Friday, November 25, 2011

Connecting Google Calendar to Maps

I use Google Calendar everyday. All appointments go there, and whatever else I need to be reminded of. A few of the reasons why I like Google Calendar is that not only are all my appointments stored there, but if I ever need to find someone or something, I can just type in a "keyword" in the "search" box and anything with that word in in will pop up.

Also, if I want to move an appt around, all I do is click on it and move it. And I like being able to view my calendar from either a day's, week's or month's perspective.

Here's how Calendar is good for my business. When I'm on the road (I do AC and appliance repair) I can just touch the customer's phone number in my calendar and it will dial for me.

But here's something else I figured out how to do and this is really a cool feature. (Too bad Google doesn't automatically offer this.) Let's say I have to go to your house and fix a clothes dryer. Now I can go to your appointment in my calendar and click on this link and it will give me a map to your house.

And here's how I do it. Once you learn this, it becomes yours too. (And it might seem complicated but it's not.)

1. Go to Google Maps and enter in the address, then press "Enter"
2. Google Maps will then display a map of that address. In the upper right hand corner of that web page, you'll see a picture of a link. It's kind of small, but there will be 3 boxes next to each other, and the one on the right is the box with the link. Click on that link with your mouse.
3. Highlighted in blue is the link that you want to copy. Hover your mouse over the highlighed link, right click your mouse and then press "Copy". (You now have that link saved on your clipboard.)
4. Go to you appointment in Calandar, and in the box that says "description", paste in the link saved to your clipboard. How you do that is by going to the "Description" box, left clicking your mouse inside the box, then right clicking your mouse and then click "paste" to put the link in the "Description" box.

Then, when it's time to go to the appt, just click on the link in the box and a map will display showing you where you need to go. Sounds complicated, but do it a couple of times and it will become easy.

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