How to Use Google Calendar to Schedule Parent Conferences

Did you know that you can set up a period of time in Google Calendar to allow others to reserve an appointment time on your calendar?  This feature makes scheduling parents conferences easy because it allows parents to select and reserve an available time directly on your calendar.

Please note: in order for parents to schedule time using appointment slots, the will need to have a Google account.

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How to set up Appointment Slots

1. Sign into your Google calendar.
    
2. Create a calendar called Parent/Teacher Conference.
   This separate calendar will help keep your appointments better organized.
     
3. Select Week or Day view
   (appointment slots cannot be created in Month or Agenda views).
    
4. Click on the starting date/time that you would like the appointment times to begin.
   
     
5. On the window that appears, select (1) Appointment Slots instead of Event (see image).
• Name your Appointment Slot in the (2) What field (e.g., January Parent/Teacher conferences).
• Select your (3) Parent/Teacher Conference calendar.
• Assign the length of time for each appointment in the (4) Type field.  In the example above, the appointment time is 30 minutes.
• To change the length of time that you are offering appointments, click on (5) Edit details.
   
6.   Edit details of your Appointment Slot (see image below).
• (1) Time Block - set the beginning and ending times of your appointment block.  In the example below, I set the time from 9am-3:00pm.  Please note: to have the appointments appear on multiple days, I would click the box next to Repeat.
• (2) Where - add your school and classroom number.  This event will be added to the parents calendar as well as your own and they will appreciate the extra information.
• (3) This calendar's appointment page - Copy this link and share the link with your student's parents in an email or on your class website.

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How the Appointment blocks will appear on your Calendar.

Your Appointment blocks will appear as a single event on your calendar.  After a parent books an appointment, another event will appear overlapping this event.

Notice that the name of the person who booked the appointment will appear in parentheses after the event name.
 

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How the Appointment blocks will appear on the parents calendar.

The calendar below is an example of what a parent would see when booking an appointment.  In this case, the 9:30 appointment is unavailable.  

Parents will only see appointments booked by themselves.  In the example below, the 12 o'clock appointment was booked by this user, WHS Training.

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More Information 

Check out the video below from Lynda.com