How to Keep Teaching Timetables and Office Hours in One Calendar View

Keep the official teaching timetable, your preparation blocks, and student bookings in separate calendars that you can display together. A lecture has a fixed time, preparation needs protected working time, and office hours need slots students can book.

Keep taught sessions connected to the official timetable

Use the institution's supported calendar connection or feed for published teaching sessions. Keep the official timetable as the authority for rooms, cancellations and changes. If only an exported file is available, remember that importing it does not create an updating connection.

Connect the published timetable using the institution's feed or supported account connection. Keep a read-only timetable separate from the calendar where you make your own plans. Then you can identify which changes came from the university.

For teaching that needs a room, confirm the reservation in the institution's booking system. A calendar entry alone does not confirm the room or tell you whether students received the update.

Preparation and follow-up time

Reserve setup and follow-up around the taught sessions in your own calendar. A two-hour class may need preparation beforehand and time afterward for student questions; the official timetable usually covers only the class itself.

Mark time busy when it is genuinely unavailable for other meetings. Use free status for informational reminders that should not occupy your whole day. A deadline labeled “Submit grades” can be an all-day reminder while a separate timed block reserves the work.

Use Busy, Free, and Tentative statuses to control availability. Color can help you recognize a class, but it does not tell a booking system whether you are free.

Bookable office hours

If office hours mean students can book a slot, use the university's approved booking tool or the provider's supported appointment feature. Publish its actual booking link through the normal course channel. Do not create an ordinary busy event for the whole period and assume a booking page will automatically know it is an exception.

Test the result as a student would: look for an available slot, confirm its location or joining instructions, and check which calendar receives a booking. A separate availability schedule may be needed alongside the events that record confirmed appointments.

Google supports appointment schedules. Its secondary-calendar conflict checking requires an eligible paid plan. Confirm what your institution's account includes before relying on that feature for student bookings.

Use one view without merging every source

A multi-account client can display the timetable, faculty meetings and personal commitments together. That may be sufficient if you arrange meetings yourself. Keep the sources distinguishable and check the chosen calendar before creating a new event.

Avum Calendar is another way to see supported connected calendars in one workspace. It can be useful when the mix includes Google, Outlook, iCloud, CalDAV or an ICS timetable. Seeing calendars together does not make a feed editable or let students book you.

If colleagues book against a primary work calendar, create an Avum Sync Rule from the teaching calendar or timetable feed to that work calendar. Copy the occupied time and remove course details the receiving audience does not need. An ICS timetable remains read-only; a CalDAV destination needs permission and server support for writing. Test a class reschedule to see how the busy copy changes.

A new semester or timetable

At the start of a new term, review recurring preparation blocks and published office hours. A weekly review across accounts can help keep the personal planning around teaching accurate even when the official timetable updates automatically.

Ready to bring your teaching commitments into a clearer calendar view? Start your free 30-day trial with Avum today.