There we were, my friend Kyle and I, going back and forth in email, trying to figure out a time when we could grab a cup of coffee, when he asked “can you shoot me over a cal invite for that, please?” But how do you create a Google Calendar event for an in-person meeting?
While it would be entirely logical for Google’s popular Gmail program to have a “new event” button or option on one of its menus, that’s just not the case. There isn’t even an Extension or experimental feature that adds simple scheduling to the Gmail interface itself. Instead, it’s on us to do the heavy lifting by switching to Google Calendar. Okay, so “heavy lifting” might be a bit of hyperbole, but still, in this era of AI, wouldn’t you think that Gmail could extricate all the details of an upcoming meeting or rendezvous and prompt us to create the event?
Instead, the way to create those “cal invites” is to switch to Google Calendar and enter the event step-by-step. It’s a bit tedious, but if there aren’t too many people involved, should still take you maybe a minute. Let’s consider all the steps…
QUICK SWITCH TO GCAL
The fastest way to switch from Gmail to Google Calendar is to use the tiny grid button in Gmail. It’s on the top right and you might never have clicked on it before…
It’s worth scrolling through this menu to remind yourself just how many different applications and features Google has in its portfolio too. For our new calendar event, click on the “Calendar” button.
You’ll be moved to Google Calendar, which is mostly going to be a grid representing the current month with all of your scheduled and recurring events listed. On the top left, however…
See that big “+ Create” button? That’s the missing element from Gmail but here it is. Unfortunately, it cannot (yet) recognize the email you were perusing and extract key information to make the process easier. Instead, it’s a completely manual process. Click on “+ Create” and you can choose between three types of Calendar additions:
The appointment scheduler is a nice new feature that replaces some third party utilities like Calendly. You can also manage tasks in your Calendar, which can be helpful for reminders. Coffee with my friend Kyle? That’s an Event, for sure. 🙂
FILLING IN A GOOGLE CALENDAR EVENT
Choose “Event” and you’ll be presented with a blank template. The key elements of an event are The Four W’s: Who, What, When, and Where…
It’s picked a default time and date based on the next 60-minute window in the current day, has no guests, no location, and no description. Still, it’s a starting point. Each field can be clicked on to update. Start with a good title (“Add title”) and ensure that you have the right time and date (note you can specify timezone too if it’s an online meeting spanning multiple timezones. Google Calendar will automatically adjust the time to match each invited participant’s local timezone)
Since this is an in-person meeting, click on “Add location” and you can just start typing in the name of the venue or a street address. In this instance we’re meeting at Caribou Coffee in Westminster, CO:
There are two in Westminster, which is a bit confusing (particularly since the first doesn’t list a street address), but I know from previous event scheduling that it’s the first that is more convenient to me. A click to select it and we have the “where” specified.
A description is quite helpful, and is something that all parties will have on their calendars once they accept the event invitation. Here’s what I specified:
Notice in particular that you can add links and attachments. This can be a great place to include preparatory materials like a PDF of the document you’ll be discussing or a link to the Website that needs a redesign.
You can also click on the “More options” link near the bottom to get an expanded view of the event you’re creating. This can be helpful:
At this point you can see that I have the “what”, “where”, and “when”, but I haven’t actually invited Kyle, the entire reason for creating this event in the first place! That’s accomplished by clicking on “Add guests” on the right side…
This is where Google Calendar surreptitiously peeks at your Gmail address book. When I type in “kyle”, notice that it finds four matches in my Gmail history:
Kyle S is my colleague, and with a click I choose him from the list. Gcal prompts:
I definitely do want to send an invitation email, so click on “Send“, which then updates the Guests area of the Calendar event thusly:
Kyle doesn’t share his calendar, which is why “Calendar cannot be shown” is displayed. Fair enough, I don’t share my calendar either, preferring to negotiate times for meetings than expose my personal and business schedule to the public at large. “Awaiting” means that the invitation has been sent but he hasn’t accepted (or rejected) the proposed meeting yet.
That’s it. The event has been specified, all four W’s have been included, and the invitations have been sent.
MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE MAIN GCAL PAGE
Now I can just go back to my regular Calendar view, where there’s a new entry for “3:30pm Coffee with Kyle”. If I click on it, I get this attractive summary window:
Google has detected the word “coffee” in the title and automatically selected the accompanying graphic. It’s also automatically assigned a unique Google Meet URL for our online meeting, even though I never indicated that we were going to meet online and specified a location for the meeting. Google’s a bit overzealous with this, but you can safely ignore it.
Meanwhile, Kyle still hasn’t accepted, as shown by the “1 yes, 1 awaiting”. A few minutes later, however, this changes:
That’s it. No need to email them that the event is created. Next stop, Caribou for some coffee and conversation.
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about Google tools and utilities for many years and have an extensive Google Tools Help area where you’ll find lots of additional tutorials and guides!