Google Calendar Problem

[rocknrollstar]

We use a google apps at school. I am looking to improve our calendar situation.

I'd like to have 1 calendar across the whole (can be shared) that everyone uses. We don't need individual calendars. Especially, I'd like to make this shared calendar the default calendar across all users, so that when they add an event, it goes onto the shared calendar without having to do anything. Currently, a quick add will go into the personal calendar.

Do you think this could be done? It seems like a fairly simple request, but no solution found yet.

Thanks for your help!

[FN-GM]

Select the calendar you want to share. Press share then hit the checkbox:

"Share this calendar with everyone in the organisation"

[localzuk]

Select the calendar you want to share. Press share then hit the checkbox:

"Share this calendar with everyone in the organisation"

That won't do what he wants.

I don't think there is a way to do what you want roocknrollstar. Google Apps isn't designed for that sort of customisation - it is about having tools available to each person personally, and then being able to share those things.

[CyberNerd]

We are using google docs calendars for the whole site. It was set up by our snr technician.
We set up 15 or so fake user accounts - each of these 'users' are just for calendars. The permissions were set on the individual calendars, some have full web- access for our website for public access and these calendars are merged into the whole school calendar on the website. The other calendars are for specific uses, some have staff only access and some have staff/student access.
We then give access rights of certain people (or groups of people) to be able to edit, or add to these calendars as appropriate.

The problem we faced is that it doesn't seem to be easy to add a specific calendar to several users at once. Instead we published links to the calendars on the website and staff need to choose the calendars they want to add. Not a huge problem, but a bit inconvenient.

[rocknrollstar]

Thanks FN-GM, but that's not exactly what I was after

[rocknrollstar]

That won't do what he wants.

I don't think there is a way to do what you want roocknrollstar. Google Apps isn't designed for that sort of customisation - it is about having tools available to each person personally, and then being able to share those things.

I think you're right- Google Apps isn't actually overly friendly for organisational control. I've just had to login to 30 different accounts to do what I really wanted... It is much more individual than I thought, which is rather surprising.

[rocknrollstar]

We are using google docs calendars for the whole site. It was set up by our snr technician.
We set up 15 or so fake user accounts - each of these 'users' are just for calendars. The permissions were set on the individual calendars, some have full web- access for our website for public access and these calendars are merged into the whole school calendar on the website. The other calendars are for specific uses, some have staff only access and some have staff/student access.
We then give access rights of certain people (or groups of people) to be able to edit, or add to these calendars as appropriate.

The problem we faced is that it doesn't seem to be easy to add a specific calendar to several users at once. Instead we published links to the calendars on the website and staff need to choose the calendars they want to add. Not a huge problem, but a bit inconvenient.

Your last sentence is a good idea, but as you say, it's a little inconvienient. Have spent the hour logging in individually, so that when users login, it's all setup for them. At least it's a smaller school!

[CyberNerd]

I think you're right- Google Apps isn't actually overly friendly for organisational control. I've just had to login to 30 different accounts to do what I really wanted... It is much more individual than I thought, which is rather surprising.

There is an up-side to this; users (Heads of Dept, snr team etc) get to manage their own groups and calendars - much less involvement from the IT team, which I like. Also, there is advantages to multiple calendaring in larger environments - The yr 7 tutors don't always need to see the sixth form calendars etc. So it's nice that they can just click the calendars on or off, which makes google calendars much more usable. But yes it can be a hassle for college wide calendaring, hence we let staff 'build' their own calendars out of the available published calendars.