How Gmail's New Tools Come to the Rescue When Making Appointments

Gmail is getting more useful when you need to connect with others at a specific time.

Google has unveiled a new calendar tool in the Gmail web client that makes it easier and quicker to schedule meetings. Experts say the new features could transform how you set up appointments. 

"Google's new tools are designed to be straightforward and efficient, allowing users to schedule 1:1 meetings and share availability with ease,”  Kaustubh Chaudhari, a senior software engineer at Microsoft, told Lifewire in an email interview. "They've achieved this without overcomplicating the interface, staying true to Google's minimalist design philosophy.”

Google Calendar Tool

The new Google Calendar tool is meant to help you find convenient meeting times with others much more quickly. It can be handy when setting up a time to meet with customers, partners, or people in your organization whose Google Calendars are not visible to you.

"Two significant features stand out: the ability to quickly create events and the new availability sharing functionality," Chaudhari said. "By clicking the calendar icon within Gmail, users can create an event with the email subject serving as the event name, and the email recipients included as participants. Google automatically generates an event summary that users can easily share, reducing the time spent on coordinating and informing attendees about the meeting details."

Also, Chaudhari said the 'Offer times you're free' feature enables users to highlight their availability across multiple days and share this information directly within an email. "These features streamline the scheduling process, eliminating the need for long email threads to finalize meeting times," he added.

You could be fooled into thinking that this update simply shows you your own Google calendar in a sidebar next to your Gmail window, "but this update does much more than that," Steven Athwal, the managing director at The Big Phone Store, said via email. The new Gmail calendar tool allows users to work collaboratively on scheduling an event, with changes updated for all users simultaneously. 

Unlike standalone email calendar tools that require switching back and forth between different applications or tabs, Gmail's Calendar offers a cohesive experience. 

"You can also now list times you're available, that all users in the email thread can easily see without creating an event that's locked into your calendar," he added. "Until now, external tools like Doodle have been the best way to list availability, so adding this feature directly into Gmail will make things much simpler for users."

To make the most of the new Gmail tools, users should fully leverage the integration with other Google services, Chaudhari said. They can use the 'Create an event' feature when planning meetings or discussions based on email conversations and the 'Offer times you're free' feature when they want to provide others with a range of suitable meeting times.

"The best approach is to make these tools part of the regular workflow, reducing the time and effort required for scheduling and coordinating meetings," he added. "Keep in mind that while sharing availability for multiple recipients, only the first person accepting a slot will be automatically added to the invite."

Intuitive Scheduling

Most observers say the new update brings Gmail to the head of the pack when it comes to calendar tools. 

"For example, Microsoft Outlook is a very customizable program that allows users to integrate a wide variety of tools and plugins that could offer similar functionality to these new Gmail tools—but it's a lot less intuitive, and these features are considered advanced by Outlook," Athwal said. "Gmail's approach seems to make the integration of scheduling features within the email client as intuitive as possible."

Unlike standalone email calendar tools that require switching back and forth between different applications or tabs, Gmail's Calendar offers a cohesive experience, Vladimir Fomenko, the director of the tech firm Infatica noted in an email to Lifewire. He said that Gmail's streamlined integration simplifies the user workflow and ensures that all essential functions are consolidated in one place. 

"Furthermore, Google's renowned technological expertise and vast user base grant the Gmail Calendar tool access to robust algorithms and machine learning capabilities," he added. "This empowers the tool to provide advanced features like intelligent scheduling and event suggestions."