Share a calendar with departments and teams

A shared calendar is a Google Calendar or Outlook calendar your district already keeps, like a Team PTO calendar or a building's events calendar, shown in schoolOS to the departments and teams you choose. They see its events on their own calendar page, next to their tasks and tickets, and they can add events to it without opening Google or Outlook.

You set it up once, from Shared calendars in the Calendars group of Admin › Account › Integrations:

1. Connect a Google or Microsoft account that can reach the calendar.
2. Share the calendar, and choose who sees it.

This is different from connecting your own calendar, which everyone does for themselves and which nobody else sees. A shared calendar is the district's: an admin connects it, and everyone it's shared with sees the same events.

Example. The IT department keeps a "Tech PTO" calendar in Google, owned by the IT director. The director connects their Google account, shares Tech PTO with the IT department, and every technician now sees who's out on their calendar page. When a technician books a day off, they add it there, from schoolOS.

Connect an account#

1. On Admin › Account › Integrations, open Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar (under Calendars), and select Connect Google or Connect Outlook in Accounts. Each has its own page, with its own accounts and the calendars shared from them.
2. Sign in with the account that can reach the calendar you want to share. It's usually your own account, or the account that owns the calendar.
3. Allow what schoolOS asks for. You come back to that integration's page with a "connected" message, and the account is listed with Connected. On the Integrations list its row shows Connected too.

What schoolOS asks for:

• Google: to see and edit events on the calendars the account can reach, and to see the list of those calendars. It asks for this only when an admin connects an account here, never when someone connects their own calendar.
• Microsoft: to read and write the account's calendars, including the ones shared with it. Only work or school accounts can be connected.

Any calendar the account can reach can be shared: its own, and the ones others share with it in Google or Outlook. So if the calendar belongs to someone else, ask them to share it with your account (with permission to make changes, so people can add events) before you connect.

You can connect several accounts to each integration, and use both. Each account can share up to 20 calendars.

If Connect Google or Connect Outlook is grayed out, that provider isn't set up for your district yet, and its page says so. Contact schoolOS support.

Share a calendar#

1. Select Share a calendar. It's available once an account is connected.
2. Choose the Account, then the Calendar. Calendars already shared from that account are listed but can't be chosen again.
3. Check the Name. It starts as the calendar's own name; change it to what people should see, up to 80 characters. Renaming it here doesn't rename it in Google or Outlook.
4. Choose Who sees it (below), and select Share.

The calendar appears in the Calendars table, with its Account and who it's Shown to. If you shared the wrong one, select Undo on the message that confirms it.

To change a calendar, select its row (or Edit in its menu): you can rename it or change who sees it. Selecting Undo on the confirmation puts the old name and audience back.

Who sees it#

Choose departments, teams, or both. Everyone in at least one of them sees the calendar. You must choose at least one.

| Choose | Who sees it | Choose it when | | --- | --- | --- | | A department | Everyone in that department. People who aren't in any department count as members of your default department. | The calendar is for a whole department, like Facilities' building closures. | | A team | Only the members of that team. | The calendar is for a smaller group, like the help desk's on-call rotation. | | Both | Anyone in any of them. | A department and a team from elsewhere both need it, like Facilities plus the IT team that handles door access. |

If your district doesn't use departments, you choose teams only.

People join and leave a calendar's audience as they join and leave its departments and teams: nobody is added one at a time.

Example. A district with 12 schools shares its Maintenance Shutdowns calendar with the Facilities department and the IT Network team. Custodians and the network technicians see the shutdowns on their calendar page; teachers don't.

What people see#

Everyone a calendar is shared with:

• Sees its events on their calendar page, in a color of its own. It's listed under Calendars with a checkbox, so each person can hide it for themselves and show it again.
• Can add events to it: on their calendar page, select New, then Event, and choose the calendar under Add to. The event is added in Google or Outlook too, so everyone who uses the calendar there sees it.
• Can remove only the events they added from schoolOS. Events added in Google or Outlook are changed there.

Stop sharing a calendar#

In the calendar's menu, select Stop sharing and confirm. It leaves everyone's calendar page right away. The calendar and its events stay in Google or Outlook. If you stopped the wrong one, select Undo on the confirmation to share it again with the same name and audience.

Reconnect or disconnect an account#

Reconnect. If an account's sign-in stops working (its password changed, access was removed, or the account was turned off), it shows Needs reconnecting. Until it's fixed, its calendars show no events and nobody can add to them. Select Reconnect and sign in with the same account: its calendars come back as they were.

Disconnect. Select Disconnect beside the account and confirm. Every calendar shared from it stops being shared and leaves everyone's calendar page, and schoolOS forgets the account's sign-in. Nothing changes in Google or Outlook. This can't be undone from the message: to share them again, connect the account and share each calendar again.