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Secret Event Types: Control Who Books With You

  • 4 October 2023
  • 6 replies
  • 1430 views

It’s frustrating when you get bookings out the wazoo - when all you’d hoped for was a handful. It’s also frustrating when you, the ever-popular King 🤴🏽, Queen 👸🏼 or Nonbinary Royal 👑 cannot keep up with the spam-bot bookings that might be attacking your booking page. While Calendly does not currently have a feature that allows for blocking bookings (spam or otherwise - we are taking feedback about this into strong consideration! 🔊), we do have some methods of managing who can and cannot book your event types. 

💦 Let’s dive in! 💦

Depending on how you've shared your link, you may want to consider exploring the following options:

  • Changing the event URL, and sharing a new event link. 🖇️
  • If you have shared your personal scheduling page- and not the event-specific link- you could make the event secret which would ensure it did not appear on your main scheduling page. Any invitees would need to use the event-specific link to access your booking page, which would only be provided by you. 🤐
  • You can also consider sharing single-use links for specific event types. With single-use links, meeting links will expire once used and invitees will not be able to book another. Your event-type URL will never be exposed, preventing any unwanted repeat bookings on your calendar. That’s a Royal Win! 🎉

We know that this isn’t as wrapped-up-in-a-bow perfect as being able to simply block specific email addresses, IP addresses or names from booking with you - but it’s a start! Check out the video below, where I show you how to set an event to secret, change an event type and/or account URL and share a single-use link. ⬇️

I hope this helps! 🤗

I have a question that’s kind of related to this. What’s the best practice for creating a block of times I want to be available for a certain group of people I work with?

I don’t want to have to block my calendar with fake meetings but I only want to show them I’m available on Mondays and Tuesdays after 3pm.

Do I create a one-off meeting and include the times I’m available? I want to use the same link with everyone in this group.

What’s the best way to go about this? 

Thanks

John


Hey @John26026! I suggest creating a one-on-one event type and making it “secret” - then using the “set custom hours” feature within that event type under “when can people book this event?” so that you can ensure it’s only available to be booked on Mondays and Tuesdays from 3pm to Xpm! You can then share the link directly with each person you’d like to share it with - being a secret event, only those you send the link to will be able to view and book it! You can read more about this here. You might also benefit from reading about how to Share Your Calendly Link

 


Hey @John26026! I suggest creating a one-on-one event type and making it “secret” - then using the “set custom hours” feature within that event type under “when can people book this event?” so that you can ensure it’s only available to be booked on Mondays and Tuesdays from 3pm to Xpm! You can then share the link directly with each person you’d like to share it with - being a secret event, only those you send the link to will be able to view and book it! You can read more about this here. You might also benefit from reading about how to Share Your Calendly Link

 

Awesome! Thank you Kelsi !!!


This is a great idea!


Hi there !

 

I have a question regarding secret events. I am a company admin and, from the admin console, I do not find the option to make an event secret for all my assignees. Can you help ? 😊

 

Kind regards, 

Lisa 


Hey there @Lisa36003 - great question!

This is not something you will be able to do for all users, even as an admin. What you can/cannot do depends entirely on the event type(s) you are attempting to make secret. If an event type is “owned” by a user in your organization (meaning if they created the event type), they will control the settings for that event type. 

If you are using Admin Managed Events, there are certain settings that cannot be pushed out by the admin/locked by the admin, but you can make them secret! You will not see this setting by going to your admin center > clicking “managed events” > + editing there.
You will instead need to head to your Calendly landing page > click the “My Calendly” dropdown > click “all users + teams” or the user/team you need > click on the admin managed ET from there > edit it to make it secret from this route. 

Below is what it looks like when editing + making an Admin Managed ET secret: 

Here’s a quick Loom video I made for you, showing how to make an Admin Managed ET secret, step by step (and also showing how you cannot do this from your admin center):

 

Also, if you are using events on a Team Page, like a Round Robin Event Type or a Collective Event Type, you can manage this setting if you are an admin. Below is an example of a team RRET being edited by me, an admin, in my staging account:

 

I’m sorry this might not be exactly what you wanted to hear, but hope the clarification and steps help! 🤗


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