Calendars by Readdle Adds Zoom & Hangouts Integration, Coworkers Availability, and More to Help You Stay Connected with Your Team

TL;DR: Calendars by Readdle now integrates with conference call services, lets you see your coworkers’ schedules, provides a better way to create events, and more.

While the whole world is locked down and everyone is staying at home, being connected with your coworkers is a great challenge. At Readdle, we all are working remotely now, and we’ve already shared the best tips to work from home and the list of 33 apps & services for remote work. 

We’ve been working hard to make sure our own products help you become more productive while staying home. That’s why today we’re releasing the number of important updates for Calendars to help you remain connected with your teammates. 

Initially, we designed the integration with conference call services as a part of the Premium plan. But given the circumstances, it’s now available for free in both Calendars by Readdle and Calendars 5. 

Update Calendars now, and let’s see what’s new!

Integration with Zoom, Google Hangouts, and GoToMeeting

Making video calls with your colleagues can be a real pain in the neck. Where’s that Zoom link someone shared with you on Slack yesterday? Was it posted in the #marketing-stream or #daily-sync channel? Why is the link not working? Which app are we using for today’s meeting? We’ve all been there, and we know there’s a better way to arrange meetings.

Calendars now brings that much-needed sanity and organization to your team calls. While creating an event, you can generate a Zoom, Google Hangouts, or GoToMeeting call link right from Calendars. The link will be available in the event details, so all the participants will have handy access to it from their calendars. With no more last-minute searches for links, your meetings will always start on time.

When you create an event in Calendars, just tap Video Call and select your preferred service.

See your teammates’ availability

When you all work together in the same office space, it’s easy to see if someone is busy or available for a chat. But when the whole team works remotely, things are different. Your Slack message may distract the other person from an important call or task that requires focus. Fortunately, there’s a solution for productive teamwork.

In Calendars, you can now select a few teammates and add their schedules to your own calendar. This lets you instantly see when is the best time to arrange a meeting with a person or write them a message. 

Besides saving you time on organizing meetings, this option can help you avoid distractions throughout the day. Let’s say you’ve calendar-blocked time from 1 to 3 PM for deep work. Then, your colleague who subscribed to your calendar won’t bother you with calls or messages during this time as they see you’re busy.

Please note: This feature works only for G Suite accounts. You’ll be able to see the schedules of your coworkers with the @yourcompany.com emails.

Here’s to activate this feature:

1. Open the Calendars Settings and tap on your G Suite account.
2. Under G Suite resources, tap Authorize and follow onscreen instructions.

Here’s how to see your coworker’s calendar: 

1. Swipe from left to right to reveal the sidebar.
2. Scroll to the bottom and tap Edit Calendars.
3. Under Team Schedule, tap Browse All and select people you want to subscribe to.
4. Now their schedules are available on your calendar!

Coworkers’ availability is available in Calendars 5 and as a part of the Premium plan in Calendars by Readdle.

A better way to create events

We set a goal to build the most beautiful and intuitive calendar experience. That’s why we’ve redesigned the event creation dialogue to make adding new events simpler and faster.

Here are some of the improvements:

• Easily switch between Tasks or Events by selecting the desired option on the keyboard.
• Quickly change the event color, without digging deeply into the menus.
• Options to add a location, attendees, or notes are now more visible, so you can add event details faster.
• Selecting date and time is a lot more intuitive with the native iOS date picker you’re already familiar with.
• Even the most sophisticated recurring events are now easier to create thanks to the new design.

There are more small tweaks you may notice. Go ahead, create a new event and let us know what you think!

Notifications about the new invites

With the updated Calendars, you’ll never miss an important invite. Previously, you had to launch the app and check its Notification center to see the new invites. Many users requested an option to receive alerts about new invites, and we’re happy to bring it.

Now, when someone sends you a calendar invite, Calendars delivers a push notification with the event name, time, and location. This lets you quickly make a decision and accept or decline an invite right from your lock screen. 

In these turbulent times, it’s crucial to learn how to be effective in the remote mode and stay connected with your team. We hope this Calendars update will help you with that.

Conferencing tools integration is a premium feature, but given the circumstances, we decided to make it free for everybody. Once the quarantine is over, this feature will become part of the Premium plan in Calendars. If before that time you used conference calls integration at least once, you’ll keep it for free forever.

Our team is eager to hear your feedback, so update Calendars for free and share your thoughts in the comments!