How to manage your availability in your organization's google calendar

Managing your work and personal calendars sometimes feels like playing a role in Inception, doesn't it? Don’t worry, you're not alone. With layers upon layers of calendars, it’s easy to get lost.

Fortunately, optimizing your availability in Google Calendar is simpler than it seems.

Follow my tips to ensure your days are as well-aligned as your dreams… without the complications of Leonardo DiCaprio.

I am a user: what I can do with Google Calendar

Share your personal calendar with your work account

Open Google Calendar on your personal account (example: [email protected]) : 

• Under "Share with specific people," add your work address (example: [email protected]). 

• Choose the level of access.

Manage sharing permissions: 

• Modify calendar access: You can adjust permissions for who can see your availability or even manage your events. 

• Make your calendar public or private: For broader access, you can make your calendar visible to anyone with the link, or limit access only to your organization.

Set up work hours with the "Working Hours" feature

This feature allows you to specify the time slots during which you're available.

1. Go to Google Calendar settings. Under the "General" section, click on "Working hours & location." 

2. Check the "Enable working hours" box if it's not already enabled. 

3. Set your working hours for each day of the week. 

Example: Monday: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Tuesday: 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM

How does it work? 

• Visibility to others: If a meeting is proposed outside of these hours, the organizer will receive a notification indicating that the event is outside your working hours. 

• Notifications: You can choose to receive notifications when meetings are scheduled outside of your working hours, allowing you to decide whether to accept or decline the invitation. 

• Sync with other calendars: Your working hours will also help avoid conflicts between your two Google Calendars.

💡Pro Tip! Use availability statuses: Set your status to "Busy" or "Free" for specific time slots.

Avoid calendar conflicts with automatic checks

Here’s how this feature works and how to use it effectively:

Step 1: Ensure visibility between your calendars.

Share your calendars as explained above, from your personal calendar to your work calendar, and vice versa: repeat the same steps for each account. This way, you can then display multiple calendars simultaneously.

💡Pro Tip! Use colors to differentiate calendars by assigning a distinct color to each one.

Step 2: Schedule events considering all your calendars 

Google Calendar visually displays time slots already occupied on your other visible calendars. You can also use the "Find a time" feature when creating an event. This option analyzes the availability of all participants (and your own calendars) to suggest the best time slot.

When an invitation to an event is received, Google Calendar automatically checks if the proposed time conflicts with other events on your visible calendars. If a conflict is detected, you will be notified.

Step 3: Configure conflict detection settings 

Choose to receive notifications by email or directly through the app.

I am an administrator: what I can do with Google Calendar

Configure calendar sharing at the organization level

Sharing rules dictate how users can share their calendars, both inside and outside the organization. You have three options:

1. Share only with domain users: This option limits calendar sharing to organization members. External users won’t be able to view calendars, even if a share link is sent. 

2. Allow external sharing with restrictions, such as displaying only availability (without event details) or allowing only certain people to share externally. 

3. Share freely with everyone: If your organization requires a high level of transparency and collaboration with external partners, you can allow calendars to be shared with anyone.

Oversee personal calendar integration

As an administrator, you can decide whether users are allowed to import their personal calendars into the company’s system.

You can allow importation while applying restrictions on the information that is shared.

Example: display only availability rather than full event details.

💡Pro Tip: Train and inform! 

• Provide clear instructions to users on how to import their personal calendar and best practices to maintain confidentiality. 

• Offer tutorials or internal training sessions.

The Professional's Eye: Managing Your Availability with Multiple Calendars

The limits of Google Calendar

Sure, Google Calendar lets you sync various calendars, but it’s not always as smooth as you’d like. Events don’t always update in real-time, and you might end up with mismatched appointments or annoying duplicates. 

To put it more technically, it lacks an automatic and seamless integration to coordinate events between multiple calendars in a bidirectional way without sync errors or delays.

What SyncThemCalendars does

To avoid these issues, there are tools like SyncThemCalendars, which act as an intelligent intermediary: it ensures all your calendars are properly synced. 

In short, whenever you add or modify an event, these tools handle everything and ensure the information is updated everywhere without you having to lift a finger. 

You can set up synchronization from a source calendar to a target calendar. You have control over seven parameters that define how the details of an event from your source calendar appear in your target calendar:

• Summary

• Description

• Location

• Visibility

• Availability

• Reminder

• Color

The advantage of the "availability" parameter? You can define whether events from your source calendar block booking slots or not: the "busy" status prevents bookings, while the "free" status allows them.

You can clearly see this in the screenshot below: in my personal calendar, which is my source calendar, I’m receiving a delivery of sex toys during a broad time slot, between 7:30 AM and 5:00 PM, because I’m working from home that day. Does that mean I’ll be unavailable all day? Of course not, because I’m a model employee 😇!

My love for work comes first! So, I’m available, and my beloved colleagues can schedule meetings.

Conclusion

When managing your settings while sharing your personal calendar with your company’s calendar, opt for a third-party tool like SyncThemCalendars.

Try our synchronization tool here, it’s free and without obligation! No credit card required.

Oh, and if you ever need to finely tune syncs between a target calendar and a source calendar, we also have various visibility settings.