Calendar Instructions

The intention was to have a calendar system that was easy to use, allowed many people to add events and that let users choose only the calendars they want to see. We have so much more!

-Enter a location -and a map link is automatically generated!
-Enter an event in one place and it shows up on a lot of websites!
-Automatically send an e-mail invite to up to 500 people -and they can RSVP! Since most mailings are about events, this may replace your mailing list program!

And lots more!

Choose calendars to view
First, find the little arrow tab next to the Agenda tab at the top right of the calendar. This reveals a drop-down list of all the calendars available to you.



You can turn calendars on and off to avoid clutter (here I've turned off the General Interest Calendar).

On the CD3 website and the Aurora site the CD3 calendar shows all available calendars on the system. On your SD site, however, you might not see all of the other SD calendars.

See details of an event
Next, click an event once for a balloon with details and a map to the event.

Note at the end of the "Where" field there is a link to a map. Also note that if you have a Google account you can click the "Add to Calendar" link to add the event to your personal Google Calendar!

Click "more details" to see more of the event description.

You can also view events by day, week, month and by agenda. Try these to see what they do. In Agenda mode you can click the name of an event to expand details:





Who Enters Events
All SDs, Candidates and anyone else who wants an event posted should post it themselves. The CD3 and Aurora Web Gurus can't do this anymore -it is just too big a job!

Permissions
To enter events on calendars you must have permission. E-mail me at if you think you should be adding events. We do want more people adding events!

Creating an event
Getting Started
Click any day on the calendar. A balloon pops up and you can add basic info. Include a time and event name. If you have permission for more than one calendar you may choose which calendar the event will post to.

Getting Detailed!
Clicking "edit event details" brings up many useful options:

-Choices for start and end times and repeating events

-Enter a proper address (not directions!) in the "Where" field and a Google Map link will appear with the event. No zip code is OK if you have a city and state. Note: Put any written directions in with your announcement in the "description" field.

-Enter a detailed description. To include a link type the full url (http://www. etc.) and it will be a link when you save. At this time text editing is extremely limited and pasted text does not always format right. Maybe that will change.


Reminders
You can set -automatic e-mail reminders for yourself in the Options area when you create the event. As of now this does not seem to also send reminders to invited guests except perhaps on the day of the event.

Inviting Guests

You can invite up to 500 guests; simply copy their e-mail addresses into the "Add guests" box! Each guest gets an invite via e-mail and they can click a link to RSVP back to you! Guests can even comment on the event. How cool is that?! It gets cooler -you can save the list as a group so you can use it again. (See Google's help for how).

Duplicating Events on other calendars
While logged in, click the event, choose "copy to my calendar". In the edit window you can choose the calendar you want to duplicate the event to in the "Calendar" pull down menu.

Permitting other users to enter events
Some users have permission not only to post events but invite others to post events.

When logged into Google Calendar, choose manage calendars, choose the individual calendar, choose "Shared: Edit settings". In that window you'll see a place to add the e-mail address of the person you are adding (if you don't, then you do not have permission to do this). You can enter more than one e-mail at a time if you separate e-mails by commas (and Google Calendar is also smart enough not to duplicate an address).

In the Permission Settings field "See all event details" only applies to private calendars so ignore this. "Make Changes" lets people add events to the calendar. "Make changes and Manage Sharing" additionally allows them to ad people as you are doing right now.

Many folks use Google Calendar to keep track of events and appointments. You can also make it see the calendars in the CD3 calendar system! Here's how:

Sign up for a Google account. It's easy and free.
Go to Google Calendar page. Here you can add public calendars and use the personal calendar Google's already set up for you! To add more calendars to your Google Calendar click "Add" and choose "Add by URL"
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Add any or all of the following addresses in (one by one) to subscribe:
(Note: Don't copy the name, just the string of characters!)

Al
Ash
Barak
CD3
CD3 Vets
General Interest
SD32
SD33
SD40
SD41
SD42
SD43
SD45
SD46
SD47
SD49
SD63

iGoogle is a personal web page just for you with "widgets" -little boxes that tell you things like the weather or show you news feeds from news and magazine sites, or displays an artwork of the day -all sorts of things! One of the most useful is the Google Calendar widget. It will pull events from the calendars you have subscribed to (as above) and list them for you. I make iGoogle my default browser page so I can see my appointments and CD3 calendar system events. Here is a look at my iGoogle:



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Once you start using the system you will see how powerful it really is!
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