How to send optional invites to Google Calendar events, export Facebook events to GCal

There are times when you invite people to meetings or events through Google Calendar out of habit or for the sake of inclusion. However, not everyone invited to a meeting needs to be present. For that, Google has included the ability to make some attendees optional for an event. To do this, simply create a new event and add guests as you normally would.

You’ll notice that there’s a “Make some attendees optional” link below. Click that link and a list of names will appear. The fully-coloured icons next to a name means that person is required to attend, but the person who has a white-and-gray icon next to his or her name has the option of declining to attend. This new feature will make it easier to notify team members of how relevant information may be to them and allow workers to decide if something more pressing should be handled rather than attending a non-vital meeting.

And while we’re on the subject of Google Calendar, people who want to view their Facebook events from GCal should pay attention. The last 10 times I attended a birthday party, christening, or general get-together, the invite arrived via Facebook. (My friends don’t send out physical invitations unless it’s for a wedding or something formal.) While I have my Facebook calendar integrated on my Android phone, I’d like to have it integrated directly with Google Calendar since I use GCal on the desktop as well. Switched points out that there’s actually a simple way of doing this using the Facebook Event Export feature.

1. Log-in to Facebook and click on Events

2. Click the Export Events link in the middle column

3. Right-click and copy the webcal://… link that appears in the pop-up

4. Open Google Calendar and under Other Calendars, click Add > Add by URL and then enter the webcal link.

Your Facebook invites and events will now appear in your Google Calendar. Keep in mind that you can also export to other calendars like Outlook or iCal using that same address.