Outlook calendar overbooks

Hello ​@DrAlikchi!

Having Calendly book over things you’ve already added to Outlook is definitely not what we want. Calendly should read your existing Outlook events as “busy” and prevent new bookings at those times, as long as a few settings line up correctly.

Here are the most common things to check:

1. Make sure Calendly is checking the right Outlook calendar for conflicts

Calendly can only block times based on the calendars you’ve told it to look at.

• In Calendly, go to Availability → Calendar settings.

• Under Calendars to check for conflicts, confirm that the Outlook calendar where those “previously filled” events live is selected.

• If you use multiple Outlook calendars (for example, one personal and one work), make sure:

  • The busy events are on a calendar that’s selected to check for conflicts, or

  • Move those events to a calendar that is selected.

If the events sit on a different calendar than the one Calendly is checking, Calendly will think that time is open and allow another booking.

2. Confirm the Outlook events are marked as Busy

Calendly only treats certain Outlook statuses as unavailable (for example, Busy, Tentative, Working elsewhere, Away/Out of office) depending on your settings.

In Outlook:

• Open one of the overbooked events.

• Select Edit → More options.

• Check the Busy/Free dropdown and make sure the event is set to Busy (or another status you’ve chosen to count as unavailable).

• Save the event.

If an event is set to Free, Calendly will leave that time open for booking.

3. Verify you’re using the same Outlook account Calendly is connected to

Calendly reads from the web-based Outlook/Office 365 account it’s connected to (for example, what you see at outlook.office.com).

• Open outlook.office.com and check whether the “previously filled” events appear there, on the same calendar that’s connected in Calendly.

• If the events only exist on a local/desktop-only calendar that isn’t syncing to that account, Calendly won’t be able to see them and will allow bookings on top of them.

If the desktop and web versions of Outlook aren’t in sync, your IT team or Microsoft support usually needs to help get those calendars aligned.

Let us know if that helps!