How to Keep your family informed of things

Sign up for Picniic

Download the app to your iPhone for free and set up your profile, which includes providing the app with an email address. Ensure the data you add is accurate and as complete as possible.

Explore the interface

Once the process of identifying your family is complete, you’ll be presented with Picniic’s main interface. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the various panels — the colorful layout is fairly easy to learn.

A clever assistant

Pia is the name of the intelligent assistant that’s built into Picniic, which proactively helps your family work and play together using clever voice interactions. Learn a lot more from the blog at bit.ly/ml136pia.

Add family members

You now need to spend a few minutes adding each member of your family who you want to be involved in the group. Again, an email address for each member is required; this defines the entire experience.

Add a shared entry

When you tap the calendar panel, say, and add a new entry, remember that it’ll be visible to your whole family. Consider what should be included and what’s personal — maybe keep the latter in iOS’s Calendar app.

Unlock extra features

Some features require you to pay for a premium subscription. They include a meal planner, a family locator (or you could use Find My Friends), an encrypted locker for info. Annual subs are far better value than monthly.