Families today face challenges that are very different from say a hundred years ago. Today’s world is dominated by technology, information overflow, and appointments. For parents, i.e. the managers of the social enterprise known as family, there is no way around thorough planning. A calendar is not an option, but a necessity!

Famundo is an online calendar solution designed for families of up to four adults and two kids. While its central feature is the calendar, it offers additional perks, such as lists, to-dos, vaults for private notes or files, and a lot more. It makes a great alternative to Google Calendar for families because it was designed to be used with different levels of access in mind, e.g. family, parents, adults, and friend.

The membership for families is free. It comes with up to 250MB file storage. The ad-free PLUS membership plan currently offers SSL Security and up to 2GB of file storage. Outlook sync support, a Facebook and an iGoogle app are being planned and will be available to PLUS members in the future.

Before you start I should mention that Famundo has some issues with Google Chrome. Firefox or Internet Explorer are recommended.

1. Family Homepage

This is the first place you are taken to after signing up. It’s the Dashboard and it provides an overview of your connections, upcoming events, and latest news from your network, i.e. recent changes. Unfortunately, you cannot edit this page.

2. Calendar Setup

What convinced me that Famundo was a great solution for families is its ease of use.

First of all, it is very simple to set up multiple calendars in custom categories via the Options menu in the top right of the calendar. Each calendar is color-coded, so that different calendar items are easily identified. To see the color codes, make sure you’re in single person rather than family view; the selection can be made in the top left corner of the Calendar page.

Secondly, adding new events to the calendar is very intuitive. You simply move to the respective calendar view (day, week, month) and drag the mouse across the hours or days to block off time for the new event. Next, you fill in the details under Quick Add in the sidebar to the left. To edit, copy, or delete an item, you can click on it and select the respective action.

3. Friends

Up to 6 people can administer a page on Famundo. However, you can share your page with the public or an indefinite number of friends or other families that also have pages on Famundo. This feature is great if you frequently plan activities with a network of people, for example car-pools, day trips, or other group activities.

4. Address Book, Photos, Blogs, Messages & Files

If your entire network is on Famundo and if you’re extremely social, these features may be valuable. Personally, I find that they are just too much. It’s easier to use dedicated services, such as email or Facebook for collecting addresses and sending messages, Flickr for sharing photos, WordPress for blogs, and Dropbox for file sharing. However, I must say that the Photos section is very well designed.

5. Lists and To-Dos

These sections are handy to remind everyone of their duties and collectively create lists, for example for the weekly meals or shopping. To-Do items come with due dates and reminders, and can be set to repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Items on a list can be checked off separately and when the list has been completed, it moves to the respective category.

6. Vaults

A vault is a private area, where you can share files or lists and provide access to the different levels of people in your Famundo network. This is a great place to store gift lists.

If you’re not yet convinced, you can test the calendar and all of its features by using one of the dummy logins, for example as Mike Doe.

What do you think, does this calendar do families and their network justice? Which other features would you like to see if any?

Tagged: calendar • family • google calendar • organization tools • planning tools