Google Calendar FAQs

Setting Up Your Calendar

Google Calendar Icon

A: To change the default time zone and other settings, follow these steps:

  1. Access Google Calendar
  2. In the upper right of the page, click Settings
  3. On the General page, in the Language section, select a language
  4. In the Country and Your current time zone sections, select the appropriate options
  5. In the Date format section, select an option
  6. In the Time format section, select an option
  7. Click Save at the bottom of the page

A: Yes, by default, Google Calendar displays a pop-up reminder 10 minutes before an event. You change the reminder time by editing the settings for your calendar.

A: To receive event reminders, make sure your Calendar window is open.

A: Yes, you can specify a custom number of days. Click Settings in the upper-right corner of you Calendar window. On the General tab, select a number of days in the Custom view drop-down list.

A: No, this view isn't available.

A: Yes, you can view two time zones in Google Calendar. To add another time zone to your calendar view, click Settings. On the General tab, under Your current time zone, select another time zone in the Additional time zone list.

A: Yes, you can send meeting invitations to any email address.

A: By default, notifications are turned off. But you can turn reminders on, and choose whether to receive a pop-up notification or an email notification:

  1. Access Google Calendar
  2. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Settings
  3. Click the Calendars tab
  4. Under My Calendars, click the Notifications link for your calendar
  5. Choose the settings you want
  6. Click Save

A: Yes, open the event details to see who has accepted your invitation.

A: Yes, Google Calendar fully supports recurring meetings. To set one up, in your meeting invitation, select an option in the Repeats drop-down list.

A: Yes, if you drag the meeting to another time, Google Calendar will ask you if you want to notify your guests.

A: Your past events remain on your calendar forever, unless you delete them. If you want to view past events, make sure you wait a few seconds for Google Calendar to retrieve them for the date you select.

A: Yes. Open the instance that you want to edit, make your changes, and click Save. Google Calendar then asks you whether you want to apply your changes to just the selected meeting, all meetings, or all meetings moving forward.

A: Yes, Google Calendar has privacy settings. In the event details, select Private so only others with Make changes to events privileges (or higher) for your calendar can see the event and its details.

Calendar Sharing

A: Another employee's access to your calendar does not migrate automatically to your Google calendar. However, you can easily re-establish access by sharing your calendar. Instructions on how to share your calendar can be found on the Google G Suite page.

A: By default, your calendar's free/busy information is visible to those in Fitchburg State University.

You can also share your calendar with specific people at Fitchburg State University, and can give them one of the following levels of access:

  • See free/busy information only
  • See all event details
  • Make changes to your calendar
  • Make changes and share your calendar with others

A: Yes. If you want to access another employee's calendar, that person must give you permission by editing their calendar settings.

A: Yes, you can set up notifications for a shared calendar. Here's how to turn them on:

  1. Access Google Calendar
  2. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Settings
  3. Click the Calendars tab
  4. On the Calendars tab, click the Notifications link for the calendar
  5. Choose the settings you want
  6. Click Save

A: Yes, you can hide the calendar by clicking it in your list of calendars on the left of your calendar view.

Meeting Invitations

A: Not directly, but there's an easy workaround:

  1. Open the invitation
  2. Under Are You Coming? select Maybe
  3. Do one of the following:
    • To propose a new time to the host only, enter your proposal in the Add a Note field.
    • To propose a new time to all the attendees, click the Email guests link in the upper-right corner to send your new proposal in an email message to one or more attendees.

A: You can if the meeting host selected the option to allow guests to invite others. Here's how to forward an invitation:

  1. In your meeting invitation, click Add guests
  2. Type the email address to which you want to forward the invitation
  3. Click Save
  4. Google Calendar will ask you if you want to send an invitation to the new guest

After accepting the invitation, the new guest will receive updates to the meeting from the host. Note that the meeting host is notified by email that you invited another attendee.

A: In most cases you can. When possible, Google Calendar inserts an Add to Calendar link in the invitation. Click the link to add the invitation to your Google calendar. Otherwise, if the invitation is in the standard .ics format (such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes invitations), you can download the .ics file and upload it to Google Calendar.

Other Calendar Questions

A: By default, invitation replies are turned off in Google Calendar. You can turn them on by editing your calendar settings.