Quick Tip: Add alternate email addresses for calendar scheduling

It's safe to say most of us have multiple email addresses, whether for business, work, shopping online or just "throwaway" accounts used for website registration to comment in forums. Having multiple calendars, however, can be a pain. I tend to keep my work events on my Outlook calendar at the office and my personal and consulting events on my Google calendar.

Calendar trouble

I discovered recently that forwarding calendar events from a separate email address to my Google account wasn't as easy as I thought. Someone scheduled a conference call with me via my personal business account (which I'll call smatteson@otheraccount.com), so I forwarded the meeting to my Gmail account to accept it. However, I wasn't able to add it to my calendar due to the following error:

Google Calendar invitations cannot be forwarded via email. This event belongs to smatteson@otheraccount.com and you are logged in as smmatteson0@gmail.com. Please ask the meeting organizer to add you to the event from Google Calendar.

Well, I didn't want to contact the organizer to ask him to update the event since I figured there had to be a technological solution. It doesn't look too good when you're a computer guy and you have to ask someone to redo something on your behalf.

Sure enough, I found I could add my other account as an alternate email address so I could forward these invitations to Gmail and get them on my calendar. At this point, two items are worthy of mention:

• This process doesn't apply to Gmail addresses; they must be from non-Gmail accounts).
• When you respond to these events, the reply will come from your Gmail account and not the alternate email address.

Take these steps

Here are the steps involved.

1.  Sign into your Google Account.

2.  You will see the "Accounts" screen. (Figure A)

Figure A

3.  Click "Edit" next to the "Email" section to display the "Manage account information" screen. (Figure B)

Figure B

4.  Enter your alternate email address in the "Add a new alternate address" field.

5.  Click "Save." A verification email will be sent to that other email address.

6.  Open the verification email which will appear similar to Figure C.

Figure C

7.  Click the verification link and you will see a confirmation page stating "Associated Email Address Verified."

Verify the steps worked

Now you should verify that your Google Calendar is set up to allow you to accept meetings from your alternate address.

1.  Access your Google Calendar.

2.  Click the "Gear" icon in the upper right. (Figure D)

Figure D

3.  Choose "Settings." (Figure E)

Figure E

4.  Click the "Calendars" link. (Figure F)

Figure F

5.  Click "Reminders and notifications." (Figure G)

Figure G

6.  Make sure "Allow me to respond to event invitations forwarded from these addresses" is checked off.