How to synchronize your Google Calendar with FocalScope

This article details how to add your Google Calendar to FocalScope and synchronize events between your Google and FocalScope calendars.

Prerequisites

• A Google account to access Google Calendar
• A personal or shared FocalScope calendar

Tutorial

Synchronizing your Google Calendar with FocalScope

1. In the [Main menu], select [Configuration > Google Accounts]
2. In the [Personal Google accounts] window, click [Add]
3. In the [Google calendars] window, click the [...] right of the [Folder] field and select the FocalScope calendar the Google Calendar should synchronize with
4. Click the [Get PIN] button and follow the instructions. Please note: You will need to log in with your Google account to obtain a Google Calendar authorization PIN to allow FocalScope to synchronize with Google Calendar (see Figure 2)
5. Once you have obtained the Google Calendar PIN as per p.4, paste it into the [Enter the PIN...] field
6. Click the [Authorize] button to authorize synchronization between FocalScope and Google Calendar, and to add the new Google Calendar to your persona Google Accounts in FocalScope
7. Continued in next section...

Figure 1 - Adding and authorizing a Google account

Figure 2 - Obtaining authorization PIN from Google

Adding events and reminders

To add events, recurring events, and alerts to the FocalScope calendar, do as follows:

• See this in-depth article on creating events and alerts in FocalScope calendars. Please note: All supported features will automatically synchronize with the associated Google Calendar feature to create the event, recurrence, and alert schedule

1. Ensure that you locate the FocalScope calendar synchronized with your Google Calendar (highlighted in red)
2. Click on a date or change the view to focus on a date to pick the hour (highlighted in blue)
3. In the pop up, fill in [What] the event is related to
   1. If you need to set up alerts or fill out more details related to the entry, click the [Edit event] link (highlighted in green)
   2. To set up recurrence for the event, tick the [Repeat] flag (highlighted in blue in Figure 4)and specify how the event will recur
   3. To add an alert, click the [Add a notification] link (highlighted in red in Figure 4) and select [Email] and when the alert email should be dispatched
4. Once the new event is created, allow 1-3 minutes for the changes to be synchronized with the associated FocalScope calendar

Figure 3 - Creating new events and alerts in Google Calendar

Figure 4 - Adding more details and alerts to events

Keeping the whole team on track

This section covers the overview and benefits of combining FocalScope shared calendars with Google Calenders.

When FocalScope shared calendars are used, synchronizing multiple agents' Google Calendars becomes a powerful coordination and communication tool to keep entire teams updated about task deadlines, meetings, and events--whether they are in the office or out and about.

To coordinate a team calendar, you need:

1. A shared calendar in FocalScope with agents having access to the shared calendar
2. The Google Calendars of agents in the team synchronized to the FocalScope shared calendar--as per the first section of this article
3. Events created either in FocalScope shared calendar or on agent's Google Calendar to keep everyone up to date on all manner of things. The FocalScope shared calendar will keep office staff up to date, and the synchronized Google Calendars will keep staff who are out of the office informed of new developments. Both office and mobile agents can make updates to the shared calendar

Figure 5 - A shared calendar for a team

Agents using their mobile device and Google Calendar will receive clear notifications on changing events and schedules, ensuring an optimal overview for the entire team:

Figure 6 - Mobile notification regarding calendar events