Collaborative Calendars for Business

Updated: January 27, 2024

Collaborative calendars are powerful tools that facilitate team coordination and streamline scheduling among group members. These calendars allow multiple users to access and edit events, appointments, and tasks in real-time, promoting seamless collaboration and effective time management. Team members can view each other's schedules, enabling them to find mutually available time slots for meetings and appointments. Collaborative calendars often integrate with other collaboration tools, such as email and project management software, to provide a centralized platform for managing tasks and deadlines. With shared visibility and the ability to set reminders and notifications, collaborative calendars ensure everyone stays informed and on track with team activities, leading to improved productivity and smoother project execution. Whether used by remote teams or within an organization, collaborative calendars are indispensable in fostering effective teamwork and efficient scheduling.

See also: Top 10 Productivity software

2024. Notion launches a stand-alone calendar app



Notion, a widely used platform for note-taking and project management, has introduced a dedicated calendar service, drawing from its acquisition of the well-designed Cron calendar app in 2022. Positioned as a free next-generation iteration of Cron, Notion Calendar incorporates a built-in scheduling tool reminiscent of Calendly and offers optional deep integration with Notion. Accessible on Mac, Windows, iOS, and the web (with an Android app in development), the calendar seamlessly merges work and personal calendars, providing users with a unified view for effective day management. Although Notion has previously featured a calendar view within workspaces, it now integrates with external calendars, starting with Google Calendar. Emphasizing its standalone nature, users can opt for Notion Calendar as a standalone smart calendaring service, but for Notion users integrating it into their workflow, there's the added benefit of attaching Notion docs to calendar events, fostering better preparation and alignment within teams.


2021. Magical raises $3.3M to modernize calendars



Magical, a startup based in Tel Aviv, is on a mission to completely transform the calendar experience and elevate it beyond being a personal time-management service by turning it into a collaborative tool for teams. Recently, the company secured a seed round of $3.3 million to support its vision. Magical aims to incorporate various cutting-edge features seen in existing scheduling and calendaring startups, including AI-based scheduling and automation tools. However, their goal goes beyond that—they seek to redefine time management by offering a superior calendar experience that seamlessly integrates scheduling, coordination, and utilization workflows.


2019. Slack integrates with Office 365



Slack has made an exciting announcement regarding its new integrations with Microsoft OneDrive and Outlook. These integrations allow for seamless collaboration between Slack and other services, such as Box, Dropbox, and Zoom. One notable integration is the deep integration with Outlook, which enables users to conveniently receive and respond to invitations within the Slack platform. Additionally, joining meetings is made effortless with a single click, whether it's through Zoom, WebEx, or Skype for Business. The integration also automatically updates your status in Slack while you're in a meeting, eliminating the need for manual adjustments. Another valuable feature is the ability to share emails directly into Slack. Instead of the tedious process of copying and pasting or forwarding emails to a large group, users can simply click the Slack button in the Outlook interface and share the email as a direct message with a group or in their personal Slack channel. These integrations enhance productivity and streamline communication within the Slack ecosystem.


2017. Google Calendar improves integration with Microsoft Exchange



The latest update of Google Calendar brings good news for companies utilizing both Google's G Suite and its Microsoft alternative, Exchange, concurrently. With this update, G Suite administrators now have the ability to enable real-time visibility of free/busy information across both systems for their users. As a result, features such as Google Calendar's "Find a Time" and Outlook's "Scheduling Assistant" can seamlessly communicate with each other. Once these features are enabled by an administrator, they become accessible on Google Calendar for Android, iOS, and the web, as well as on all Outlook 2010+ clients across desktop, mobile, and web platforms.


2017. Todoist launched integration with Google Calendar



Task manager Todoist is introducing a comprehensive two-way integration with Google Calendar. Once you connect your Todoist account with Google Calendar, any tasks with due dates will seamlessly appear in your calendar. If you have specified a particular time for a task, it will be displayed as an event in your calendar. For recurring tasks, multiple events will be created accordingly. Moreover, you can effortlessly click on your calendar events to make edits, rearrange them, and all the changes will be synchronized back to Todoist. This integration provides you with a convenient calendar view of your tasks, directly within your calendar. It also serves as an effective means for others to contribute to your calendar through shared projects, enabling them to add items and collaborate seamlessly.


2010. Zoho Calendar - the best online calendar in the market



Today, Zoho made significant updates to its Zoho Calendar and officially released it from the beta phase. In a noteworthy endorsement, Zoho's chief evangelist, Raju Vegesna, proclaimed this service as the top online calendar available in the market. Considering Zoho's tendency to avoid boastful claims, Vegesna's statement holds weight. In fact, this service is on par with Google Calendar, as it functions as a complete clone of it. Zoho Calendar offers features such as creating multiple calendars, sharing them with various access levels, setting reminders through email and RSS, sending invitations, and embedding public calendars on websites or blogs. It also includes a plugin for Outlook synchronization, a mobile version, and supports offline access using Google Gears. Furthermore, calendars can be synchronized with external services using the ICAL protocol. Naturally, Zoho Calendar seamlessly integrates with other Zoho services such as CRM, Projects, Planner, Mail, and Chat.