We've used Google calendar successfully especially when our sons had work that kept them out of touch for periodically - it was hard for everyone to keep straight who was where/when and within phone/text/email access. It also is very helpful for travel plans as everyone can see who is on what flight for Tgiving, departure/arrival and flight #s. Plus, Google being the all knowing all seeing entity that it is, notifies all parties when a flight is delayed.

DLM, when using google calendar, how do you not share all of your dentist appointments, vet visits, and work meetings with the extended family? Do you flag or categorize entries in such a way that only certain things are shared with others? I ask because my husband uses google exclusively for work scheduling and the whole family doesn’t need to see all that stuff. We basically want to see vacations, birthdays, sporting events, school concerts and such. Thanks.

We use Cozi and we are happy with it.

Bluebell, I have a family calendar that dh can see. He adds things to that calendar that pertain just to family but keeps his work stuff on a separate calendar. I think I had to "share" my calendar with him. Basically I keep everything for our family there, then he adds things that affect the family - for example, if he has a business trip, he will add that to my calendar so that I can keep track of when he is gone. I will fool around with it and let you know. Do you already use Google calendar or just your dh? I love the google calendar b/c I have assigned each kid/parent a color so that when I look at a quick glance, if the appt is purple, I know it's my youngest daughter, etc. Things that are for the whole family have their own color, etc.

The one thing I would love to figure out is how to get certain appointments to sync with my google calendar rather than ical (I use all Apple products). For example, if I book a flight and it asks if I want to add it to my calendar, it adds it to ical, not my google calendar. I never use ical, though I have the app on my desktop and my phone so on rare occasions someone has a flight, at least I can look there to find the info easily. But I'd much rather have it sync to my google calendar. Same when I get invited to a meeting. I have a monthly meeting and the president sends out an invite or meeting request, or something like that but it syncs to ical, not google. I have no idea if there is a way to make it sync with google. Otherwise, I love my Google calendar. I never thought I'd like using an online calendar vs. pen and paper, but I've grown to accept it. Tho occasionally I will print out my google calendar and post on our home bulletin board.

Bluebell66, when you make an entry in Google Calendar, scroll to the bottom to see "Visibility". There you can select privacy of the entry to "Calendar Default", "Public", or "Private". Below "Visibility" are links that describe the privacy settings.

Yay! Thank you! I'm determined to get organized this year!

4kids, I'm not a fan of ical either, hence this post. Forward your flight info to your gmail account and google calendar should pick it up.

Thanks, gardener! I’ll try that with my daughter. She’s a freshman in college and has to fly back and forth. I’ll have her forward me her flight confirmation for her return to school after Thanksgiving and see if that works. But if not, I’ll play around with it now that I know it should be a feature.

Thanks for the Google calendar info. When we get all the way through Thanksgiving - more family festivities this weekend - I'll play with it a bit.