Add an event to the family calendar

The calendar holds the family’s events — appointments, clubs, school runs, parties — so the week is one picture rather than four. Tasks live on the Tasks tab instead, which keeps the calendar readable on a phone.

1. Calendar tab, then Add event in the bar at the bottom. Or tap an empty hour on a day’s clock, and the event starts at that time.
2. Name it, tap the faces of the people it involves, and set the day and time.
3. Tap Add event in the bar at the bottom of the form. The line beside it says who and when, so you can check before you save.

Every form for adding something works this way: dates and times are picked from the same tiles, and the button that saves is in the bar at the bottom of the screen, reading Add and the thing, or Save changes when you are editing.

Who it is for

Who comes first on the form, straight under the kind, and it is asked the way a new task asks it: tap each person’s face. Everyone at the start of the row ticks the whole family at once; tap it again to clear them all. The line under the faces says whose calendars it will show on. An event needs at least one person, so saving with nobody ticked asks you to choose.

To hand an event to someone else without opening it, tap its day in the calendar, tap the event and choose Reassign…. Everyone puts it back on the whole family; picking one person puts it on them alone, and the sheet says so first when it is on several people now. To put it on two or three, open the event and tick their faces. A repeating event first asks, as editing one does, whether to hand over Just this one or The whole series. Either way only who it is for changes: how often it repeats and on which days, the place and its map pin, and the reminder all stay as they were.

Notify attendees sends the people on it a notification when you save. It starts on for a new event and off when you edit one, so fixing a typo does not buzz the whole family.

Going with someone

From version 1.16.0 of the app.

Under Going with, add anyone else who’s going: type a name in Add someone, such as “Grandma” or “Jo from football”, and tap +. The names show on the event and in the line beside Add event.

If you’re linked with another family, their grown-ups are listed under From your connections. Picking one invites their family to the event, as Plan with family does: they see the invitation, and once they accept it’s on their calendar too. Change the event and their copy changes with it. Take them off, or delete the event, and the invitation is withdrawn. If they’d already accepted, they’re asked whether to keep it or remove it. Next to their name you can see whether they’re invited, going, or can’t make it.

• Only a linked family’s grown-ups are listed, never their children.
• Inviting another family needs Pro. Adding someone by name doesn’t.
• You can’t invite another family to an event that repeats. Add them by name instead.

Types

As well as an ordinary event you can mark something as a birthday or anniversary, which recur yearly and show differently in the agenda. Travel is for the journey itself — the train, the flight out — and gets a plane on the calendar.

Choosing Party as the kind turns the form into the party planner, keeping the date, times, place and who is going that you have already filled in. A party also gets a driver, the invitation, a present and the tasks that go with them. Pick another kind to go back to an ordinary event. From version 1.16.0 of the app, editing an event that happens once, you can choose Party too: saving the party planner turns that event into the party. Social is for everything else sociable: a coffee, a playdate, dinner with friends.

All-day and multi-day

Leave the time off for an all-day event; if you have picked one, Make it all day under the times takes it off again, and the end time with it. For one that runs over several days, tap Ends the same day under the date and pick the last day; One day takes it back. An event that spans several days shows on each of them rather than only the first, which matters for holidays and hospital stays.

Repeats

Turn on Repeat under When, in the same place as on a new task. Events repeat the same way tasks do, including every N weeks and an optional end date: tap Stops after to pick the last day, or leave it blank to repeat forever. See repeating tasks — the controls are the same.

Changing one of a repeating event

Tap a repeating event and it asks first: Just this one or The whole series. With just this one, the form says “Editing just this one” and the day, and has no repeat controls, because that day becomes an event of its own. The rest of the series stays as it is. With the whole series, every one changes, except any you have already changed on their own, which keep their day and time.

Deleting an event

Open it and tap the bin at the top. A repeating event opened from its day in the calendar asks whether to remove just that one or the whole series.

Reminders

Each event can carry a reminder of its own. It is the last line under When, as on a new routine: Reminder, saying what it is set to. Tap it to choose none, or 15 minutes to a day before. Left alone it follows the household default, set in More → Settings → Default reminder; see reminders.

Free plan limit

On the Free plan you can plan up to three days ahead. Equal House Pro removes the limit. Everything else on this page works on either plan.