How to: Use Google Calendar to remind you of upcoming walks

UPDATE: It's also possible to be notified of upcoming walks by SMS using Google Calendar.

The Ballyhoura Bears website uses Google Calendar to store details of all upcoming walks. If you haven't heard of Google Calendar, it is a free Internet calendar that lets you keep track of your own events and share your calendars with others. It's the ideal tool for managing personal and professional schedules. It is both simple to use and very powerful.

One of the advantages of Google Calendar is that you can copy events from our Ballyhoura Bears calendar to your own personal calendar. In this post I am going to describe how to set up Google Calendar to notify you about an upcoming walk 1 day in advance by email.

1. Viewing the Ballyhoura Bears Google Calendar

The Ballyhoura Bears calendar is displayed on the main page of the ballyhourabears.com web site. It can also be viewed here. To view details of the event, click on the event in the calendar. It will display information such as when the walk is on, where it's on and a short description. It will also give you the option to 'Copy to my calendar'. This option allows you to add details of the event to your own personal calendar. The 'Copy to my calendar' is highlighted in the image below.

2. Copying the event to your calendar

Click on the 'Copy to my calendar' link. This will bring up a new window asking you to sign in to Google Calendar.

Now if you don't have a Google Calendar account, then you can create one free of charge by clicking the 'Create an Account' button. Follow the instructions as provided by Google. You just need to provide your email address and provide a secure password to create your account.

3. Setting up notifications

Once you have signed into your Google account (or have created your Google Account) you will be able to view details of the event/walk that you copied to your personal calendar.

At the bottom of the event is a section labelled Options. In the reminder section you can set up Google calendar to notify you of the event in advance. In the above image, I have configured Google calendar to send me an email 1 day before the event is on. This is customisable, so you can set up the calendar to notify you minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months in advance.