Method Community

I have seen some posts on the positives and negatives of Method's calendar system. I see hints of "default calendars" such as Call Center or Professional services, etc. These sound like resource calendars. How do you get them to show on the activity calendar page? I have tried some of the suggestions in general of testing with Activity Type or Assigned To. It seems that if you have multiple calendar instances, changing the filter only applies to the first calendar. So I created a completely new calendar tab, which then can show Activity Types. That worked. Now how do you make a resource calendar that you can apply appointments to, such as a training room, sales calendar, installation calendar, etc? How do you assign people to that calendar with some people not necessarily being actual users? Only users can be assigned or both?

Question #2: How are people adding these or any other calendars to Google calendar? Google apps for business only recognizes the generic employee calendars, not the CRM versions. I want to see everyone's calendars as well as certain resources in Google calendar.

One thing you could do is create users that can't sign in and call them "Training Room" or "Sales Calendar" and assign activities to those users.  You might be limited in that you can only assign one resource, so you wouldn't be able to additionally assign a user that booked that particular resource and filter by that.  Right now our calendar object can only be linked to one resource.  

For Question 2, only the Activity Calendar is synced with the Google Calendar. 

- Adam

What about the calendars for these non-sign in users? They would not have a calendar to sync to Google calendar, right? Speaking of Google calendars... Can you add other users' Method calendars to your own Google calendar? From my calendar, I can see all users from Google Apps, but those calendars don't mean anything since they dont' connect to Method. I tried to add a calendar manually, like username:CompanyName, just like your Method calendar is labeled, but Google says it can't find it. Am I missing something or is this simply not possible to see other's Method calendars in Google?

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Correct, the non-sign in users would not be able to sync their calendars with the gadget, only the calendar that is linked to the user that is signed in through the Gmail app would be synced.  As such, you will also not be able to sync other user's calendars, only ones connected to your OpenID.  The gadget is not meant to have all of the features of the Method CRM.  It was designed to provide added functionality, such as creating contacts and activities, but not to replace the majority of the functions of the CRM.

- Adam

Okay, just to be clear, I can NOT see another user's calendar on my OWN Google calendar. I can only view it in Method.

If the above is correct, will this be remedied in the iphone app, so I can view and create appointments on all user's calendars? Will a non-user, aka resource, be able to download the app, to see the calendar for that resource (that being the non-user)?

Correct. You cannot see another user's calendar through the Gmail app.  I don't know the specifics of what will be added with the new mobile app, but I will try to find out and post back.

- Adam

Actually, I'm mistaken. You can share you calendar through the Gmail app.  The gmail gadget creates a separate calendar for your Method activities, and you can share this just as you would any other Gmail calendar.  My apologies for this.

EDIT: Just to be clear, this only applies for users who can sign in.  You cannot share with non-sign in users.

- Adam

That's good. But then how do you add it? All calendars are the format username:CompanyName. If you try to add that in Google Apps for business it does not find it. It must be just a syntax thing, but what am I missing?

You first have to make sure the calendar is shared.  Once it's shared, you should be able to search for it in the search box on the left.  Here's a Google Help Article that may help.

Sharing Gmail Calendars

- Adam