Category: Tip of the Week

One of the questions we get frequently is about having both a work and a personal gmail account accessible on your phone or tablet. The answer is, YES, you can have multiple gmail accounts (and google calendar accounts) on the same mobile device.

If you’re having trouble setting this up, feel free to stop by the helpdesk or contact them (webhelpdesk@carleton.edu or x5999) and they’ll be happy to help you get set up. It’s difficult to write a complete set of instructions since there are so many platforms and phones out there, and since some platform/phone combinations look different depending on the carrier you use, so these are just a sketch of the steps to use and we’re happy to work with you individually to get things running.

In general:

1. Go to your device settings area (not app settings for mail or calendar, but the settings for the entire device)
2. Find the place that lists your Accounts
3. Add your various Google accounts there (you may already have your personal Google account there, so simply add a second Google account following the steps your device presents to you). CAVEAT: Occasionally a platform/device/carrier/app combination will not allow you to authenticate through Carleton’s login screen for your Carleton Google account. These instructions on setting up a device-specific password may be useful in such situations, even though the instructions were written for one particular mail client.
4. As you add your various Google Accounts, you should be presented with options to say whether you want your calendar, mail, etc from that account to sync to your phone. Turn those on.
5. Now open your calendar and mail apps, and you should see items from all your relevant Google accounts. Sometimes they will be integrated and sometimes there will be an account switcher so that you can look at only personal or only work accounts. Either way, both accounts should now be accessible on your device.
6. Often there are additional settings within the app to govern how the apps function, and you may want to explore these options at this point.

And of course, if you have any difficulty, the helpdesk is happy to work with you. Stop by or contact them (webhelpdesk@carleton.edu or x5999) with any questions.

One of the most frequent questions we’ve gotten so far is “How do I edit the subject line of a reply or forward?” It seems to be one of the best hidden features of the Gmail interface! Here’s how you do it:

1. Start your reply or forwarded message.
2. There will be an arrow at the top left of the address area, near your picture. Click that and you’ll get a menu that includes “Edit Subject.”
   
3. Edit the subject line however you wish!

Gmail has a built-in Spam filter that may be filtering messages that you don’t consider spam.  Luckily, the Spam filter is trainable and learns your preferences the more you use it.  Read more to see the messages in your Spam folder and begin the training process.

Trying to find a time to meet? There are three main ways to see if the other person is already scheduled during that time!

Did you know that in addition to the various settings and options available in Gmail and Google Calendar, each program also has a section called Labs? This is where Google makes features available that they’re developing and testing, and they include all kinds of interesting ideas, such as developing canned responses to common emails, adding a world clock to your calendar, or adding a calendar gadget to your email interface.

Browse through available labs by clicking on the Gear icon in Gmail or Google Calendar, then click “Settings,” and then click “Labs.”

Zimbra was quite generous with the file sizes it allowed people to attach to emails. No other major email system is as generous, and Gmail is no exception. This means that if you have a file larger than 25MB, you’ll have to use a method other than email attachments to send it to other people. While there are lots of ways to do this, the two most common and best supported on campus will be to send links from either Dropbox or Google Drive. Here’s how to manage this….

Why get just one tip when you can have a whole library? Google’s Tips Library is full of ideas for all of the Google Apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, etc). It’s definitely worth exploring.

Many of us have had the experience of receiving an invitation to a Google Doc, clicking the link that should take us straight to the document, and instead landing on a page that says that we need to request permission to access the document. This happens when your browser remembers you being logged into one Google account while the invitation was sent to a different Google account. Maybe you’re logged in to your personal Gmail account but trying to open a Google Doc sent to your Carleton email address. As more and more of us will now make daily use of Carleton Google accounts in addition to personal Google accounts, here are two ways to manage multiple Google accounts….

Want the options of letting students claim portions of your office hours or advising slots? Do you run a service on campus that could benefit from having people sign up for appointments within blocks of time you pre-determine? Google Calendar offers the ability to set up appointment slots in the version it provides to institutions like Carleton.

To use Google appointments, select a span of time and then select the option telling Calendar that this span of time will contain appointments. As you set up your appointment slots, Calendar will give you a link to your publishable appointment calendar. When another person clicks on that link and logs in, they’ll see their own Google Calendar with your appointment times overlaid, helping them select an appointment that doesn’t conflict with their other appointments. As people claim appointment slots, those claimed slots will no longer appear as options for subsequent people. As your time is claimed by appointments or other meetings, slots disappear from the available appointments calendar available from that link you sent out. You can even “invite” other people to your appointment slots so that if someone claims an appointment it schedules more than one of you for the meeting.

Check out Google Help, YouTube, or Linda.com for video walk-throughs.

Until July 7th, Carleton will be divided between people who use Zimbra and people who use Gmail and Google Calendar. Email will flow seamlessly during this time, but there will be some calendar oddities until everyone has transitioned to Google.

This week’s Tip of the Week: How to manage the two main calendaring artifacts of the campus’ staggered transition process from now until July 7th. In this post:

1. How to search Google Calendars if you’re on Zimbra
2. How to search Zimbra calendars if you’re on Google
3. How to modify calendar events if some people are on Zimbra and some are on Google.