Connect Google Calendar to appointments

With Google Calendar connected, your agent stops offering the times you are already busy in your calendar, and every appointment is written to it as an event. You connect it from the agent’s Appointments tab, with the Connect Google Calendar button. It is optional: without a calendar, appointments work all the same, with iAgentify’s own diary.

Before you start

• Role. Connecting, checking and disconnecting a Google account is for an Admin or an Owner. Everyone else sees the notice “Connecting or disconnecting a calendar is done by an owner or admin of the account”. Choosing which calendar each agent writes to can also be done by a Member.
• One Google account, one iAgentify account. The same Google account cannot be connected to two iAgentify accounts at once. Your iAgentify account can connect several Google accounts, with Connect another account.
• Each agent uses one calendar. Busy times are read from that calendar and its appointments are written to it.
• Save before connecting. You are about to leave the tab for Google. If you have unsaved changes, the button cannot be pressed and you see “Save the changes before connecting: you are about to leave this page”.

Connect your Google account

1. Go to Agents, open your agent and press the Appointments tab.

2. Scroll down to the Google Calendar section and press Connect Google Calendar. Google opens.

3. Choose the Google account and give permission. Leave every box ticked: without the one to see and edit your calendars, nothing is connected.

   You have 15 minutes to finish this step. If you take longer, you see “The authorisation has expired” and have to start again.

4. Google sends you back to iAgentify, to the Google Calendar page, with the message “Google Calendar is connected”.

5. Answer the question “Which calendar should … appointments be written to?”: choose the calendar and press Use this calendar. The page confirms that the agent’s appointments are written there and that its busy times are already taken out.

You can also start from Appointments, in the menu: in the Google Calendar panel of the agenda, press Manage the connection. If you connect from there, each agent’s calendar is still to be chosen, as the next section explains.

Choose or change an agent’s calendar

1. Open Agents › your agent › Appointments and scroll down to Google Calendar.

2. Under This agent’s calendar, choose the Account and the Calendar. Only the calendars that account can write to are listed.

3. Press Save changes.

For an agent to stop using the calendar, choose No calendar under Account and save.

What syncs and what does not

What it does not do:

• It does not work the other way round. If you move or delete the event in Google Calendar, the appointment in iAgentify does not change: it still stands at its time. To move or cancel an appointment, do it under Appointments.
• It does not look at your other calendars. Only the calendar chosen for that agent counts. An event in another calendar of the same account blocks no time.
• It does not write the appointments that already existed. Appointments made before connecting stay in iAgentify only.
• It sends no invitations. The customer receives no invitation from Google and is not listed as a guest.
• It does not write tests. An appointment made in the Playground tab reaches no calendar.
• It does not connect other calendars. Outlook and Apple’s calendar cannot be connected.

On each appointment, the Google Calendar section says where it stands: In Google Calendar, Waiting to be written, No calendar, Removed from the calendar or Not in the calendar.

If the connection stops working

It can happen if somebody removes iAgentify’s permission from the Google account, or if Google expires it. When it does:

• Booking does not stop. The agent keeps booking from iAgentify’s own appointments. The Appointments tab warns you: “Availability is now based on iAgentify’s own appointments only”.
• Meanwhile, the agent does not see your Google events. It may offer a time that is busy in your calendar. Reconnect as soon as you can.
• Owners and admins receive the Problem with a channel or the calendar notification, in the app and by email.
• New appointments wait. They show as Not in the calendar and are written by themselves as soon as the connection is back.

To fix it, press Connect again next to the account and sign in to Google with the same account. If you choose a different one, you see “You chose a different Google account” and nothing changes.

iAgentify checks every connection once a day. With Check you do it yourself on the spot.

Disconnect an account

1. In the Google Calendar section, press Disconnect next to the account.

2. Confirm with Disconnect. “Google account disconnected” appears.

The events already in your calendar stay where they are: iAgentify does not delete them. New appointments are no longer written there, and the agents that used that account go back to working out free times from iAgentify’s own appointments only.

Messages when connecting

In all of these cases nothing was connected and you can try again.

If the problem is not connecting, but an appointment that does not show up in your calendar, see the agent does not book, or the times are wrong.