Google Calendar Email Notification

Question

Just now, for the first time, I am attempting to use the calendar system Google provides. I am having one difficulty, however. I am not quite sure I understand the email reminder feature works.

What I want to do is set all of my events for the 7:00 AM slot, and then have Google send me an email at the actual time it takes place. For instance, suppose I have research meeting with one of my professors at 12:30 PM. How I figured I would do this is, set the event on the calendar for 7:00 AM, and then have a email reminder sent at 12:00. To do this, I would edit the event, go to the reminders section, type 5 in the box, and select hours. What I expected was, that the five hours from the time the event is scheduled (7:00 AM, in my case), I would get an email. This didn't work.

How does the reminder feature actually work?

Answer 1

That's an unusual calendar strategy.

Reminders work by sending an alert (email, popup, SMS) at X minutes/hours/days/weeks before the start time of the event.

You can set multiple reminders for an event, so you could do something like have a reminder sent three hours prior, then two hours prior, then an hour, then fifteen minutes. (If that's something you want to do.)

So, for your 12:00 appointment, you would create the actual event at 12:00. To receive a reminder at the time the event starts, create a reminder for 0 minutes "before" the event. If you want a reminder sent at 7:00, just create a reminder for 5 hours before the event.

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Having a reminder sent after the event is to have taken place would seem to make no sense and it's no wonder to me that that's not how it's implemented. (For what it's worth, I've never seen any other calendar app implement reminders after the fact.)

Perhaps if you edit your question to explain why you're trying to do what you're doing, we might be able to offer a more viable strategy.