Google Calendar Tips for Extension Employees

Below are some recommended tips for how to share your calendar, make individual meetings private and adding travel time to meetings.

Sharing your U of MN Google calendar 

By default, anyone at the U of MN (TC Campus) can view your University Google calendar. What can people see on your calendar? Meetings on your calendar will display to others as “busy” but it does not show the details of your meetings. 

For the people we work with closely and to comply with Extension policy, you should allow certain people to see all event details by sharing your calendar with specific people. This includes your supervisor, work team, support staff and others who need to see your schedule to do their job. 

What about events that need to be private? 

Personal appointments, interviews, meetings with HR and any meeting that you don't want others to see can be marked as "private". This is especially important for supervisors or if you need to protect others privacy. Events marked as private will display as "busy" and not show any details to the people you've shared your calendar with. 

Sharing your calendar with specific people:

1. Open your Google Calendar Settings (click the gear button at the top of your calendar)
2. Under Settings for my calendars, select your calendar
3. Under Share with specific people or groups, add the email address of the person you want to share with
4. Change the permission setting to See all event details
5. Click Send. They will receive a notification that you have shared your calendar with them.

Access permissions for everyone at UMN:

Optional: to allow everyone at the UMN to See all event details, change this setting under Access permissions for events. This option can be easier than having to manage sharing with several individuals. 

Learn more about access permissions on this Google help page.

How to make individual meetings private

When you allow others to See all event details on your calendar, you should set some events as private. Events that are marked as private will display as "busy" to everyone, even if they have permission to see all event details. 

1. Open the meeting you want to mark private
2. Under Default visibility, select Private

 Add travel time to meetings 

Adding your travel time to and from meetings is an important part of managing your calendar. This will prevent people from scheduling meetings at a time you are traveling. Create a separate “travel time” meeting before and after your meeting. Here is a quick way to add travel time to your calendar.

As always, we welcome comments, tips and feedback on the QuickBytes blog.