Calendar sharing with Google Calendar

[John Gray]

We are hoping to set up a shared calendar, probably on Google Calendar, between at least two members of associated charities, one of which uses Outlook 2003 (no idea what the other uses!).

I'm interested in how well, if at all, it is possible to synchronise the calendars, so the Person A's Outlook calendar contains the same information as Google Calendar and Person B's Outlook calendar. Can this synchronisation happen dynamically, or does each of Person A and Person B have to perform a manual task to cause synchronisation with Google Calendar?

Has anyone any direct experience of this?

Thanks!

[John Gray]

Unfortunately the goalposts seem to have moved, and the actual requirement seems to be that:

* Person A wants to be able to see Person B's calendar and to book appointments in it

* Person B wants to be able to see Person A's calendar and to book appointments in it

This seems to mean a requirement for two Google calendars to be synchronised between Persons A and B...

[JoeP]

Is this using Exchange? Can't they share the Calendars?

Joe

[StuartR]

...
* Person A wants to be able to see Person B's calendar and to book appointments in it

* Person B wants to be able to see Person A's calendar and to book appointments in it
...

This is very easy to do if you don't involve Exchange as well. Each user can provide the other with write access to their Google calendar, and can display entries from both calendars in the GUI.

[jonwallace]

I use Sunbird and the Google calender addon.

Just add each person's calender to each person's local installation, and there you go.

[John Gray]

Well, we have Exchange, but I don't know what they have at the other end - will obviously have to find out. If there were two Exchange servers able to talk nicely together, then we wouldn't need Google Calendar.

The fewer steps the better, so I like the idea of just having two simultaneously-viewable Google calendars in a browser. We might have some management-type problems with people from both organisations who would need to be able to book appointments in one or the other calendar, as well as view them.

Lots to work on, and thanks for everyone's suggestions!

[John Gray]

I've just tried the Google Calendar function, and after the usual thirteen goes at the CAPTCHA, I created a couple of users.

One user will be the owner of the calendar, and will share their calendar with one (or more) other people, who can update the calendar - call them updaters.

However, for the updater(s), there is no point them having a calendar of their own - they just want to look at the owner's calendar and put appointments in it and so on.

I did some Googling and find that you cannot delete the primary calendar. Fine. But is it possible for each updater to make the owner's calendar their primary calendar? If there is only a single calendar visible and accessible, this would avoid any confusion about which calendar is being dealt with!

Thanks!

[StuartR]

I don't know about "primary", but I can select any of the calendars I am authorized to access as the only visible calendar, and this seems to survive me logging out and back in again.

[John Gray]

I've tried, but I can't find any way of making the primary calendar invisible. Annoying...

[StuartR]

I've tried, but I can't find any way of making the primary calendar invisible. Annoying...

How strange, I can select and deselect each calendar, including my own personal one, from the list of calendars on the left.

[John Gray]

OK, the only way I can remove the primary calendar from view is to click on the down-arrow in front of My Calendars, whereupon the primary calendar disappears and the arrow changes to right-pointing.

Is that what you meant by 'select and deselect'?

However, if I sign out and sign in again, the primary calendar name returns to being visible.

[StuartR]

OK, the only way I can remove the primary calendar from view is to click on the down-arrow in front of My Calendars...

Clicking on the arrow gives you this menu, so you could pick "show only this calendar" for one of your calendars.
You can also click on the calendar username to select and deselect a calendar.

This selection remains in force for me when I log out and back in again.

The coloured highlight shows which calendars are selected, so in this screenshot I have the Stuart calendar deselected.

[John Gray]

The problem then must be that I can't get the "Other Calendar" to join the primary calendar in "My Calendars"!

"Display only this calendar" works for each of "My calendars" or "Other Calendars", giving a minimum of one calendar per category...

calendar.GIF

[JoeP]

I would be trivial to setup a mailbox in your Exchange, share/delegate the Calendar with users in your organization, & let outsiders use OWA to logon to the mailbox just for Calendar access.

Joe

[StuartR]

The problem then must be that I can't get the "Other Calendar" to join the primary calendar in "My Calendars"...

This is probably due to the permissions they have granted you.

[John Gray]

The problem then must be that I can't get the "Other Calendar" to join the primary calendar in "My Calendars"...

This is probably due to the permissions they have granted you.

Well, since I've done the whole thing, I'd better check in Owner what things I can alter... Thanks!