How do I connect my Google Calendar?

You can link your own Google Calendar to your Peakify account. Everyone links their own: nobody can connect a calendar on somebody else's behalf, because Google only ever asks the person who owns the calendar.

If the section says calendar connections are not switched on for this workspace, the Connect button will not do anything yet. That is about the workspace, not about you or your account, and there is nothing for you to fix.

Connect it

1. Click your name at the bottom of the sidebar, then Profile.
2. Open the Security tab. Under Connected accounts you will find Google Calendar, with Not connected beside it.
3. Click Connect. Google asks which account you want to use and what you are allowing.
4. Click Allow. Google sends you straight back to the same screen, and the address you chose is shown with a green Connected label.

If you close the Google window without allowing anything, nothing is linked and nothing is changed. Click Connect again whenever you like.

What we can see, and what we cannot

We only ever ask Google two things: when you are busy, and where to put a booking. We can read that a block of time is busy or free. We cannot read the title of an event, who is in it, where it is, or anything you have written in it, and none of that is stored anywhere in Peakify.

The settings under it

Two settings appear once your calendar is connected, and they are separate on purpose. Plenty of people want one without the other.

• Check my calendar for conflicts. We look at the times you are busy in Google when we work out which slots to offer. On by default.
• Put my Peakify bookings on my calendar. New bookings appear in Google, and cancelling one in Peakify removes it there. On by default.

A third setting appears when your business books by one capacity number rather than by naming a person: Count me as one of the people doing the work. It is off to start with, and it does exactly what it says. Ticked, a time when you are busy in Google means one fewer job the business can take at that time. Left off, your calendar never changes how many jobs can be booked, so you still see your own day without shrinking the shop's capacity. Tick it if you are one of the people actually doing the jobs. If you run the schedule instead, leave it off.

When customers pick a named person to book with, that third setting is not there at all. In that mode a person's busy time only ever removes their own slots.

When only an admin can connect one

On plans where customers cannot pick a named person, the business has one shared calendar connection and an admin sets it up. If you are not an admin, the Connect button is switched off with that reason beside it. Nothing is wrong with your account.

If it stops working

If you remove Peakify from your Google account, we find out the next time we try to use the connection, and the section changes to Needs attention with a short note saying what happened. While it says that, we stop claiming your calendar is being checked. Click Reconnect and allow access again to switch it back on.

If Google cannot be reached for a moment

Two things can happen, and neither of them loses anything.

If we cannot read your busy times while somebody is choosing a slot, we still offer the times your booking hours say are open. We would rather you get a booking you have to move than have your page tell a customer you are fully booked when you are not.

If we cannot put a booking on your calendar, the booking is still made and still on your Peakify calendar. We try again straight away, and after that the next time that booking is moved or cancelled. Your bookings live in Peakify, Google is a copy of them.

Disconnect it

Click Disconnect. We tell Google to forget the permission, remove the connection, and delete what we were storing to reach your calendar. Bookings you already have in Peakify are not touched, and events already in your Google Calendar stay where they are.

If we cannot reach Google at that moment we still disconnect on our side and tell you so. In that case, remove Peakify from your Google account permissions as well, so nothing is left granted.

Who can do this

Anyone signed in can open Settings, Profile, Security. Whether the Connect button is available depends on your plan and, on some plans, on whether you are an admin. See Where do I go to change something about my account or business? for the rest of that screen.