Nuketown

Google Calendar integration with iCal, Outlook

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 5:30am

One of my goals this fall has been to get my calendars under control, and to do a better job of keeping track of what I'm doing (and where I'm supposed to be doing it). Somedays that works better than others (Monday, in which I forgot my wife had yoga, would be one of the bad days) but all in all I'm making progress. A big reason for this is that I'm syncing my home and work calenders in iCal via Google Calendar. My calendars "live" on Google, but I'm able to add and edit events via iCal thanks to Google CalDAV support. This article explains how to get it working:

The beauty of this is that since it's all on Google, my wife can log in using her Google account, add events to the home calendar, and see what I'm up to at work. When I have a chance, I want to take things a step further, and get calendar syncing working on her Windows computer via Outlook, which will allow her to do the same thing I'm doing with iCal. Instructions for syncing Google Calendar and Outlook can be found here:

The one problem I had with this (which was my undoing on Monday) was that I can't set alarms via Google itself; I have to do that in iCal. Now that I know this, I've gone in and set an audio reminder in iCal for Sue's yoga sessions, so with any luck every device I own should now buzz/beep/vibrate to remind me that hey, I should really be heading home.

Sam Anzalone (not verified) said,

Sat, 10/04/2008 - 2:10am

I use both Outlook (at work) & Google Calendar (home). One utility i find very useful for merging the two is WinCalendar. It alows me to import both into a fully formatted Excel or Word based calendar. There is a free version at available at www.WinCalendar.com. This comes in very handy if you need to further customize & then print out the calendar to use as flyers to promote events.

Sam A

»

Lance (not verified) said,

Fri, 10/03/2008 - 8:28am

I've been using Google Calendar Sync (for Outlook) for about 6 months now, and it's awesome. It's great to be able to access my work calendar anywhere via the web. We seem to get busier every year, and scheduling family events, doctor appts, etc. around our work schedules is really difficult otherwise. Before, it always seemed like we couldn't make any plans from at home, because I couldn't check my work appointments.

A couple months ago, we also got Blackberrys at work, so since they sync with our Exchange server, I literally have my calendar anywhere I go. Very useful!

»

Kenneth Newquist said,

Fri, 10/03/2008 - 9:00am

Syncing to handhelds is also a godsend; I've got my Mac syncing to my iPod (useful) and the development iPod Touch I have for work (way, way more useful). The nice thing about the Touch is that the interface is much easier to read than on the regular iPod, and I can add new events (which is handy if I'm in a meeting).

I imagine any handheld offers the same advantages, but where this all really comes together -- as you pointed out -- is when it syncs back to Google and then WHAMMO you have your calendar anywhere you have internet access. Which, at least for most geeks, is everywhere.

It doesn't negate the need to sit down and talk about family schedules, but it sure does make keeping track of it all a lot easier.

»