What is an online calendar?
Most of us have a lot going on and struggle to keep track of everything. Paper calendars help, but they have some drawbacks: space is limited, rescheduling can get messy, you have to write everything by hand, and they’re difficult to share with others.
An online calendar looks fairly similar to the original, with all of your events, but you have more flexibility because everything is digital. It’s easy to reschedule things, add recurring events, and view any time period you want. Plus, you can access your calendar app from any device and even share it with friends and coworkers. Online calendars might not have fun artwork like paper calendars, but they’re much more powerful—once you use them, it’s hard to imagine going back..
Online calendar features
Calendar apps vary, but most have the same benefits: helping you plan, stay organized, and keep track of deadlines. Here’s what you can do with online calendars, depending on which app you use:
- Create personal and business appointments.
- View other people’s schedules and organize meetings based on availability.
- Check meeting room availability and choose a location.
- See meeting invite responses.
- Share your calendar and adjust sharing settings so others see event details or just that you’re busy or free.
- View multiple calendars at a time, like work, personal, and holidays.
- See your upcoming day, week, month, or year as well as past events.
- Set appointment reminders, from five minutes to several weeks before the event.
- Create recurring meetings, whether they’re weekly, yearly, or a certain day each month.
- Give other employees access to manage your business calendar app.
- Check the upcoming weather forecast.
- Categorize events by color.
- Automatically accept or decline meetings based on your availability.
How online calendars connect to your existing apps
One of the best aspects of online calendars is that they connect with your other apps. Here’s how to use them together.
Email: When you organize a new meeting, your online calendar will create an email invite for attendees with the details, such as whether their attendance is required or optional. You can also send your entire calendar via email so people can see when you’re free. In some calendar apps, dragging an email from your inbox to the calendar icon will automatically create a new meeting with the email content in the meeting details.
Videoconferencing: Some calendar apps connect to videoconference apps, so when you click Meet now or New meeting in your calendar, it creates a meeting invite that includes the videoconference link. a meeting invite that includes the videoconference link.
Documents: When you create a new event, some calendars show an Attach file option so you can add a document, video, or image to the invite for attendees to review before or during the meeting.
Note-taking app: When you open an event in some calendar apps, you’ll see an option to create minutes in your note-taking app. You can choose whether you want to share your notes or keep them private.
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