Welcome to Module 6, customize Google Calendar. Google Calendar allows you to adjust settings to match the way you work. Now that we've covered the key features of Google Calendar, we'll look at how to customize it further using some of the different settings available. In your calendar settings under Language and Region, you can specify your language, country, and date and time formats. Under View Options set your preferences to see or hide weekends, decline events, and week numbers. You can also reduce the brightness of past events so they appear in muted colors on the calendar grid. You can choose your preferred first day of the week, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. In addition to the day, week, month, year, and the schedule views provided in Google Calendar, you can add your own custom view. For example, you might want to add a view that shows two days at a time. If you require an alternative to the default Gregorian Calendar, select it from the drop-down list. The alternate dates will appear below the primary dates on the calendar grid. You can also show calendars side-by-side. If you select this option, you'll see the calendars to which you're subscribed alongside your own when viewing your calendar in day view. This is a great way to view other people's schedules. Give it a try. Now, have you ever worked with people across different time zones? Well, Google Calendar supports chang in both event and calendar default time zones. To change your time zone for all calendars, open your Google Calendar Settings, and choose a new primary time zone. You can also change the time zone for a single calendar, under Calendar Settings after selecting the calendar from the list. Guests will always see events in the time zone they have set for their own calendars. Do you need to always see the time in another time zone? Maybe that's where your manager or a teammate is located. Well, Google Calendar, lets you display the time in a secondary location. In Google Calendar Settings, select Display Secondary Time Zone, and choose a secondary time zone from the list. The primary and secondary time zones will appear on the left side of the calendar grid. You can also add a world clock to show multiple time zones. Just check the box for World Clock in your Settings, and add the time zones you want to see. The times will appear along with icons indicating day or night below the mini calendar. Finally, when you create an event, you can choose a different time zone for the event in the details window next to the date and time for the event. In Google Calendar, you can specify the default settings to make calendar work for you. To change the defaults, select Event Settings under General. From here, you can choose a default duration for new events. Have you ever attended consecutive meetings and not had time to get from one meeting room to another? Well, to avoid that and to encourage quicker meetings, check Speedy Meetings to end events a few minutes early. Now, just watch your productivity sore. You can also change default guest permissions here. Remember, you can change this setting for individual events as needed. An intelligent feature of Google Calendar is offered as part of its integration with Gmail with the events from Gmail setting. This allows Gmail to automatically create an event on your primary calendar by analyzing the content of a Gmail message. For example, if you receive an email confirmation for a flight or hotel booking, you determine who can see this type of event. You can choose to use your calendar default settings, set these events to be private, or set them to only me so that you alone can see the event. Setting working hours in Google Calendar settings will let people know you're available hours for meetings, warning them if they invite you to an event outside your hours. This is particularly useful when working with others in different global locations. Check the Enable Working Hours Box and set your hours by day.
