Google Apps Tips: Smart Rescheduler

Use Smart Rescheduler to Find New Meeting Times

You’ve probably been in this situation before. You scheduled a meeting for a group of your co-workers or your team and then something unexpected comes up requiring you to reschedule the meeting. Well, rather than roaming through everyone’s calendar trying to find a new time when everyone is free – just use the Smart Recheduler lab to find new times for you and your team!

Enabling Smart Scheduler

Smart Scheduler is a Google Calendar lab. Labs in Google Calendar are accessed the same way you access labs in Gmail:

  1. If this is the first lab you’re enabling labs in Google Calendar, click Settings > Calendar Settings and select Labs. If you’ve already enabled labs in Google Calendar, then just click the green beaker.
  2. Next, enable the ‘Smart Rescheduler’ and save your changes.

Rescheduling The Meeting

Let’s say that you now want to reschedule the meeting below. There are 5 other individuals beside yourself that need to be included in the meeting. And as you can see from their calendar overlays, they all look pretty busy!

  1. Open the event in edit mode and click the small arrow at the right of the screen to reveal the enabled lab.
  2. There you’ll find the Smart Rescheduler lab. Click Find a new time….

  3. On the F’ind a new time’ screen, enter the the length of the meeting and a date and time range if desired. The information to the right will update automatically.
    A. If you find a time that works based on the information in green, click Schedule this….
    B. If there is a conflict (orange or red text) click show details to view the conflict.

    4. In the image below, you can see there is a half-hour conflict in Molly’s calendar.

  4. Clicking Schedule this… pops up a confirmation notice. Notice that you have the option whether or not to notify guests. It is always good to notify your guests if you are changing the time. If you are happy with the new time, click Save changes.

  5. Looking back at the calendar, it now shows that the meeting has changed. (Note: You may need to refresh the calendar to see the change.) Each attendee will receive an updated email with new date and time. The question marks indicate that the attendees have not yet responded to the change.

Individuals attending the event can also use Smart Rescheduler to suggest a new time for an event. When they click Find a new time…, they receive the following message:

November 03, 2010 in Tips, Training