Help With Echo Calendar Integration

[dj_ripcord]

Hello All!

New Member, be gentle.
 
Thanks for taking at look at this thread, I have a rather odd project I would like to embark on, but i'm sure most of you can relate.
 
I have an Amazon Echo that I would like to begin using as a family calendar system. As i'm sure many of you are aware, adding events to the calendar is very easy, so I would like to have everyone on my family be able to just yell an event out the the Echo and then everyone knows what's happening very quickly.
 
The problem is that when you make an event, It gets added to whatever person's calendar who is signed in at the time. In this case, my mother's. She uses a Gmail calendar which I think is the best solution here, but please let me know if you have other ideas. Anyways, I want any event that is created with the Echo to have a list of guests that are automatically invited via email. This way, any event that is important enough to yell at the Echo, will also be forwarded to everyone in the household. Doesn't sound too difficult, but I can't seem to find any products or guides that will help me achieve this.
 
I think there is a way to add groups to google calendar, but if I did it this way, It would require me to manually go into the events that have been created and forward them, which defeats the purpose of this project.
 
If I need to run some sort of Echo Bridge or server I have a VM ready to take the job. If anyone can provide a guide for me to do this I would greatly appreciate it. Even if the solution is still somehow staring me in the face, and I just don't see it yet...
 
 
Thanks for the support!

[kevb]

Could you setup a Google account for the family, like familyripcord@gmail.com, and link that calendar to Alexa? Then put that account (gmail and calendar) on everyone's phone (in addition to their own account). I think that would do what you are looking for, but haven't tried it myself.

[malliekm]

Kevb's idea will work.  We do the same thing here but there is only two of us.  It's actually my husband's Google work calendar that is shared among several builders and designers.  They can't add to the calendar (but could if I allowed it) but they can read it.  My husband and I can add to it from our cell phones or via Alexa.  You'll have to choose a calendar from the settings/calendar in the Alexa app.

[rolldog]

Could you setup a Google account for the family, like familyripcord@gmail.com, and link that calendar to Alexa? Then put that account (gmail and calendar) on everyone's phone (in addition to their own account). I think that would do what you are looking for, but haven't tried it myself.

I realize this thread is a little old, but for anyone who has this issue, this is exactly what I've done. I setup Gmail addresses for my daughters long ago, and I also setup a calendar and email that their mom, our daughters, and I all have access to (we've been divorced for years). For school, when the school sends emails about anything, they go to this shared calendar. I imported their school calendar into this Google Calendar, a calendar of their sporting/cheer events, etc, and which days of the week they're with me and which days they're with their mom.

After I initially setup this calendar years ago, I shared it with everyone's Gmail account so everyone could import it into their own Google Calendar, but everything on this calendar 6a different color than everyone's individual calendar. Now, whenever something is added to this shared calendar, it automatically updates everyone's calendar at the same time. The calendar on their phones, their PC, iPad, etc all get updated instantly, and everyone gets a notification pop up when an important event is coming up.

This has been working wonderfully for me for the last 6-7 years. No need to send invitations, you only need to go into the calendar settings initially and share it with everyone so everyone can import it into their own calendar. Plus, anyone can add events, change events, etc, plus all their school emails, like if the day and time for a soccer game was changed, everyone has access to this email simultaneously, but it's setup as an additional email address separate from everyone's personal email address. I highly recommend doing this. No one has ever encountered any problems.