I Love Google, let me say it again in case you didn’t hear me the first time I LOVE Google!!
Not just from the standpoint of being our “friendly, neighbourhood” search engine, but also for the cool extra’s they offer. One in particular from the VA standpoint that I absolutely love is Google Calendars.
Sharing Calendars with clients has never been an easy task, I’ve tried many different mediums in which to do this, some complicated and some ridiculously complicated.
Then Google Calendars showed up with this fantastic sync software for Outlook and I’m in heaven! Best of all it’s a free tool -let me say it again…yes, it’s FREE!
Of course, I was a little sceptical at first, I’ve used free items such as Yahoo Calendars and although it worked great on Windows XP, when I made that daring switch to VISTA, well Yahoo Calendars went “Kaput!!” on me.
The sync software for Google calendar was easy to install, was Vista friendly and simply just a dream come true. I’ve been testing it out using my Outlook calendar as the guinea pig and it’s been running so smooth I can’t believe it!
How it works is simple, you sign up for Google Calendar, you download the sync software and away you go (it’s recommended that you make a backup of your Outlook calendar, just on the safe side). Now, if you are using an email program other than Outlook then you’re going to have to check out the compatibility, but I can attest it does work beautifully with Outlook 2007.
Now that it’s set up my assistant accesses my Google Calendar on line, adds my appointments and the sync software does the rest.
A great feature to the sync software is the automatic synchronizing feature. I have it set up to sync with my Outlook Calendar every 60 minutes and it hasn’t let me down yet.
One word of caution, make sure that your online Google calendar and system settings are on the same time zone, otherwise the times will be off when you schedule appointments.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Google Calendars is entirely headache free, I’ve been reading some of the troubleshooting entries and help files and there seems to be a few glitches along the way. I fortunately have not experienced any difficulties with it to date!
Please know, I’m not writing this to encourage you to move to Google as your calendar management tool, if you’re using something that works and you’re happy with, don’t rock the boat.
However if you are using something you’re not entirely happy with check it out! www.google.ca
PS: If you’re a VA and plan on using this with a client, be sure that you download it yourself and become very familiar with how it works. It will be up to your client to install the sync software on their end and you want to ensure you can provide them with support every step of the way during that process.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I’ve been meaning to check this out and will now! Thanks MJ
June 6th, 2008 at 8:32 am
I use Google Calendar w/ Outlook sync too and LOVE it!!! I have not had any problems with it at all. My husband and I use the Google Calendar to enter both of our work schedules, our appointments, the kid’s stuff, etc. so we don’t double book, then we both sync Outlook to our mobile phones. The one thing I don’t like is that you can’t sync more than one Google Calendar yet, but supposedly they are working on that. If you’re (readers of this comment) not familiar with Google calendar, you can have more than one calendar; say one your whole family uses (like ours) and then a business calendar, and you can choose which calendars you want to view and which calendar you want to enter appointments and such in. Right now Google calendar can only sync one calendar with Outlook. I will be glad when they can sync more than one. Then, for me and my business, it will be a great tool! Right now, it’s a great tool for family scheduling because we have all of our stuff on one calendar.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Michelle…
I used Google Synch with a dear friend, and the only glitch we’ve had is that every so often, one of us can no longer see the other’s calendar. It’s almost as if Google hiccups. Within a day things are back to normal. It doesn’t matter so much to us, but it would bug me if I were using it professionally.
So, professionally, I use a hosted Exchange server service (Mailstreet.com). It’s never failed me, and I’ve been using it for nearly five years.
Great blog–kudos for writing!
Stacy
June 7th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Michelle, great entry. I love Google too and Google calendar does make life a lot easier. I am also using their groups to create private online forums for my group coaching program so we can all stay connected. In my humble opinion, Google is where it’s at.
Congrats on your new blog!!!
June 8th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Michelle, you are so right! I love Google too.
I use many of their tools with my clients everyday for collaborating and sharing information. Each tool really compliments another.
In fact, I often think about becoming a Google VA.
Thanks for sharing this valuable information.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Thanks everyone and Stacy thanks for the resource!