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Android smartphones sync seamlessly with Google services including Gmail, Google Contacts and Google Calendar. With ever more pressure in our daily lives, ensuring you don’t miss important events is vital. Google’s Calendar app can help make sure you don’t miss important events, appointments and meetings. Appointments are synced automatically and powerful features allow you to manage your diary entries, schedule meetings, invite colleagues and quickly access your calendar. You can add as much, or as little, information as you choose. Add birthdays, holidays, regular appointments, dentist and doctor appointments, set reminders for business meetings, schedule telephone calls and site visits.. the list is pretty much endless.
We take you through all its many features , show you how to create appointments, schedule meetings, invite colleagues and plan your time. We also explain some of the advanced features that those of us with crammed diaries and little free time can benefit from.
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1. Add a new appointment
First we need to fire up the Google Calendar app and add a new appointment. Launch Calendar, scroll to you chosen day and then tap and hold the screen. A pop-up menu will appear with three options; we want the first, ‘New Event’. Select that option to begin.
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2. Enter the details
Enter the event name (for example, ‘Meeting with boss’), a start and end time, the event location and a brief description of the appointment. For multi-day events such as a holiday, tap the ‘All day’ box and you need only set the start and end dates.
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3. Set a reminder
If this is a recurring event (eg a birthday or weekly meeting), tap the ‘Repetition’ field. And finally, set the all-important reminder. You can even set more than one if you’re the forgetful type. Click ‘Done’ and your new appointment will appear in your calendar.
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4. Configure your alerts
There is no point setting a reminder for an appointment if the alert is too quiet to hear. From the Calendar app, choose Menu>More>Settings. Here you can choose a ringtone that will get your attention. There’s a wide choice and you can also activate the vibrate feature.
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5. Test the reminder
Let’s configure a test appointment. Set it for 15 minutes from now with a reminder set to 10 minutes. Save the event and wait. 10 minutes before the appointment is due, you should hear your notification tone and see an entry in the notification window.
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6. Editing appointments
If you ever need to edit an appointment – to change the time or date perhaps, or to change the venue or add more information – tap and hold the event in your calendar. A pop-up menu will then appear, allowing you to view, edit or delete the event.
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7. Inviting colleagues
If you wish to schedule a meeting with friends or colleagues, you can invite them to the event. Simply add their email address in the ‘Guests’ field of the new event form and they will receive an invitation that they can either accept or decline.
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8. Changing calendar view
You can control how you view the calendar in a number of ways. Press the Menu button to choose from Day, Week or Month overviews. ‘Today’ provides a detailed view of today’s appointments and ‘Agenda’ gives a summary of your diary schedule.
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9. Set a default reminder
If you find that the default of ’10 minutes’ is not enough, you can change this so that every new event defaults you to your preferred setting. In the Calendar app settings, choose the ‘Default reminder time’ option and set as desired.
