Wednesday 4 January 2012

Mobile Google Calendars & Contacts

If you have been guided here from Knol's and this is not the page you expected please use the right hand column "Blog Archive" to find the correct one.
 
How to Access Multiple Calendars



Also advice for Sync Contacts

If you only have internet use.

 
First, this one is never going to sync automatically but you can get everything you want. In your Google Calendar (pc version) open the main calendar and down the left hand side look for “Other Calendars” and below this is Add and the menu for this is Add a Friend’s Calendar and this is where you can get other calendars added in with no limit to the amount.

The second part is to get these to the phone which is done through the browser but you may have to find the address by searching Google for Mobile Google Calendar depending where you are but http://m.google.com/calendar might do the trick and it will need refreshing by you. It’s not as fully detailed as a built in calendar but it will act as an appointments scheduler although you won’t be able to use the alarms.

My way of doing it is to leave the browser open on the page and use the Menu button to “Switch Application” and bring back the Home Page.
 For Blackberry users trying to use the new Sports Calendars this will allow you to read these although you might have to use the browser search to locate and sign into “Google Calendar”.

If you have a smart phone

This was written for Blackberry phones but should work on other smart phones.


You have to share the other calendars to your own primary one by using the Other Calendars Option in the left hand column of the pc’s Google Calendar which is done by using the Add which will generate the emails to share. Once this is done you can go into the BB’s Calendar – Menu button – Google Sync – Menu Button – Options – Scroll to the bottom to highlight your Address – Menu button – Change Option – Other Calendars and you can now tick the boxes to the calendars you want to add.

Choosing the Calendar to send to from the phone.



Google Sync – Menu Key – Options – scroll down to Sync these Calendars and use the menu key again to Change Option – you can now choose not to update any at all or any of the named calendars by clicking on the highlighted one. It’s possible to go one stage further by clicking the trackball to show which Calendar you are updating to and using the trackball again to change this (also use this if your Calendar is not updating the web (pc) Calendar).

Loading from the phone’s Calendar to the Google Calendar


How you enter the dates into the Calendar affects whether they get loaded or not. The easiest way to explain is when the Calendar is open use the menu key and find “New Alarm” which will give you a brief entry field, go back one and find “New” and you will find a much larger entry field including Notes and other fields, this is the one that uploads to your Google Calendar and the first one is a local memory meant for your phone’s calendar only.

Because this seems to be one of the worst areas of exchanging information with the Google Calendar here is another way of doing it.
There are two types of entry for the Blackberry Calendar – one is the local calendar which is purely for the Blackberry Calendar and the other is the shared back to Google. Open the Calendar in the Agenda mode (set it up using the menu key) Options – General Options – Views – Initial View – Agenda (you can get into this by just choosing View Agenda from the Menu if you prefer to normally see the day, week or month) and highlight today’s date, click on the track ball and this will give you the correct one to add or update appointments which is a full detail screen. If you want to change an appointment time or something along that line make sure it opens in this full detail screen.

Different Calendar – Different colour



With the advent of the Enhanced Google Mail plug-in for Smart Phones which enables the Blackberry emailer to have almost the same facilities as the mobile Gmail it means that for every account you access in this way the Calendar will now give you a different colour and also allow viewing of each calendar individually.
Each Gmail Account will now be accessible through a different folder which also solves the problem of using different accounts to send or reply from but all emails are viewable from the Messages folder so the individual folders can be hidden in a specially created folder until needed.
More about this after doing a little investigating and for those who want a different calendar for different purposes/business/family then it is now possible to have these and not to have the additional string of email accounts associated one to each and a long line of folders to go with them. Once the accounts are set up (creates a CICAL for each) it is possible to go through Options (spanner icon) – Advanced Options – Service Book – and highlighting each CMIME that you no longer need and using the menu button will allow these to be deleted although all the emails will still add to your Message folder. Each calendar can be examined individually by using Calendars – Menu Button – Scroll to Select Calendar and see who is doing what.
Even more about this in Mobile Gmail Variations accessible through
“ceramic manny also wrote” in the right hand column under Reviews.


Keeping Separate Calendars 

Latest phones OS 6 and possibly 7

Use http://us.blackberry.com/update/ to make sure your phone is up to date.
Turn off the Data Connection for your phone. Now use the Desktop Manager to backup your phone (in case anything goes wrong but it shouldn’t) and then use it to delete your Contacts. You can now get rid of Google Sync using the DM’s Application manager. Unplug the phone from the pc.
Restart the Data Connection and look for the Setup Folder – Email (Envelope Icon) and choose Googlemail/Gmail to setup your accounts. As you create each account scroll down to find Synchronisation and check that Calendar and Contacts are both enabled. Back out and give the phone time to do it’s thing (at least an hour).
Your Calendars and Contacts now both show all in the Defaults but using the menu you can choose which you want to see individually and you can also add events to them specifically.

Keeping Separate Calendars by denster1 and copied from the forum with grateful thanks.

This is a shocker but very good news… I figured this one out and the solution works perfectly.  Thanks in advance to “The C Man” for your help and patience. Summary: I desired the ability to view both my work calendar Outlook 2007 / BES and my personal calendar Google / BIS on my BB Torch. Seeing both is straightforward the rub comes when you want to keep your work and personal calendar separate.  Initially by using Google Synch I was able to easily synch my personal calendar to my BB Torch device but when I did that all my personal events would show up on my work calendar.  I do not want all my personal events showing up on my work calendar.  I have outlined the steps below that worked for me…
1.  Setup –> Email Accounts: I already had an Enterprise Account and I used Google Enhanced plugin to setup my personal GMAIL account. Note: I choose not to synch work and personal contacts… I already have everybody on my work contacts list.
2. Go to Calendar –> Menu–> Select Calendar:  & Now you will see two calendars (Desktop & Gmail)  Note that this Gmail calendar only exists on your BB and is NOT your personal Google Calendar… I know confusing but hang on…
3. Install Google Synch –> Once installed select Options –> select synch Calendar –> You should now see your ACTUAL personal Google Calendars –> Now select the ones you want synched to your BB device.  Summary: SYNCH these Calendars–> Select the ones you want synched to your BB device.  You now want to select that Personal Google Calendar to Add new Handheld events to:::  We are still in options under Google Synch….  This is an important step, you must select your Google Calendar as the calendar to Add New Hand held Events to…
4. Now select SYSTEM –> Options –> Device –> Advanced System Settings –> Service Books:  Ensure that you now see: Gmail (CICAL) and Desktop (CICAL)… For my setup these are the only two CICAL’s needed.  Oh by the way, it turns out a CICAL (Calendar) is created for each email account that you setup on the blackberry which is why in step 1, I created a GMAIL email account using the Gmail enhanced plugin vice using the WEB Gmail option.
5. While you are in Advanced System Settings go to “Default Services” and select Gmail as your default CICAL.  I left my contacts list and messages defaulted to desktop which for me is my work (BES) exchange account.
6. We are getting close:  Go back to Calendar –> Menu and select “Select Calendar” You should still see the same two calendars that were there earlier (Desktop and Gmail).  Now when you create a new appointment you will see an option at the top of the appointment page to send via DESKTOP or GMAIL.  When you select Desktop the new appointment will only synch to your DESKTOP.  When you select send via GMAIL the appointment will only show up on your personal Google Calendar.  I’m sure you have already noticed that you can assign a unique color to each calendar, very convenient.
7.  With this setup: Events you create on your work BES account will show up at work and on your BB but not on your personal web Google Calendar. Events created on your web Google personal Calendar will show up there and on your BB torch but WILL NOT appear on your work (BES) calendar.



Added to the forum thread by inla and copied to here with grateful thanks


Brilliant — so happy to have a solution to this!  I basically used denster’s set-up and it’s working perfectly.  Thought I’d add a few notes in case they’re helpful to others.  I have a Storm2 on BES with my personal cell phone number attached.  Sorry if these are obvious — I’m very far from an expert on such things.
a) When you’re setting up the new email account in denster’s step 1, there’s no particular reason it has to be your Gmail account, or even a Gmail account at all (though that is the cleanest and least confusing way to do it!).  For mine, I used a newly created blackberry email account. My Google calendar now syncs to the calendar associated with the blackberry.net email, and my Outlook calendar at work now syncs to the Desktop calendar. 
b) I was having the same problem as mthastings above (followed all the steps, but Google calendar entries were still going to the Desktop calendar rather than the new one).  I had to do three battery pulls to get everything sorted out.  Signing out of Google Sync, pulling the battery for an hour or so, putting the battery back and signing back into Google Sync worked for me.  So you may have to be (very) persistent!
c) At some point during this process I ended up with a third, extra calendar called “Default” on my Blackberry (separate from Desktop).  After some searching on other forums, I was able to get rid of it by finding all the entries in the Default calendar (which were seemingly pulled at random from my older Google calendar entries — very odd) and deleting them.  It then disappeared on its own.
For even more help click on here

Re: Multiple Contacts when Syncing

Too many times the complaint comes up about duplicate contacts or addresses so advice for this is to only sync once and then opening the Google Sync in the phone untick the Sync Contacts box and add any new entries by hand. 
This is copied from the Blackberry forum and refers to duplicates created using Blackberry OS 6. My thanks to Jonathan Friesen for this:
I recently got a Bold 9780 from work (uses BES) and I also wanted to get it setup with my Google Calendar to see my personal calendar events on the Blackberry as well. My Google Calendar setup is a little complicated since I actually post most things to my wife’s Google Calendar as I have shared editing permissions with her calendar (let’s face it: she’s the social coordinator anyways–I just need to know where and when to show up). Thanks to The “C” Man’s info (http://knol.google.com/k/
mobile-google-calendars-contacts), I had setup a separate calendar on my Blackberry and configured Google Sync to bring in the calendar info. The only problem is that I was getting duplicate calendar entries each time that I synced. It turns out that with BB OS 6, it also tries to sync the calendar. I had to fix this in the BB Setup app (Setup > Internet Mail Account > account name > Synchronization Options > Uncheck Calendar). Now it’s working fine. Hope that helps anyone else who find this problem.
Working with another thread here there is yet more help in clearing duplicate entries.


Creating a new Contact list in Gmail

This was created for a specific inquiry and was for deleting the old Contact List in the Gmail web app and replacing it with the list in the phone but it will work if you need to add Contacts to an already existing Address book in the phone without deleting your existing details or in the Desktop Application. It is as written for the original inquiry.
In a Gmail account with no contacts (you may want to open a new one for this) and if you already have Google Sync on the phone then you need to delete this (preferably with the Desktop Manager)  and then install a fresh version which will now allow you to sync your contacts to the new Gmail address but you need to leave the Calendar sync out of this. It should now load all the contacts into your on line version but not affect anything in the phone’s address book. If this worked then you can delete all Addresses in your original Gmail account except those few that you might need and once again delete the Google Sync from the phone and do a new install but this time you can now log into the Gmail account that you really want to keep updated. You should not get duplicates but I would turn off the Auto Sync for this part and add any new addresses by hand to both.
It worked for me and if I haven’t explained this fully enough please use the Comments at the bottom of this page before you try it and I’ll try to help as much as I can. The major problem with doing this from a pre installed Google Sync is it will ask if you want to delete the phone’s Address Book first and I definitely would not go down that path. You can back everything up to you Desktop Manager before you do anything.
Incidentally, when I deleted the original Google Sync from the phone it said I had a fatal error and re-booted the phone but everything worked perfectly afterwards.


CICAL’s and Problems they cause


CICAL’s are created when you add another calendar to import to or from the phone which can happen inadvertently when you add Facebook, Outlook or another app to the phone and one of the most intrusive is Facebook. To find and disable or delete
(except the Blackberry CICAL)  you will need to open Options (the icon with a spanner) – Advanced Options – Service Book and search for them. To delete highlight the CICAL in question and using the menu button to bring up a menu click on delete. The CMIME is the one that concerns your emails so unless you are not using this it should be left alone.


Past Alarms deleting too early 

This is normally down to lack of memory space and you can alter this by making sure all media is saved to the memory card and then going into Media – Menu button – Options – and reducing the Device Memory Limit to the minimum which will be 5mb and this should release 10mb for other uses.
Want to keep the Events forever?
This is possible for events that are entered in the phone subject to the allowed memory. Open Calendar and then use the Menu button to find Options – General Options – Actions – Keep Appointments and change this to Forever. Entries synced from Google Sync do not obey this rule and are limited by whatever you have set in the Google Sync Options.


Clearing Cache and Cookies

These are the things that help you access a site and make use of the web. Although necessary they can block up and become a nuisance by slowing down the phone or locking onto a site. Under normal use they are cleared either in a full re-boot or when you plug into your Desktop Manager but the tool for this is located in Options – Security Options – Memory Cleaning – and possibly the best set up is “Status = Enabled, Clean When Holstered = Yes, Clean When Idle = Yes, Idle Timeout = 1 Min, Show Icon on Homescreen = Yes” and this last one will allow you to clean at will if you have been constantly using the browser or data downloads without break.  

Additional advice for installing and signing into any Google app

All Google apps should be downloaded using the Blackberry Browser which must be set to Blackberry Identification (open Browser – Browser Configuration to see this) and using the address http://m.google.com should take you to a Google home page that will lead to the downloads or if you are sure of the official designation of the app you want you can append this to the address bar as /##### so this could be /mail or /sync.
When you download and install any Google App you need to  Enable Security settings because if you don’t this would cause problems. Can be corrected by going into Options (spanner)  – Security Options – Application Permissions – find Google Sync – menu – Edit Permissions – make them all Allow

Default Services.

This is another area that can cause problems as more apps are added by the ISP or Blackberry for their own reasons. Can be found by going into Options (spanner/wrench icon) Advanced Options – Default Services.

Reasons for not being able to sign in to an an app.

Occasionally, because of a font setting the first letter of a password gets capitalised so you could try typing the first letter twice and deleting the first of these.
A new possibility is that you now need an eight letter/digit password and seven letter/digit passwords are not being recognised.
If not then try:
In your pc try going to the bottom of your Inbox page and Last Account Activity – Close all other Activities and then sign out of Gmail including the iGoogle page.
Now pull the battery in the phone and give it as much time as you can spare before putting it back in and allowing the reboot. Try signing in now retyping in your full address including the correct Gmail/Googlemail. com and the password making sure it is exactly correct. Might take a couple tries but it should get there as this works for most applications.




Mobile Gmail Variations

If you have been guided here from Knol's and this is not the page you expected please use the right hand column "Blog Archive" to find the correct one.
Differences between Blackberry push and Mobile Gmail








This will always be a work in progress so please come back.

Background to Enhanced Google Mail


In all probability prior to 25th August 2009 Gmail in it’s mobile mode led the field for it’s synchronisity with the normal web based computer but it is now dwarfed by Enhanced Google Mail which unfortunately for users of other mobile phones is only available to Blackberry users and possibly Blackberry Emulators.

What’s the difference?
Mobile Google mail is a direct link to your Web based account or in other words the one you see on your computer screen and whatever you see on one should be directly mirrored in the other. Newly refreshed it will show whatever is in the Inbox and anything else can be searched from the Menu. Deliveries of new mails are governed by the Automatic Refresh or it can be brought up to date by manually refreshing on demand.
Enhanced Google Mail is the Blackberry push now with direct commands back to the Web base which will reflect directly on the Computer screen but not the reverse way around so if you read an email on the phone it will show as read on your computer screen but reading it on the pc will not show it as being read on the phone. Emails are brought to you as and when they are delivered to the Gmail servers and this is near as instant as possible and if you were to put both side by side could be even faster thean your pc will see it.

Basic mobile Gmail and how to install it for the first time user:

Unfortunately this option has been discontinued but the details are left for historic detail.
Thanks to fhbm who found a way of turning the clock back with this link to download the Gmail app: http://goo.gl/3b1Ke
Find and open the Blackberry web browser, in the Address bar backspace once to delete the www. and complete the address to show http://m.google.com/mail or to find it and other Google apps http://m.google.com – click the trackball or Return key and the app will go through the normal procedures guiding all the way and at one point will ask if you would like to “Set application permissions” and this box should be ticked. Once fully downloaded you will need to sign into one of your Gmail/Googlemail Accounts. Since at this point Gmail/Googlemail can cause it’s own problems it can pay to go to the bottom of the Gmail page in a pc and find the Last Account Activity (Details), open it and Close all other Activities. The full Gmail/Googlemail address must be used and the password should be entered exactly as normal including Upper and Lower case letters.
Once you are into your mail account which will automatically load everything in your Inbox it is possible to Sign out, and Sign back in by using the Menu key and scrolling to the bottom where it also has the option of adding other accounts and signing into one or other of these, only one account is accessible at a time. Reading emails and replying is simple (click on the Trackball or the menu key). As the app only refreshes at certain times if you would like to bring yourself up to date then using Refresh in the menu does this while you wait.
Biggest benefit is that it syncs in both directions so that if you were to Delete or Read in either mobile or web app it will copy and show this in the other on the next refresh.
What doesn’t it do? Well you can’t attach anything to the emails you want to send and neither can you open attachments. Links hardly ever work and viewing an email with images or pictures is a monumental task and (being honest) I’ve never managed it.



New Browser Version:


Logging straight in from the BB’s Browser directly to gmail.com gives a near desktop experience and as this is directly to the web access whatever you do here will be reflected in the normal pc view immediately Search Gmail.com from the Blackberry Browser and you can create a shortcut on the Home page when you are in.


Enhanced Google Mail:

This is the Blackberry’s own emailer brought up to date to work with Gmail. Primarily you need to use the E-mail Settings and this can be found in the Setup folder. Depending on your supplier you may find it better to better to Create New Account using the supplier’s or Blackberry’s own service and then move onto the Existing Users. Add all your Gmail accounts and as each is created it will advise you to use the Enhanced Googlemail Plugin and once you have done this the first time it will work with all the subsequent addresses you add. Should you not be able to do the primary set up this way contact your service supplier who will guide you how to create the accounts from your pc. Each new account will have it’s own folder and to save bloating out the home or primary screen I created a new folder to hold these as all mail will now come into the Messages folder and be accessible from there but you will be able to find these in the appropriate folder and answer directly from this so it will be sent from the correct account.
Syncing details is single direction only, from phone to Gmail so if you open an email using the phone it will show as read on the pc but the other way around until you open or tell the phone to mark it Read it will still show as Unread. Links and attachments will open and cut/copy and paste is now available as are most other extras. Deleting from the Blackberry can delete from the Web app and the phone but the other way round is governed by the settings in the phone.




Warning

A word of warning that the wrong advice was given in one article that has been misleading some trying to install this where it was said you had to delete the Gmail app but should have said if you are already using the Blackberry emailer you will need to delete the accounts and then re-open them as new accounts in this only. This is also badly explained in Blackberry’s own page.
A further WARNING: If you have Google Sync installed you need to make a choice as to which you will use for Sync purposes as both together will cause multiple duplications in Calendar and Contacts. To disable in Enhanced Googlemail scroll to the bottom of the screen in BB Email Setup and disable these. Otherwise disable them in Google Sync.

Evidently some users have been surprised to find their phone contacts have been synced to their Google accounts. If you don't want this to happen you should scroll to the bottom of the screen when setting up the account or by using "Edit" from the menu when the correct account is highlighted and disable from here.
Two little extras gained from this Enhanced Google Mail is individual colours for each Gmail Account in Blackberry Calendars and the ability to use the menu to choose to see the individual entries for each Calendar or Contact account if you have more than one. See more about this in  Mobile Google Calendars & Contacts.

For further advice read Blackberry’s guide which can be downloaded from here
http://docs.blackberry.com/en/smartphone_users/deliverables/9643/About_GEE_for_BlackBerry_702891_11.jsp








The New Gmail buttons


If you really cannot stand the new interface then scroll to the bottom of this Blog

Text in the buttons is available now by going into 
Settings > General > Button Labels 
where you can make your own choice


Should something be too small to see please use Ctrl and + at the same time to Zoom it larger

How to find your way around Gmail.

Gmail logo has a menu leading to the other main pages

The Top Bar when Inbox is displayed

Does not change in any view.

What the Buttons Do:

Click a button when in Gmail to see what it leads you to from a menu. Some items might lead to a further sub menu.

Left hand side of Inbox 



This one changes depending on where you are so might show as Mail, Contacts or Tasks but leads to the other two


The Checkbox helps you chose which boxes you want checked for further actions


The Refresh button which does exactly what it says but more localised than the Browser Refresh



The More button without an email checked

 


Settings gives you the choice of how your display looks 

 


Control bar for Inbox



If you are using anything but Classic then the left hand side of the bar directly above the Subject lines shows “unread” but the right hand side gives a new control menu.

The Top Bar when an email is open or check marked in Inbox


Return to Inbox

Takes you back to the Inbox or whatever you were using last such as Search or Label

Archive button


Although this shows a folder please don’t be mislead. Gmail does not use Folders, this moves the active ones to All Mail  or you can create Labels for each and these can be found by using Labels in the left hand column. Only one copy of an email is kept so if you delete it you have lost it into Trash and then forever.

Replying from an open email plus the menu

 

Report Spam button which moves to Spam when used


Best to leave in Spam to give Google’s servers time to remember your choice.

Delete



Moves to Trash/Bin where it will be kept for thirty days to allow for a rethink. Only one copy of an email is kept so if you delete it you have lost it into Trash and then forever.

Move To



Once again misuses a folder/file icon because it moves to or activates a Label so you can find it. Only one copy of an email is kept so if you delete it you have lost it into Trash and then forever.



Labels



Here you can create new Labels and add extra Labels to an email so it can be cross referenced.

More

If you are wondering about "Boomerang" it allows me to set a time/date to send a post.

This is the way you will see it from an open post or the Inbox if you have check marked a post.

Forward and Back buttons

 

The left button takes you up the to later posts and the right to earlier.



Expand/Contract, Print, Open in New Window


As seen in a Conversation View

The ellipsis



Bottom left of an open email will reveal what has been trimmed from the email.

Gadget



Bottom of the left hand column is to find any Gadgets you may have installed.

Above and Below the Inbox

Clicking on your name top right leads to a menu.

Add Account will allow you to open secondary accounts in their own Tabs by signing into or adding them

Above and top right

Share allows you to share something with your Google + Circles and this is completely controllable.



Detail


Gmail’s Search box has incorporated all the old Search and Filter Options behind the menu arrow leading to the box shown below.



Below

 

If you still can't find anything you like about the new look it's possible to create something very close to the old version by using "Style" so this does the look and this does the Conversation view. There is an advisory blog on this at http://gmail-miscellany.blogspot.co.uk/2012_04_01_archive.html

 Another thing you can do is to open two Tabs for Gmail with one running the Standard version any way you want it to look and the second using the HTML version. http://mail.google.com/mail/h/ will take you straight there. 

 Big Request from myself

Save me coming back to this and removing Comments which I will do please, unless you need help with something, don't comment. I will add new screenshots and advice as wanted or needed.

This Blog is meant to help but is not meant as a commentary box on what is right or wrong, whether you like the new style of Gmail or not. Post those comments in the Forums or wherever you wish, in fact, anywhere except here