How To Share Your Google Calendar with Someone Outside Your Organization
A How-to Tutorial
So you’ve just hired some help and want to share our calendar with them. Or you’ve created a calendar for your group coaching program and want to share it with all the participants.
But when you go to share it, the only option you have “See only free/busy” - WTH???
How in the world do you share the actual details of the calendar???
I get this question a lot. And every time I sigh because, while the fix is easy, I’m frustrated that Google hasn’t made it more obvious.
But like I said — it’s actually very easy to do!
So let’s dive in…
How To Share Your Google Calendar
There are two areas of settings you need to update — the domain-level settings (for your organization as a whole) and then the specific calendar settings. The whole process shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes to do. (Scroll down for a video walk-through of these instructions.)
Update your Domain-level Share Settings:
Open your Google Calendar
Click the 9-grid dots in the top right next to your account name
Select “Admin” to open up the Admin Console
Select “Apps”
Select “G Suite”
Click on “Calendar”
Click on “Share Settings”
Click on “External sharing options for primary calendars”
Select the option that is right for you and your needs (I use the most broad option “Share all information, and allow managing of calendars” so I have all options available to me)
Click “Save”
Update the Calendar-level Share Setting:
Go back to your Google Calendar
On the left side of the screen, hover over the calendar you want to share
Click the three dots to the right of the calendar name
Click “Settings and Sharing”
Scroll down to “Share with specific people”
Click “Add People”
Enter the email address of the person you are sharing your calendar with and select the level of access you want them to have.
“See only free/busy” — This will allow others see that you have something schedule, but they won’t be able to see any information about the event. It will show up as “Busy” on their end. This is the most restrictive setting.
“See all event details” — This will allow others see all the details of the event, but NOT be able to make any changes or add events to your calendar. (This is the one I use when sharing calendars with groups, such as with my group coaching programs or networking groups.)
“Make changes to events” — This will allow others to see the details AND be able to make changes and add events to your calendar. (This is the one I use the most when sharing calendars with my team.)
“Make changes and manage sharing” — This will allow others to do everything above AND change sharing permissions for others. (I don’t recommend this one for 99% of situations.)
Click “Send” to send an email to notify your person.
They need to click on the link in that email to gain access to the calendar
If you still have issues, you MIGHT have to change one other setting:
Scroll down to “Access Permissions” and check “Make available to public” is checked and “See all event details” is selected. (Note - this is not the most secure, but it will open up your calendar to anyone that has the link or searches for it on google.)
That’s it! You’re now sharing your calendar with someone outside your organization!
My favorite person to share my calendar with is… MYSELF!
I share my work calendar with my personal calendar (and vice versa). I do this so that I can keep my work and personal events separate, but still view them on either calendar. And… I can add events no matter which calendar I’m looking at.
So if I’m looking at my work calendar and need to add a doctor’s appointment to my personal calendar, I can do it without having to open up my personal calendar (and having yet another tab open in my browser…) Once the calendars are shared with each other (I use the “Make changes to events” setting), I can now create an event and select whichever calendar I want it go to on.
Like video tutorials better? Here ya go!
See how easy it is?! Go give it a try!
Have more questions or want more help with Google Calendar? Comment below or DM me on Instagram.