How can I manage visibility with my Google Calendar
August 27th, 2024
What if you avoided making your next proctologist appointment public?
When you expose your Google calendar to a third party, it's essential to configure the settings carefully to avoid a dumpling.It puts the pressure on!
So you might as well avoid doing anything at all. Don't panic, I'll explain everything.
What is visibility in Google Calendar?
Visibility means that your calendar is already shared (visible) by other people:
or it's a calendar that you manage yourself;
or it's a calendar within your organization, in which case everyone in your organization can see it.
The good news is that you can change what others can see about certain events.
Case 1: my Google Calendar is managed by my company
Let's just say I wouldn't recommend writing down your date with your lover!
There are limits dictated by company policies and Google Workspace features:
Google Workspace default settings can restrict the modification of certain aspects of the calendar, such as basic information that must be visible to all collaborators (e.g. "free/busy" availability indications).
Users cannot modify global visibility settings defined by company administrators, but very often these parameters are not "locked".
However, you can also mark event details as "private".
Case 2: I choose to share my personal Google Calendar
“Default Visibility" mode
“Default visibility" refers to the settings you have defined for your entire calendar.
Example: if your calendar is configured as private by default, all new events created will follow this setting.
“Public" mode
This is an event-specific parameter. The event can be viewed in detail by anyone who has access to your calendar.
“Private" mode
This is also an event-specific parameter. Only people to whom you have granted permission to make changes to your calendar will be able to find the details of your event.
How do I choose the right sharing setting for my calendar?
It's simple: your calendar (personal or organizational) can be private or public. If it's private, you can share it with specific people.
How do I choose between a private calendar shared with certain people and a public calendar?
Sharing a private calendar is very useful for :
Coordinating several teams: sharing your availability with Stan and Mary will be very effective for moving forward together.
Show your availability to a customer: are you working with several companies or are you a consultant? It's ideal for keeping track of everyone's schedules.
Family organization: this is the solution for keeping an eye on the children's activities and remembering that your husband is having brunch on Sunday August 16.
The public calendar is ideal for :
Integrate your calendar on a website.
Let anyone find your calendar on the Internet with a simple Google search.
Allow anyone to subscribe to your calendar and display it in their own Google Calendar.
Private calendar shared with specific persons
If your calendar is private, only specifically authorized people can access it. You define whether these people see only your availability (busy/available) or the full details of your events. By default, events are shown as "busy".
You can grant 4 permissions:
Show availability only: event details are not displayed.
See all event details: every detail is visible.
Make changes to events.
Make changes to events and manage sharing.
Public calendar
Anyone with a link to your calendar can see all the event details, without restriction. I've covered all this in detail in an article dedicated to Google Calendar, so go and read it to find out more.
How do I Make Google Calendar viewable to others? By default, your Google Calendar is private. Not sure? Make sure you haven't checked the "Make available to public" box.
The professional's eye: managing visibility with multiple calendars
Advantages and limitations of Google Calendar
What I love about Google Calendar is its ability to manage multiple calendars with a single Google account. This is really great for professionals juggling various projects, several companies or for those who want to keep their professional and private lives separate.
But it can also get complicated, as explained in the article How to Sync Multiple Calendars to Display Your Availability and Avoid Scheduling Conflicts.
Example: you have 2 calendars, and if you want an event to appear on both, you need to open each calendar and edit the event on each.
What's more, when you link several Google calendars together, you can't customize the sync.
The SyncThemCalendars solution
It's the perfect tool for customizing your synchronizations by managing several calendars at once.
Typical use case: you work as a consultant with your own Google Calendar; you also work for a company that has created a Google Workspace account for you. So you have 2 Google Calendars. You need every event in your personal calendar to appear in your company calendar.
It couldn't be simpler: with SyncThemCalendars, you can define a synchronization from a target calendar to a source calendar, fine-tuning a whole set of parameters so that the synchronization is EXACTLY what you want, not what Google suggests.
You have control over 7 parameters (yes, that's a magic number ✨ ) that allow you to choose the precise details of an event that appears in your target calendar:
Summary
Description
Location
Visibility
Availability
Reminder
Color
To manage what is visible or not on your target calendar, 3 parameters are essential:
Summary: this is the title of an event, which you must fill in when you create it.
Description: this is the event detail, which does not have to be filled in; you can leave it blank.
Visibility: this is the term used to identify the nature of an event: public or private. It is not obligatory to specify this.
Example: in your personal calendar, you've noted an appointment with your lover. You need this appointment to appear in your company calendar, so that no events are added at the same time by a colleague. However, you don't want the whole company to know the reason for the appointment.
We've got the solution!
Our method in 3 steps :
Create your appointment with all the details in your personal calendar (source calendar).
With SyncThemCalendars, you can change the settings to suit your colleagues.
That's all there is to it!
Conclusion
To manage your settings when you share your calendar and have several calendars to manage, opt for a third-party tool such as SyncThemCalendars, which makes up for Google Calendar's shortcomings.
Try our synchronization tool here and see the difference!
Oh, and if you ever need to fine-tune synchronizations between a target calendar and a source calendar, we've got that feature too.