Making calendar notifications more prominent

[negprob]

Hi Folks,

Whenever I am working with two monitors, I often miss calendar notifications because they show up only on one of the monitors and I often have the sound volume put to low. The consequence is that I often miss appointments (yeah, I know, I have a little ADHD). Is there a way to make calendar notifications more visible or prominent? For example, is there a way to make both screens blink when a calendar notification pops up? Or to overrule the sound settings and make a noise?

Thanks for the help.

 

[0128672]

You could possibly create a Shortcut that might override the volume for the Calendar app notifications. Other options might be trying the Accessibility settings > Audio > Flash an alert when an alert sound occurs to see if that gets your attention. I don't know if that will make both screens flash though. Or even try the Accessibility > Spoken Content > Speak Announcements.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I'd suggest a custom alert (in Calendar) if I could get it to work myself.

 

[negprob]

You could possibly create a Shortcut that might override the volume for the Calendar app notifications. Other options might be trying the Accessibility settings > Audio > Flash an alert when an alert sound occurs to see if that gets your attention. I don't know if that will make both screens flash though. Or even try the Accessibility > Spoken Content > Speak Announcements.

Thanks for the suggestions. If I understand what you're suggesting, you're proposing adding a script to each calendar event. This script would override the volume for the app notifications, and perhaps even do its own notification on the side, right? Hmm, I'm not sure how to do this. Perhaps someone has some pointers?

As for the accessibility settings, I tried that. It is maddening that Apple has those settings apply to everything but calendar notifications. So, whenever I type something wrong, I get a very disruptive alert, but nothing happens with calendars... No use for me. The same for Speak Announcements, which also make the user experience very disruptive overall.

 

[negprob]

I'd suggest a custom alert (in Calendar) if I could get it to work myself.

Hi Brian, how would I make the custom alert different from the usual alert?

 

[0128672]

Thanks for the suggestions. If I understand what you're suggesting, you're proposing adding a script to each calendar event. This script would override the volume for the app notifications, and perhaps even do its own notification on the side, right? Hmm, I'm not sure how to do this. Perhaps someone has some pointers?

As for the accessibility settings, I tried that. It is maddening that Apple has those settings apply to everything but calendar notifications. So, whenever I type something wrong, I get a very disruptive alert, but nothing happens with calendars... No use for me. The same for Speak Announcements, which also make the user experience very disruptive overall.

Guess I should have asked earlier, I wonder if you've set multiple alerts for your calendar events that include sounds? That way if you've ignored the first alert, maybe the second or third or fourth alert for that event will get your attention.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Hi Brian, how would I make the custom alert different from the usual alert?

I should have said "get it to work for me" as the custom alerts don't stick with my Google hosted calendar and aren't an option for default settings in an iCloud calendar.

However, on an iCloud-based calendar you can set a custom alert for events individually. It's at the bottom of the popup list of alerts when editing the event. You can have it open an app or a file…which would be hard not to notice.

Why it isn't a default option for iCloud calendars is beyond me. Also beyond me is any tricky way to get around the limitations…but a user can duplicate an old event that already has the custom alert and then edit the new event otherwise.

 

[negprob]

Guess I should have asked earlier, I wonder if you've set multiple alerts for your calendar events that include sounds? That way if you've ignored the first alert, maybe the second or third or fourth alert for that event will get your attention.

Yep, that is what I do when I have important meetings. But it becomes very disruptive and cannot be done automatically. :-(