Appointment Slots in Google Calendar
A great feature popped up in my Google Apps for Educaiton GCal the other day. I was putting in some meetings and noticed an “Appointment Slots” link in the event window.
Not sure how long it’s been out (please somebody tell me it hasn’t been years), but it’s turning out to be a fantastic tool for education.
Basically you can “slot out” chunks of time on your calendar to allow others to make appintments with you on your calendar. Once you active Appintment Slots you get a special URL that only shows the slots in your calendar you want to allow people to make an appintment with you.
I’ve already used it when teachers have e-mailed me asking for a time to meet. Instead of 3 or 4 e-mails back and forth to find a common time, I just send them the link to my Appointmnet Slots and they choose a slot that works for them. Saving us both time and e-mails. Update: Today I added it to my signature so it’s always in front of teachers when I e-mail them.
I could see this being using for elementary conference times. Teacher’s could share their appointment slots with parents and parents could just sign up in a slot that fits their time. No more slips of paper, no more juggling schudules. Simple and straight forward.
When creating your time slots you can adjust the chucks of time you want your appiointments to be. I break my slots up into 30 minute meeting times. If a teacher wants to meet for longer than 30 minutes they just fill out two appintments back to back.
I’m sure there are a million other uses for this new feature in the classroom and schools at large. What ideas do you have?
Interesting; they have added the functionality of http://tungle.me
Wow, thanks for news of this feature – it is also available in Google Calendar for those of us whose schools are still enthralled to Microsoft (I keep wishing we would get GoogleApps at my school)… but I just checked; this is also available in the regular Google Calendar:
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=190998
I am in LOVE with this feature – as you mentioned, no more emails back and forth trying to match a time to meet with teachers!
Great minds think alike, I just added the link to my signature too!
Jeff, I’ve been using them for teachers who need to schedule time for one-on-one technology training with me (I started a Technology Integration Specialist position this year). It has been working beautifully, but we have discussed using it to schedule the laptop cart and computer lab, too.
Wow I find this very interesting. I never knew all you would have to do is type something in, in a certain time slot and then the appointment would be all set up. I also like the fact that you don’t have to deal with paper and schedules and other things all you have to do is type it in on the calendar.
Wow, I think this is a very cool feature that has been added to google. I never knew about it till now but i think that it could prove useful for a lot of teachers and parents. No more slips of paper or constant e-mails. I love how the internet always has a way to do something better, easier, or faster.
jduval16
This feature seems very interesting and i’ve never noticed that it was added to Google Calendar. It seems that it would prove very helpful to parents and teachers. This new appointment feature would really save teachers and parents much valuable time. This post not only opened my eyes to a new feature but also showed me that Google is one of the best developers of apps big and small and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to stop anytime soon.
This new appointment feature seems very interesting and i’ve never noticed that it was added to Google Calendar. It seems that it would prove very helpful to parents and teachers. This would really save them much valuable time, but it doesn’t stop with just adults, students can check when their teacher will be available for after school projects, help, etc. by using the appointment feature. This post not only opened my eyes to a new feature but also showed me that Google is one of the best developers of apps big and small and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to stop anytime soon.
Wow I find the Google Calender very interesting. I never knew all you would have to do is type something in, in a certain time slot and then the appointment would be all set up. I also like the fact that you don’t have to deal with paper and schedules and other things, all you have to do is type it in on the calendar. This is implemented at my school TRMS.