Setting up
Google Calendar
Connecting accounts, linking calendars, and exactly what the two-way sync does.
CalendarBook takes bookings into Google calendars you link. Each linked calendar is one bookable thing on the board and the booking page. Bookings are written to it, and whatever is already in it closes the matching time — so a doctor's appointment at another clinic can never be double-booked here.
The Google Calendar page is for Admins and Owners. Open it from Google Calendar in the rail (on a phone: Settings → Google Calendar).
Connect a Google account
- Choose Connect an account.
- Pick the Google account at Google and approve access. CalendarBook asks to see the list of your calendars and to read and write events, so it can write bookings and read busy times. Signing in to CalendarBook itself asks only for your name, email and picture — calendar access is this separate, optional step.
- You come back to the page with the message "Account connected. Its calendars are listed below — link the ones this organization should use."
You can connect several accounts — your own, a shared clinic account, each visiting doctor's. Each shows as Connected, or Needs attention if Google has stopped accepting its access (sign in again to fix it).
Link calendars
Under each account you see its calendars. For each one:
- Link — this calendar takes bookings (or Link all for every one).
- Unlink — it stops taking bookings. Bookings already made stay.
- Rename this calendar — the name customers and your team see.
- Settings — slot length and open hours; see Calendars & hours.
A calendar you can write to shows as "Taking bookings as name". A Read-only calendar (one shared with you without edit rights) cannot take bookings, but still shows as "Blocking slots as name" — its events close time on the calendars it is attached to.
A new Google calendar for a room or chair
Things that have no Google calendar of their own — Room 3, Chair 2, Court B — can get one from here. Choose New Google calendar, type its name and choose Create and link. It is created in the connected Google account and linked straight away.
Who can link calendars, and when
The person who connected a Google account can link, add or create its calendars at any time — choose Link all or link them one by one, without signing in to Google again.
For your security, anyone else (another admin of the organization) can only link calendars for 15 minutes after re-authenticating the account at Google. The page counts it down, and End session closes it early. Linked calendars keep syncing either way.
What the sync does
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| A booking is taken | It is written to the linked Google calendar straight away — from the board, the booking page or the API. |
| A booking is moved or edited | The Google event follows it. |
| A booking is cancelled | The Google event is removed and the time is free again. |
| An event exists in Google | Its time is read as busy and closes the matching slots, shown on the board as "Busy · Google". |
| Every night | The next 30 days are read again from every linked calendar, so nothing drifts. |
| While the board is open | It checks Google for changes every 3 minutes, and when you come back to the tab. |
If a customer gives an email address, Google sends them a calendar invitation for the booking, and an update if it changes.
On a booking's detail, Open in Google opens its event; the header says "in Google" once it is written, or "Google sync pending" for the moment before.
The calendar view
Besides the board, the app has a live day and week view of the connected Google diaries themselves (Open calendar on the Google Calendar page). Choose calendars picks which diaries show — saved for everyone in the organization, not just your device. Click an empty time on a linked calendar to book there. On calendars you can write to, Google events can be edited (title, date, start, end, notes) or deleted from here. The foot of the view says when it was last read.
Disconnecting
Disconnect on an account revokes CalendarBook's access at Google and stops syncing its calendars. You can also remove access from your Google account's security settings at any time.
Something here does not match what you see in the app? Tell us — a person reads every message.