Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Create Appointment Slots on a Google Calendar

(Cross-posted from Instructional FAQs for Yukon Public Schools)

“Appointment slots” are a feature in Google Calendars which allow calendar owners to let other people “sign up” for specific appointments on different dates and times. This can be handy for resource checkout calendars, like a mobile laptop cart or a computer lab. It can also work for things like parent/teacher conferences. The Google support article, “Using Appointment Slots” provides information and steps for using this feature. In this post, I’ll list and show the steps for creating calendar slots on a calendar you’ve created. It’s a good idea to create SEPARATE calendars for each resource you’d like to check out, but that’s not required. When you create an appointment slot on a Google Calendar, Google will create a unique “Appointment Slot Calendar Link” you can share with others to sign up. People can sign up for open slots and delete their own reservation, but can’t edit or change reservations made by others.

The steps for creating “calendar slots” on a Google Calendar are:

1- In the left sidebar, choose to view only 1 calendar (click the arrow beside the calendar)

2- Select Week or Day View (NOT month)

3- Click on a day you want to schedule

4- Click APPOINTMENT SLOTS at the top of the window

5- Click to “offer as a single appointment slot”

6- Click EDIT DETAILS

7- Make sure the correct calendar is selected beside “Create appointment slots on calendar”

8- Copy the link to the “calendar appointment page” and paste it in an email (or somewhere else)

9- Set the times as desired

10- Type a title for the appointment slot (Mac Cart 1)

11- Enter any extra information you want teachers to see in the “Description” field (how many computers are available, do they need to plan for extra checkout time, etc.)

12 – Click SAVE at the top of the page (upper left corner).

If you don’t already use the free Google Chrome web browser, I highly recommend you download it and use it for your Google Apps tasks including calendars. Google websites should function fine in all web browsers, but I’ve noticed Internet Explorer particularly seems to not function as well with Google Calendar. IE opens many links in new browser windows instead of opening them in new tabs, as happens with Chrome.

After you’ve created your calendar slots for other people to use, you can share the direct link (which you copied in step 8 above) via email and/or via a link from your website.

Good luck using appointment slots in Google Calendar!

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