Check your appointments from anywhere on your phone and block times if needed
We already created a plug-in to sync from SimplyBook.me to Google calendar a long time ago. This plug in allowed the users to check their appointments in a Google calendar app on their phones in a simple way. In our first version we synchronized all the appointments to the connected calendar, but to only one, and we did not sync from Google calendar back to SimplyBook.me. This meant that service provider did not see their individual calendars and they could not block times from Google calendar if they were not going to be available for appointments.
But we have Great News ! We have now upgraded our Google calendar plug-in so that it works individually for each registered service provider allowing him/her to see only the relevant bookings and if the provider blocks from his side a time on the Google calendar for any activities, it will also block it on SimplyBook.me. This is a great enhancement for this plug-in, and makes it much more usable for users and employees.
This plug-in is in fact now absolutely indispensable for any company that has employees who want to easily check and work with their schedule !
To start using our new Google Sync plug-in, just go to plug-ins section, activate the plug-in, go the the plug-ins settings. There you can see list of all employees/service providers. Click on Connect Google account for each employee you want to have and and check the sync busy time to sync both ways.
Click on Connect Google Cal to connect each employee to their appointments
Each connected google email will be displayed in the relevant line for the employee/service provider.
REMARK. You might get a warning message from Google while creating connection because we have not registered with them to connect securely but we are working on that so meanwhile you can still accept and all will work correctly.
I love this feature to synchronise bookings with the calendars of my staff.
However I also have a separate google calendar for each room where our services are delivered. Could you expand this feature so that, for example, my customer I can book the upstairs recording studio, with Brian the engineer, and the booking will appear in Brian’s calendar AND my “upstairs recording studio bookings” calendar?
Possibly here you need to organize your scheduler so that in fact that the rooms are in fact the provider ? That would solve this issue and you can use Settings Translate module to adjust the wording on the site to suit that if needed.
I have multiple calendars attached to a single gmail account (arkcornwall@gmail.com) e.g. my work, personal appointments, my wife’s appointments, my son’s activities. Is it possible to choose which one ends up receiving the bookings?
If so, how do I do this?
If not, can you invent a feature to do this?
This is just about ready ! Hopefully will be implemented within next 5-10 days.
The plug in is working fine from simplybook TO google calendar but not the other way around…what do I need to do to have it sync both ways?
Hi,
You just need to click on the SYNC checkbox inside the plugin, save and then it syncs both ways !
Sadly, it is not 🙁 Still only synching TO google not FROM google Something else I can look at??
The sync from Google to Simplybook.me ONLY blocks time in your SimplyBook.me system, it does not make your appointments from Google cal visible in SimplyBook.me as they are of different nature and can be anything such as lunch with a friend. Is that maybe the misunderstanding ?
Yes. Now, that makes more sense and is my misunderstanding..Thank you…
This tool has been working GREAT for me, and I’ve even promoted it on my blog. I was changing some of the wording and design of the iframe on my website, and I noticed it is showing that I am free tomorrow for a bunch of times when I clearly have things in my calendar. What could be going on and how do I fix it?
Thank you 🙂
We checked your settings and seems the service was set as hidden and no active service visible. We made it visible so that issue solves probably some of this. It would be great if you could show us screenshot or send us exact times of when time should be blocked from your Google cal so we can compare but possibly it is ok now.
Also remark that we ONLY sync the default google calendar and not sub calendars !
Mine isn’t syncing. I don’t see SYNC button either but i have connected the calendar to google calendar.
It seems you have set up the sync so now the SimplyBook calendar will not allow bookings on occupied dates. It can though not show you the Google appointments in simplybook as they have different structure than client bookings. On Google cal, you can see all bookings. I though remarked in your settings that you have 2 providers with Google sync BOTH ways to same calendar but that is not good. Please put one of these providers with ONLY one way sync.
Does Simplybook sync with Outlook Calendar? I know Google Calendar and Outlook can be sync’d–but doing it through an extra step seems problematic.
Unfortunately we have not found way to direct sync with Outlook calendars, but Google calendars can be auto synced with by activating our Google Calendar plugin.
Hello,
really great programme and readying this blog I found many answers like categories do define different places and this Google calendar was what I searched for:
I will synq Google calendars of my service providers. By deafult I want I to define all days as unavailable in SimplyBook calendars, and that service providers may define avalable dates from Google calendar, that means delete bookings/open dates. Will that work that way ? or they may define only busy days in Google calendar?
That is unfortunately not possible as Google cal can only sync occupied time and can not open for already blocked time. This has to be done from the admin interface.
So what about multiple google calendars attached to a single gmail account? How can I sync them separately with different service units (or with different providers)? Have you implemented it?
Thanks
Unfortunately, it only syncs one calendar with each user, so if you have many calendars tied to one Google user, you can only sync one of them to your SimplyBook user.
Hi
I have the following problem
Google Calendar Sync does not work in both ways. E.g.
16.1.2013: Busy time in google calendar. Works properly. I can not book this day
17.1.2013: Busy time in Google, but I can book. The event in Google is classified as busy. No Idea why it does not work.
I have 2 providers using the same calendar. Tried to check both sync checkboxes in the settings and also tried to check only one.
Did not solve the problem
Pleas help. Thanks and regards
Olaf
Hi,
how can we make a connection between simplybook.me and schedule in my dental practice software?
Thanks
Does your dental software connect to API’s of online software ?
Busy times from Google calendar are not being blocked. I have sync checked. Please advise.
We need details on exact date,time and preferably screenshots to be able to check this out in details. As far as we know there is no known bug in the plugin but we will try figure out why it is not syncing. Please contact our Live support with this info.