Introduction
Our web site makes use of an online calendar. The advantage of this feature is that it allows the committee to update our club calendar regularly without interaction by the webmaster. The calendar is hosted under Google which has the added advantage that members can access the calendar via a web interface but the calendar can also be imported into your email program and your active calendar.
This blog shows how to access the calendar and how to import the live calendar into Outlook. A similar process can be followed by users with tablets and synchronization on your phone. Please don’t be intimidated, give it a try! Use the calendar in the way that works best for you.
Choose a calendar access option that works for you
Normal calendar view
The calendar can be viewed or printed directly from the web site. Once you have your browser open on the CCC website, simply click on the Calendar button on the left and the calendar page will open on screen, loading the Google calendar into the window. You can select a month here and print the calendar if required. This calendar is up to date in real time as changes are made to the calendar.
View next to your Google calendar
If you are already using Google calendars, you can choose to display the CCC calendar data together with your personal information. This is very simple process. Login with your Google user name. Select the calendar page (this might be hidden under the “more” button) to display your personal calendar. You will notice an option on the left for “Other” calendars open this and type ccc.webalbums in the space “Add a friend’s calendar’. You will now notice that the CCC calendar items will display next to your personal items, in the colour assigned to the CCC calendar.
Set calendar notification
After you have completed the steps above, you can request Google to send you notifications by email or sms. These notifications can include a number of options that you would prefer. The steps are very simple once you have found the window. The trick is to hover your mouse over the Centurion Camera Club calendar name in the left column. A down arrow will be visible, click on this arrow and anew menu will be visible. One of the options is “Notifications” select this and complete the questions on the window that will open. Save these changes and you will now be notified as requested.
Import the CCC calendar into Outlook
This description is for Outlook 2010, but the process is very similar on other clients with this feature. You need to start again on the calendar page of the CCC website. Note the 
icon on the bottom of the page. This icon will allow you to download the calendar link to your PC. The first option is to download the file and open it. This will import the calendar, but it might be static. This means that you will have to manually repeat the download from time to time to incorporate changes in your calendar.
It is better to define this link as a web calendar in Outlook, which will update automatically. This is done by entering the calendar link:
https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/ccc.webalbums%40gmail.com/public/basic.ics
Into your Outlook configuration. Go to File | Account Settings. Select the Internet Calendars tab. Select New and copy the text above into the required field of the pop-up window.
When you select “Add” change the calendar name away from the default “basic” to a more user-friendly name. In this example I have used CCC.
You can get more information on this: Microsoft Page
Conclusion
This feature is very powerfull and can be used in a number of ways by members. It is however not the place to expand on these here and members are welcome to explore other options and give us some feedback. There are also many links on the web as to implement this feature on other devices. Most devices provide an App that will allow this synchronization.
I trust you managed to read all the way to this point and that you did not get lost. Enjoy this feature!
