Basics 5: Share Your Google Calendars

If there is a single, most-powerful feature to electronic calendars, it is the ability to share them with others. Google calendars can be shared in very detailed ways with any number of users, from various calendar platforms, and with customized levels of access. Follow the steps below to explore Google Calendar's methods and capabilities for sharing.

1. Start by logging into your Lehigh Google Calendar at https://g.lehigh.edu

2. In the Google Calendar window, on the left border, under 'My Calendars', if you move your mouse over one of the entries, you'll see a sort of 'vertical ellipsis' button.

Click that button, and in the menu that appears, click 'Settings and Sharing'.

You can do this for any of your calendars. Creating separate ones allows you to create ones with separate settings . . .

3. In that calendar's 'Calendar settings' window, you can scroll through all of that calendar's settings, including the name, description, time zone etc.

Notice the section shortcuts on the left, that jump to those areas in the settings list, and the general 'Access Permissions' area.

To make a calendar fully public, that is, viewable to anyone on the internet, you can check the box next to 'Make available to public'. On the right-hand end of that line, you can select the level of access to give to that group.

To publish this calendar to the Lehigh community, check the box next to 'Make available for Lehigh University'. Again, use the pull-down on the right to select the level of access. In my case, I'm only showing the Lehigh community whether I'm 'Free or Busy' -- not the details of what I'm doing at those times.

4. Scroll a little further to find the 'Share with specific people' section, where you can:

Click 'Add people' to specify permissions for other Google users by typing their email address.
Click on the 'x' at the end of their entry to remove them.
Note that they can be from outside 'lehigh.edu'

5. Scroll even farther, and discover:

settings for receiving notifications when events on the calendar are going to happen,
notifications when changes are made to this calendar,
Alternate links to this calendar in other formats for embedding into web pages, or linking to iCal calendar programs (Apple Calendar)
And the button to delete the calendar.