Shared Calendar is a comfortable way to keep track of the happenings and events with your family, friends, and co-workers. It is super helpful as it eliminates the hassle of multiple people calling you for the time, date, location, and other details of an event.
With a shared calendar, you just have to create an event, and everyone comes to know about it. GroupCal – Shared Calendar is one of the best apps that lets you do all this and more. It is clean, organized, feature-laden, and completely free!
GroupCal App Review
After you set up GroupCal and are inside the app, you are greeted with small red pop-ups that show the instructions. In the very first card, you come to know that the app is WhatsApp of shared calendars.
When you launch WhatsApp, you see that there are individual chats and group chats. When you tap on any one, all the messages are listed. Similarly, GroupCal shows all your shared calendars, and inside each calendar, there are specific events that are shared only with the members of that particular shared calendar. This layout is easy to use and truly innovative for a calendar app!
In WhatsApp, you can chat with many people. Similarly, with this app, you can create various shared calendars. For example, you may create one calendar for your office members, one for your buddies you practice soccer with, one for your family, another for your yoga class members, and so on. Each of these has its screen, and there is no mix-up.
Once you create a shared calendar, you can invite people using a link or their phone number. There is no need to use their email addresses. After they accept your invitation, all future events are synced automatically in real-time to all the members. You also have the power to add events to this shared calendar exclusively, or you may allow other members to add events to it as well.
The option to add a location for events is a godsend. Suppose you are inviting people for some function to a distant place. You can create that event, add the location, and all members can simply tap on ‘Go’ inside GroupCal’s event, and their phone’s map will start navigating to the site set by you, the creator of the event.
All Events Sync in Real-Time
When you add an event, it is shown to all the participants of that shared calendar. You do not have to move any additional muscle. It is effortless and quick. So suppose, I have (actually have) a shared calendar named ‘Writers at iGB,’ and I have added all my author friends to it.
Now, for Saturday, I add an event titled ‘Snacks and Foosball’ at 4:30 PM. It is synced in real-time, and all the members of this shared calendar get a notification on their device about this event.
From here, they can accept the invitation and give their nod. I can comfortably see who received the event I added and who confirmed, in real-time. Further, when I tap on this event and go inside members, I can see the full list of all people who have accepted.
Further, if I change the date and time of an event, the shared members also get to know about this, as it shows as a message inside the app. It reads like “Peter updated an event: Jan 23, 2020, 07:30 PM and Name of the Event.” Isn’t this super smart?
Other Calendars Events at One Place
GroupCal asks your permission, and then it syncs with your Apple, G-Calendar, and Outlook. Now all your events from these calendars are also shown inside this app. This ensures that all your events are at a single place. But what is even better and cleaver is that these events are dimmed when you are viewing a shared calendar. If you tap on these events, they spring to life and are presented as colorful events.
Keep in mind that GroupCal thinks about your privacy, and thus, even though you can see personal events from other Apple or G-Calendar inside a shared calendar, these events are not shown or made available on the calendar of other group members. What is private stays private!
Management of Members, Calendars, and Events
Anytime you may add members to your shared calendar or remove an existing person. You may even make a person the Calendar Admin. The ability to add a display picture for shared calendars makes it amazing and personalized. As mentioned above, this indeed is the WhatsApp of shared calendars!
For every calendar, you may set a color. This will ensure that all events of that particular shared calendar are shown in the chosen color.
It is super convenient and lets you understand events at a glance. When you remove a calendar event, you are asked whether you want to remove it from your device or from everyone’s (if you are the creator of that event).
Our Verdict
Overall, GroupCal is among the best shared calendar iOS and Android app you can download on your smartphone. It is built well, has a plethora of functions, and attention to details like location are wonderful additions.
The app even shows you the temperature for a particular day all inside the calendar without you doing anything. The little sun or cloud icons with the temperature are helpful (as well as cute) to have. It is these little conveniences that reflect how thoughtfully the app has been designed and built.
So, if you are looking to make your professional and family life easier by having a properly managed calendar that syncs in real-time, GroupCal is your perfect answer! You must use it and ask your friends and family members to try it too. Once you create your first shared calendar and start using this app, you will experience all the goodness it has. And did I tell you that you do not need to spend a penny on it!
Price: Free
Download on iOS | Download on Android
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What are your thoughts after reading about this shared calendar app? Let us know in the comments below.
