How to add Google Calendar to any website

Create and manage your Google Calendar

Often, business owners need to notify users about a particular event that they are preparing. And it can become quite a challenge without the help of additional tools. To avoid problems, many look for third-party solutions for their websites. And there is such a solution – Google Calendar.

In some cases, it becomes necessary to integrate the Google Calendar plugin into your website or blog. However, to make this possible, you need to perform some additional steps. First of all, you’ll have to make your calendar public. Let’s see how.

How to make your Google Calendar public

According to Google, you can have numerous calendars and make them visible to different people. This can be a calendar for your personal use and a calendar to share with coworkers. Remember, that you can only perform the following actions from the desktop, it’s impossible to do on mobile.

Here’s what you need to do to make your calendar public:

1. Open your Google Calendar on your computer.
2. At the top right corner, find the Settings icon and click it.
3. On the left, under “Settings for my calendars,” select the calendar you want to share.
4. Under the “Access permissions for events” section, check the box next to “Make available to the public”.
5. Click OK.

In case you don’t want people to see all the details of events on your calendar, select See only free/busy (hide details) option. If you want to make your calendar private again, you’ll have to uncheck the box next to “Make available to the public”. Now you can move on to adding your Google Calendar widget to your website.

Embed Google Calendar to your website

Google allows everyone to embed Calendar to their website. Also, users are free to add buttons for their website visitors to save the events from the Calendar.

Here’s what you need to do in order to embed the Calendar to your website:

1. Open the Google Calendar plugin on your computer. You can only get the code of the Calendar from a computer, not mobile.
2. In the top right corner, find the Settings option and click it.
3. On the left side of the screen, select the calendar you want to embed to your site.
4. Copy the code that is displayed in the Integrate calendar section.
5. Click Customize under the embed code.
6. Select your options, and copy the HTML code that is displayed.

Also, there’s an option to add a Calendar button to the website, so that your visitors could quickly save your events to their Google Calendars. This can also be done only after you make your calendar public. 

Just follow these steps to add a button that will grant your users with an opportunity to save events:

1. Open Google Calendar on your computer. 
2. On your public calendar, create or edit an event.
3. Click More actions and then Publish event.
4. In the Publish event window, copy the HTML code that appeared. 
5. Open your website editor, find the place where you want to display the button and paste the code you’ve copied before there.

This is how easy and simple you can add Google Calendar to your site. Also, keep in mind that you may also want to embed Google Reviews to your website. However, that’s not all! Let’s take a look at another great opportunity to create a Calendar for your website.

One more option to create a Calendar for your website

If you’re looking for a way to create a cool custom calendar for your website or blog, then we suggest you try Elfsight’s Event Calendar plugin. With this widget, you can easily create a calendar for any need – with the schedule of concerts, webinars, your plans and much more!

Here’s what you need to do to create your first Event Calendar for your website:

1. Open Elfsight configurator and start building your customized plugin.
2. Customize the widget and apply the required adjustments.
3. Copy the individual code that appears in the popup window.
4. Embed the code into your web page and press the “Save“ button.

Try creating your Event Calendar in a few clicks right from our interactive demo!

Google Calendar vs Apple Calendar

And now you have almost decided that you immediately need to integrate Google Calendar into your website. However, here you may remember that Apple also offers users their own calendar. And for sure you are interested to know what are the pros and cons of both services, as well as how they differ. The specialists from Zapier did a good comparative analysis and collected all the data in their useful and cool article. We will give you a comparative table that will allow you to make the right decision that will suit you and your business.

5 Google Calendar features that you should pay attention to

If you rely on Google Calendar like we do, or just use it on a regular basis to keep track of events, you’ll be able to get more out of it when you discover all the advanced features and time-saving opportunities. 

1. Different calendars for different parts of your everyday life

When you start working with Google Calendar, you have only one that goes under your name in the list on the left hand panel. But supposing you plan to use it to track different goals like work tasks, scheduling repeating reminders, you still have only one calendar that might be not so comfortable if you want to pull out some important tasks of the day or week. That’s why it might be convenient to create different calendars for each area of your daily routine. And here’s how you can do that:

1. Go to your Google Calendar and click Plus sign next to My Calendars option. 
2. Name your new calendar, provide it with a proper description and time zone.
3. Your new calendar is ready!

2. Synchronize your Calendar meetings with the CRM you use

In case you use some CRM on a daily basis, you might not be so happy to go back and forth between it and your Calendar. That’s why if you don’t want to do it regularly, you can look deeper into your CRMs settings and see if it provides an integration with Google Calendar. Among popular CRMs that offer such an option are:

• Zoho 
• HubSpot
• Streak
• Freshworks
• Pipedrive

And a lot more! So check if your CRM provides such an option and make your life a lot easier!

3. Provide additional materials for a Calendar meeting

Often, our online meetings require us or other participants to add various materials – presentations, documents, files. Agree, it is quite convenient when all participants of the event can receive and study all the necessary materials in advance and prepare slowly. Google Calendar makes it easy for you by providing a place where you can put everything you need – directly in the meeting menu.

Here are the steps you need to follow in order to attach some files to your meeting on Google Calendar:

1. Create a meeting the usual way.
2. Click on the event block and select More options.
3. Once you open the event edit screen, select the paper clip icon. Click it.
4. Attach any documents you need to your meeting.

4. Enable your working hours on the Google Calendar

Have you ever had times when you didn’t want to be disturbed at work? Then this feature is exactly what you need. It allows other colleagues to see you as unavailable at certain times. You choose the specific time yourself. Currently, Google Calendar only allows you to use the Business Hours feature if your account is associated with your work or school organization. If you have one of these accounts but don’t see the settings, you’ll need to contact your administrator for help.

Follow these steps to enable working hours for your Google Calendar:

1. In Google Calendar, find and click on the gear icon in the top right corner and then click on Settings. Scroll down until you see the Working Hours section.
2. Make sure the box next to Show Warning is also checked.
3. Set the days of the week when you are in the office, and also set the hours when you are available to other people so that they can hold events / meetings with you. Don’t forget to click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page after changing your settings.

5. Send emails to Calendar meeting participants

So you’ve created a meeting, but how do you make sure attendees know about it? Of course, you can notify everyone personally in the messenger, but you can also send them an email directly from Google Calendar. Here is what you need to do in order to make this possible:

1. Open Google Calendar in a browser on your computer.
2. Click on an event and then Edit.
3. In the Guests section on the right, start typing the person’s name and select the person from your contact list. If the person is not in your contact list, enter their email address.
4. To make attendance optional, next to the invitee’s name, click the Contacts icon. If this icon is not there, hover over the guest’s name.
5. Select the rest of the event options and click Save.
6. As a result, all the people you added will receive email invitations.

Bonus: interactive calendar for your website!

Don’t miss your chance to try another cool interactive Calendar option for your website. Keep your audience updated about your upcoming events and plans using one of our pre-made templates or simply create your own variant.

Create and manage any event for your website effortlessly with Elfsight Event Calendar widget!

Conclusion

Google Calendar is a convenient, reliable and free planner. The service simplifies the planning of tasks, both personal and work. Any important event or task can be added to the calendar, add a description for it and set a reminder. Integration with third-party services expands the list of features and simplifies planning.

Google Calendar is a great choice for both the novice and experienced user of various task planners. However, if for some reason you want variety, you can always choose a new service.