I primarily use Google Calendars. I just discovered that a client was able to book a Calendly appointment during a long drive that’s blocked out in the calendar as travel time. That’s a little embarrassing to tell the client that I wasn’t really available (& undercutting their trust in my booking platform).
This prompted me to do some testing & I have discovered an inconsistency in how Calendly respects travel time, based on the calendar platform:
Google Calendars: Calendly allows appointments to be booked during travel time = BAD
iCloud Calendars: Calendly respects travel time & doesn’t allow bookings = GOOD
I would really like to bring this to the attention of the Calendly developers so they can try to resolve this issue.
(I really don’t want to switch my calendars to iCloud - since I have to share with employees who only use Android!)
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I primarily use Google Calendars. I just discovered that a client was able to book a Calendly appointment during a long drive that’s blocked out in the calendar as travel time. That’s a little embarrassing to tell the client that I wasn’t really available (& undercutting their trust in my booking platform).
This prompted me to do some testing & I have discovered an inconsistency in how Calendly respects travel time, based on the calendar platform:
Google Calendars: Calendly allows appointments to be booked during travel time = BAD
iCloud Calendars: Calendly respects travel time & doesn’t allow bookings = GOOD
I would really like to bring this to the attention of the Calendly developers so they can try to resolve this issue.
(I really don’t want to switch my calendars to iCloud - since I have to share with employees who only use Android!)
Hey there, thanks for the topic!
This actually has everything to do with the calendars themselves, and how they mark different time (“busy” or “free”) for third parties to “read.” Calendly will always allow bookings over “free” calendar events and will not allow bookings over “busy” calendar events. That said, each calendar has different settings that result in free and busy statuses.
From Google Calendar,“There's no way to automatically add travel time to Google calendar. You can manually add it by opening the event and clicking the location (using the desktop web browser). This will open Google Maps on the right hand side and you can choose a route and then add it that route's travel time to Google calendar.”
With this knowledge, we can assume that when adding travel time to Google Calendar, it’s automatically defaulting to a “free” event. Calendly will view your Google events with the "busy" event status as scheduling conflicts and will automatically remove the time from your scheduling page (including all-day or multi-day events). You can access and change this setting by double-clicking on the event id in your calendar and changing the status from "free" to "busy" as shown below:
good response Kelsi, I think the funny wrinkle is that though both travel times appear equally “free” (in my calendar clients), the iCloud one is handled differently by Calendly (& seen as busy).
Since the Google-based travel time clearly syncs through my clients, that status is available to Calendly & therefore something they could choose to call busy (therefore immensely helping dedicated customers like myself)
Thanks for your work!
good response Kelsi, I think the funny wrinkle is that though both travel times appear equally “free” (in my calendar clients), the iCloud one is handled differently by Calendly (& seen as busy).
Since the Google-based travel time clearly syncs through my clients, that status is available to Calendly & therefore something they could choose to call busy (therefore immensely helping dedicated customers like myself)
Thanks for your work!
I agree that it would be great if it worked that way! Because Google Calendar handles it differently than iCloud Calendar, it’s read differently on the Calendly end - however, I am marking this feedback for our product team to look into in the future! Have a great weekend!
