Override "Busy" Events on Outlook Calendar

Hey, thanks for your post and question! Firstly, check out our New User Guide - it’ll def prove helpful as you get used to the platform!

There is no way to override a “busy” block on your calendar and that is not something on our roadmap. Sorry for the inconvenience! However, on your Outlook Calendar you do have the option in Calendly to either allow or disallow other calendar statuses to be overridden! You can head to your Calendar Connection page and click “edit” next to “Check for Conflicts” and select/deselect “Working Elsewhere/OOO,” “Tentative,” and the other options. In this scenario, perhaps you could deselect “Tentative” as to be checked for conflicts, then set up those blocks you’re referring to in your calendar as “Tentative” instead of “Busy” so Calendly is able to book over them? You can read more about this in our help center, here. 

I hope this helps!

@Kelsi at Calendly This post seems to indicate there's something that may accomplish this use case in this post: 

Anyway, +1 for the ability to force an over book. would be nice for something like office hours to prevent ppl from booking directly on my calendar.

Hey there - thanks for your comment! For clarity, that post is referring to an ability to get Calendly to ignore one “check for conflicts” calendar and pull from another on certain event types, and the answer given indicates that we are hoping to make such improvements in the future! There is currently no way to do this nor to override a “busy” event, so the advice I offered above is the best for now! I understand your need for this feature as well and we have noted all requests for our product team and will continue to. The more people that ask, the more we loop around and tell them! =) Have a great weekend! 

@Kelsi at Calendly Hi, first post here. Similar question and thank you for sharing the ability to customize “Check for Conflicts.” My scenario is this...a colleague and I are headed on a LONG road trip to meet with clients...”working elsewhere.” We would like to allow clients who live there (with the booking link) to book appointments while having our calendars blocked out for local clients (without the link). Is there a way to accomplish this? Seems like event types with custom “check for conflicts” attributes would do this. Is this something in the works, or is there another workaround? Thank you. 

Hey @AaronS_MSR!

So how long of a roadtrip is a LONG roadtrip? Inquiring minds want to know.

For this scenario, you might find the workaround my peer Becky used helpful. It sounds really similar to what you’re looking to do! 

Hope this helps!

Haha @jillian, I should have said FAR, great location but alas only for 3 days. This is exactly the scenario I was describing, but as a 2-½ day affair, seems like a lot of work (we’re on 365). We will think about this in the future in events like this become more commonplace. I kinda like my workaround -- if Calendly would make conflict types customizable by event, rather than system-wide, would be a perfect solution, and might work for many other scenarios as well. I imaging  many salespeople are “on the road” frequently and would love this option. Is there an official place to make a feature request? Thanks for your consideration.  

@AaronS_MSR - Got it. Enjoy the trip! I was envisioning at 200 day road trip around the world, but 2+ days far away sounds great too. 

One other less intensive workaround would be to add an additional availability schedule to your profile with date overrides for this specific trip and specific to the events you want open (just be sure to apply it to the event and save; it’s the step that gets missed most often). So for example, I’ve got a super locked down networking event that I only allow from 10-12 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. If I wanted to say “Next week I’ll take meetings on Thursday too, but only next week”, I can add that as a date specific hour override. More on that here: https://help.calendly.com/hc/en-us/articles/14074797893143-Calendly-Schedules#01H7TGB3JT3TASHC98EAMT2X2Y

If this type of event does become more common, I’d definitely consider the separate calendar option. It’s a bit cleaner solution and ensures all your dates are in one place.

As for feedback, you found (one of) the right place! I’ll be sure to include this in our February round up for Product.

 @jillian I wish 

I’ll take a look at your alternative, thank you!

HI @Kelsi at Calendly, this was an awesome response and love that feature with Outlook. By any chance is there a way to do it for Google calendars? I tried, but I feel like I am doing something wrong where I want it only to consider “Busy” calendar meetings and not “Tentative”. 

Hiii there @MannyTrevor  - great question! Google Calendar functions a little differently (as far as their own internal settings go) than O365/Outlook.com Calendars do, and for that reason the Google Calendar connection > Calendly is also a bit different!

Google Calendar does not have the same “tentative” event status option. It allows you to mark yourself as “maybe” when you are sent an invite by someone else’s Google Calendar, and that’s about it. 

Here’s some helpful information about our Google Calendar connection/integration.

With all this said - the Google Calendar connection as it pertains to your “check for conflicts” section is pretty straight forward. If an event is not clearly marked “free” in Google Calendar it’s going to be read as “busy” - or a conflict. You’ll need to make sure any time blocks on your Google Calendar that you wish to be available for in Calendly are “free” - including “all day” events. 

I know this isn't exactly what you wanted to hear but do hope the information helps, at least somewhat!

@Kelsi at Calendly, thank you for clarifying. Now to better understand even if I marked as “Maybe” and the person who sent the invite has it as “Busy” it will still block it off my calendar. Is that correct? 

I tried changing those events to “Free”, but I still see them blocked is there something I am doing wrong? 

Hey there @MannyTrevor - you’re welcome! Yes, that’s correct. The status on the event where it originates is what is important, here. If you have accepted or marked “maybe” an event that someone else invited you to, that’s still going to appear as a conflict. I’m sorry about that - I know it can be confusing! 

@Kelsi at Calendly, so the only way to resolve this on our calendars is if we ask the team member to mark that event as “Free” before they send is this correct? 

So sorry for the confusion, here!

You can set the event in Google Calendar to free regardless of the status designated by the person who invited you to the meeting. So in short, yes, it can be booked over!

The only exception to this is if the calendar event originates from a shared calendar that the the invitee (you, in this case) do not have read/write access to in Google.

So, if your teammates are using shared calendars, this could be an issue (and might be already if you are running into it). That said, if you have an ability to change the status of the event on your own Google calendar and set it to “free” then you should see that availability translate to your Calendly availability. If you don’t - follow the below steps to check it out. 

1. Troubleshoot your availability. You can use our Troubleshooting availability tool on your scheduling page in order to understand what's causing the conflict. I find it to be super helpful and it resolves most availability issues.  
2. Check your calendar connections. Head to your Calendar Connection page and “check for conflicts” to double check what sub calendars are selected. If any of these are shared calendars, head to this Help Center article to learn more.
3. Check your permissions. If the calendars are shared, you will need read/write access to update the status in a way that works for your Calendly availability.

I hope this helps!

Thank you @Caroline26406 and everyone for the feedback and sharing your use cases! Being able to book over certain events is something we’ve heard a lot from customers! We actually have something in the works that will allow you to specify events from your connected calendars that you would like to book over and offer as time slots to your invitees!

• So for example if on your GCal or Outlook calendar you have time blocked off as “focus time” or “Lunch” or “Block for Calendly” you can then specify those event names that you would like to be booked over, and from there Calendly will offer those times as booking slots!

We’d love to learn if this is something that would solve your needs and please continue to share your feedback - our team actively reads through these posts and we really appreciate your insights!

@alexasettlemire, that is amazing! Quick question referencing this. I also find that it is more from the invites I get from other team members or departments. In example our People team sent us invites to an office hour that I like on my calendar if in case I want to join, but would prefer that not be blocked off as this is optional. So, if they have a unique name to their event would this new possible feature let us tell Calendly to not block off for this event by providing the event title? And if I do plan to join I just add another calendar block to make sure it blocks my calendar for the day I will plan to join?  

Add another +1 for the ability to override all busy conflicts.  I sometimes need to squeeze in a client for a quick 15-30 minute drop-in meeting, but as the business owner, administrator, superuser, etc., I should have the option to “ignore all calendar conflicts and schedule anyways.”  

Particularly when I’m trying to schedule an event that doesn’t conflict with another event, but merely the “buffer” after an event.

It may not be on your roadmap, but you should be seeing that this is an important feature to your customers -- and one which is available on a competitive platform.

Thanks!

Thanks for your feedback! Scroll up for the comment @alexasettlemire left and let them know if you have anything else specific to their ask! =)

I believe this would handle my use case as well. Just to reiterate what I had posted earlier in this thread:

My use case originally was around “office hours” where I could time block my calendar and then send ppl the Calendly link to pick a 15 minute slot within an hour period.

But, as I’ve become more enamored with time blocking, I want to be able to time block my calendar so that I can have a couple hours as “open for meetings” and could use calendly to control the meetings to be scheduled in those two hours only.

@alexasettlemire Can you share when this might be released? Any chance to get in early or be a tester on it?