re not signed into Google.
