Connect Google Calendar and set booking availability

Google Calendar holds the actual appointment events. This guide is for business owners who want to connect their calendars to omotto and control when customers can book.

How it works

If booking is in your setup plan, finish its setup before going live. The Coach can show the connection card in your conversation, or you can use the setup page. It waits to offer go-live while required setup in the areas you chose is incomplete; optional follow-up tasks do not delay the card. If you want to launch first, ask the Coach to defer or drop that work; it can then show the go-live card. If booking is not in your plan, this setup step is not added. Connecting a calendar does not turn customer replies on. A connected calendar with an active meeting type can already accept bookings, including the starting meeting type, so review your meeting types and hours before going live.

Connecting alone does not finish the step. Review the starting meeting type or add your real meeting types, their durations and the calendar that offers them. The unchanged starting 30-minute meeting type does not count as finished setup. After connecting, the setup link takes you to the Coach to finish this work.

There are three separate choices:

• Connected Google account: the account that gives omotto permission to read calendars and manage appointment events.
• Bookable calendar: a Google calendar you select to receive appointments. It can represent a staff member, room or other shared resource. One connected account can provide several calendars.
• Meeting type: what the customer books, with its own duration and other meeting settings.

An empty Google calendar does not mean every time is bookable. Working hours, busy events, meeting duration, breaks after appointments and booking rules all matter. A later booking checks availability again.

Where to find it

Open Settings → Integrations → Google Calendar. Use the Connection tab for account access and invitation warnings, and Technical setup for calendar bindings and advanced event settings. Meetings is the meeting-type, calendar and availability editor; open Meetings → ⋮ → Booking health for availability checks.

A Meetings viewer can open saved meeting types, including paused types, read-only without integration access; existing calendar-management permission controls editing. If your role cannot open Meetings, Appointment types, their Archived list and Booking health are in Technical setup instead, under their existing permissions.

Open the Appointments rule in Handbook → What [assistant name] does when… for Who is this for and Required verification. Exception approvers stay under Booking. Invocation instructions stay on that rule.

Set it up

Required for Google Calendar features: connect an account with access to the calendars you will use. For new bookings, you also need an active writable calendar, the meeting types you want to offer and suitable availability. Review what already exists before adding duplicates.

Optional or conditional: extra resource calendars, blocking calendars, custom hours, group classes, invitations and reminders. Configure only the offerings and rules you need. The sections below describe alternatives, not a requirement to use every calendar option.

Prepare the Google account

Use an account that can read and change events on every calendar that will receive bookings. A calendar shared for viewing only cannot receive appointments through this setup.

For a calendar owned by another person:

1. Ask its owner to open Google Calendar on a computer.
2. Open the three-dot menu next to the calendar.
3. Choose Settings and sharing.
4. Select Shared with.
5. Choose Add people and groups.
6. Enter the Google account you will connect to omotto.
7. Give that account permission to make changes to events and see event details.
8. Send the sharing invitation.
9. Open the invitation in the receiving account.
10. Follow its link to add the calendar.

Google’s labels may change; its calendar-sharing guide lists the current choices. Work or school accounts may have sharing restrictions set by their Google administrator.

Managing integrations, editing Meetings and editing location hours require separate permissions. Missing controls may mean you do not have the required permission.

Connect the account

Start at the Google Calendar Connection tab named above.

1. Choose Add integration.
2. Find Google Calendar.
3. Choose Connect Google Calendar.
4. On Google’s screen, choose the intended Google account.
5. Review the requested calendar access.
6. Approve the access if it is correct.
7. Back in omotto, check that the connection says Connected.
8. Choose Connected ✔ — go to Meetings.

If the integration is already listed, use connection management as described above. Granted access shows the access Google granted; it is information, not a set of switches to edit.

Reuse existing calendars before adding more

Check whether Main calendar was added on the first connection. Reuse it if it is the right booking destination. Add separate writable calendars only for people, rooms or other resources that need separate schedules.

If a needed calendar does not exist in Google, create it there first using Google’s create-calendar instructions. If someone else owns it, complete the sharing steps above. Adding a calendar in omotto selects an existing Google calendar; it does not create or share one in Google. That calendar cannot receive bookings through omotto until the connected account can write to it.

For bookings: add a calendar only if you need another

In the calendar editor:

1. Open the Calendar menu.
2. Choose Add calendar inside the menu.
3. In Google Calendar, choose a calendar from the list.
4. Review Calendar name.
5. Review Location.
6. Review Services offered here.
7. Choose Apply.

Only calendars the connected account can write to appear in the picker. This selects an existing Google calendar; it does not create a new one in Google.

To edit an existing calendar:

1. Open the Calendar menu.
2. Choose the pencil beside the relevant calendar’s name, labelled Edit calendar.

Existing calendar fields save automatically. Save failures appear in the save status at the top.

For bookings: set the meeting types you want to offer

1. Open the Service selector in the calendar editor.
2. Review the existing types. If the seeded Appointment represents one of your offerings, open its Edit meeting type pencil instead of creating a duplicate.
3. Set Name to the actual meeting type customers can book.
4. For an individual appointment, set Duration (minutes) to its real length, based on your business’s confirmed information rather than the starting value.
5. If this type needs special rules, put them in Instructions for this appointment type. Otherwise, leave the field blank.
6. Check Can be offered on for the calendars that should offer it.
7. For another type that does not exist, choose New service and fill in its actual details.
8. Choose Apply for each new type. Existing types save automatically.
9. If you want to change booking verification, review Required verification in the appointment capability. Keep the default unless you deliberately want a different requirement.
10. Check that each calendar’s working hours match the real hours of its location. Correct the location hours or deliberately set custom calendar hours using the procedures below.

With the default verification setting, customers can browse times before proving identity, but booking and access to their own appointments require verification. A customer calendar invitation still needs a verified email address. See booking rules and reminders for these separate controls. Meeting types explains the remaining fields; group classes also require scheduled sessions, not just a type.

Optional: let your connected agent set up calendars and meeting types

If you use a connected agent (your own Claude or ChatGPT) with Make changes allowed, it can create a meeting type and add a bookable calendar for you. It can also set which location a calendar belongs to and which meeting types it offers. It needs the same permission to edit the Google Calendar connection that you would need yourself.

• It picks from a list. It reads the fields a new meeting type or calendar accepts, and the locations and meeting types it can choose from, by name. For a new calendar it can also see which writable Google calendars on the connected account are not added yet. Only someone who can change the connection sees that list. As in the app, adding a calendar selects an existing Google calendar; it does not create one in Google.
• You get a receipt. After a create, the agent is told what was created. If it sends the same request again, for example after a connection problem, omotto answers with the first result and does not create a second copy.
• Undo turns it off; it never deletes. In Recent changes you can undo a create, but only while the meeting type or calendar is still exactly as it was created. If anyone has since edited it, changed which meeting types a calendar offers, added hours or closures, or created a class on it, the undo is refused and nothing changes. Otherwise it is switched off, not deleted, so no booking is lost. Sending the original request again after an undo does not switch it back on or create it again.
• Messages never repeat your text back. If a request is refused, the message names the setting, not what the agent typed or what Google returned.

Optional: add calendars that also block availability

Use this when a person’s appointments are spread across calendars, or a room or shared resource must also be free.

1. Open the relevant calendar’s editor as described above.
2. Choose Add blocking calendar under Also blocks on.
3. Select a calendar that should prevent bookings here.
4. Repeat for any other required calendars.

These calendars do not become appointment destinations merely because you added them as blockers. They must be readable by the connected account. The remove control beside a selected calendar stops consulting it.

If you need to change hours: use the grid

If inherited location hours already fit, you can keep them. To change hours, use either this grid procedure or the list-view alternative below; you do not need both.

On a wide screen, the grid lets you draw time windows.

1. Select the calendar under Calendar.
2. Navigate to the week you want.
3. Turn on Edit availability.
4. Drag across the desired time range in a day column.
5. When asked, choose Regular for a weekly window or One-time for that date only.

Subsequent drags reuse your last choice. If the chooser also offers Class, that creates a group-class session, not an ordinary availability window.

To adjust a window in the grid:

1. Click the window.
2. Choose its type if it needs changing.
3. Enter Start.
4. Enter End.
5. Choose Save.

The grid editor rounds entered times to 15-minute increments before saving. For example, 09:10 becomes 09:15. This describes the grid editor, not every schedule input in omotto.

Alternative: edit availability in list view

The list is a keyboard-friendly schedule editor and is also used on narrow screens. It shows weekly windows, Special dates and, outside editing mode, Google busy intervals. It does not show appointment cards or the meeting-type-specific available booking times shown in the grid.

To use it on a wide screen:

1. Open More actions.
2. Choose List view.

To add a weekly window:

1. Turn on Edit availability.
2. Choose Customize schedule if the schedule still follows inherited or suggested hours.
3. Choose Add window.
4. Enter the opening time.
5. Enter the closing time.
6. Set Effective from if the weekly rule should start on a particular date.
7. Choose Save window.

Leaving Effective from empty means no start-date restriction. An Until marker shows an existing series end. Skipped dates appear as exceptions. Restore returns that occurrence to the weekly rule; it does not lift a separate location closure.

To add one-time extra hours:

1. Under Special dates, choose Add.
2. Choose the date.
3. Choose Extra hours.
4. Enter the opening time.
5. Enter the closing time.
6. Choose Save date.

The special-date delete control removes that saved one-time entry after confirmation. A closed-date choice opens the location-closure confirmation described next.

Optional: close a location for a day

A day closure is not the same as deleting hours on one calendar.

1. Turn on Edit availability.
2. In the grid, open the date’s day-actions menu.
3. Choose Close the business on this day….
4. If you have several locations, choose Branch.
5. Optionally enter Reason for closing (optional).
6. Review Also close calendars with unique hours.
7. Choose Close the business.

The list’s closed-date option reaches the same confirmation. The reason is supplied as guidance for explanations about the closure, so it should not contain private staff information.

To reopen the date:

1. Choose Undo business closure… for that date.
2. Confirm Undo the closure.

Optional: preview the availability

In the grid:

1. Turn Edit availability off.
2. Choose the Calendar to check.
3. Choose the Service to check.

The legend distinguishes regular and one-time hours, Busy in Google, Scheduled appointment, Available booking time, Closed day, and time not offered because it is too close or too far away.

On a phone or in list view, turning editing off does not reveal this grid preview. For an availability summary:

1. Open Booking health at the location named above.
2. Select a meeting type.

The summary shows which calendars can take it, its next free time and warnings about paused meeting types, inactive or unreadable calendars, and conflicting rules. It does not create an appointment. Group classes use scheduled sessions and places rather than the ordinary one-to-one slot preview.

Settings

Week navigation and time zone

Previous week, Next week and Today move the displayed week. The displayed time zone is the business’s time zone, not a staff member’s personal display override. The week-start preference determines which day begins the week.

Bookable calendar settings

Setting	What it does	Starting value
Google Calendar	Chooses the real Google calendar receiving appointments.	Required when adding a calendar.
Calendar name	The name used in omotto. Editing it does not rename the Google calendar itself.	New selections copy Google’s calendar name; the automatic starting calendar is Main calendar.
Active	Allows new appointments. When off, ordinary customer appointment listing and cancellation also exclude this calendar; existing Google events are not cancelled. Reactivation checks access to it and its blocking calendars.	On for a new calendar.
Location	Links the calendar to a business location for its address and inherited hours. Any location allows use across locations, but inherits hours from the primary location.	Any location.
Services offered here	Selects which meeting types this calendar offers. Paused or archived types are not bookable.	All active types for a new unrestricted calendar.
Also blocks on	Adds other calendars whose events prevent booking here.	None; the calendar’s own events already count.
Working hours	Shows whether hours follow the location or are custom.	Hours: Follows branch hours.
Instructions for this calendar	Calendar-specific guidance, such as room equipment or staff restrictions. It does not replace hours or booking rules. Maximum 4,000 characters.	Blank.
Standing invitees	Staff email addresses added to future appointments. Maximum 10 addresses.	Empty.

Remove asks for confirmation before removing this calendar’s booking setup from omotto. It does not delete the Google calendar. Pausing with Active off keeps the setup, but has the existing-appointment consequences explained below.

Meeting types offered from either side

Services offered here and a meeting type’s Can be offered on edit the same choices. Offer on this calendar and Stop offering on this calendar are also available for changing offerings.

A calendar with no saved meeting-type restriction offers all active types. That is not the same as having no visible types checked: saved links to archived types remain even though those types are absent from the editable list. See the last-selection case below.

Working hours

Option	Effect
Hours: Follows branch hours	Changes to that location’s hours flow through to this calendar. Edit branch hours ↗ edits the location, not just this calendar.
Set hours for this calendar only ↗	Leads to the availability editor. Editing weekly hours creates unique calendar hours without changing the location. Later location-hours changes do not replace those weekly hours. Dated openings and closures alone do not stop the calendar following branch hours.
Hours: Custom	The calendar already has unique hours. Edit on calendar ↗ leads to their editor.
Return to branch hours	After confirmation, deletes all the calendar’s saved weekly rules, dated openings and calendar-specific closures, including older ones and their reasons. The confirmation lists future calendar-owned dates that will be removed, not past dates or inherited branch closures. Location closures are not deleted.

Adding a day off to a calendar that already follows branch hours does not give it a separate weekly schedule. Later branch weekly changes keep flowing to other dates. You can remove that calendar’s dated opening or closure from Special dates. If you later set unique weekly hours, Return to branch hours removes those hours and the calendar’s dated exceptions together. A closure belonging to the branch must be reopened at the branch.

When the editor offers Undo after a weekly edit that created unique hours, it restores the state before that edit, including any dated calendar closures or openings that were already there. This is different from Return to branch hours, which removes the calendar’s saved rules and exceptions after confirmation.

On a calendar following branch hours, an opening saved for a specific date replaces the inherited hours for that date. Later branch weekly changes still apply on other dates. The replacement starts at local midnight, including any inherited hours spilling in from the previous evening. An applicable branch closure still blocks bookings; a calendar-only opening cannot override it.

A reviewed dated-hours change through the Coach has an overnight exception: if a current opening runs past midnight and touches that date or the day before or after, the calendar receives its own copy of the current schedule before the change. This includes branch hours and the calendar’s own dated openings, including earlier changes in the same card. An opening ending exactly at midnight does not trigger this exception. This keeps existing booking times stable when unrelated hours are added. The card warns that the calendar will stop following branch hours; check that warning before Save. Date closures and reopening do not create a separate schedule. See reviewed calendar changes.

A closed schedule supplies no regular booking hours. Active on does not create missing working hours.

Hours set through the Coach or a connected agent are checked before saving. An unknown day name or malformed time is refused, and your schedule stays as it was. An explicitly empty set of hours removes the calendar’s weekly hours; one-time hours remain.

Standing invitees and privacy

Standing invitees receive internal appointment details. These can include the customer’s name and phone number, a conversation link and staff notes. Only staff addresses belong here. A customer’s address could receive other customers’ meeting details.

omotto asks for confirmation before adding an address that is not a workspace member. The list applies to appointments booked from now on; it does not rewrite old events. A meeting type can also have its own standing invitees. Customer invitations are a separate communications setting.

Calendar event details

To reveal these switches:

1. Open Show advanced options on Technical setup.
2. Find Calendar event details.

The switches save automatically.

Switch	On	Off	Default
Show post-appointment buffers in Google Calendar	Shows the break after an appointment as a separate Google event.	Keeps the break in omotto’s booking calculation without a separate event.	Off.
Add customer phone to calendar events	Includes the customer’s phone when event details are written.	Omits that phone detail from newly composed details. It does not make the whole event anonymous or change Google’s sharing permissions.	On.

Turning the phone switch off does not remove phone numbers already written into existing Google events. Previously written details remain unless separately edited. This differs from the buffer-display switch below.

Changing buffer display updates existing future appointments in the background. Updating existing future appointments… means the change is not finished. Now: shows the current status. Turning buffer display off does not remove the booking rule that keeps the break free.

Google’s sharing permissions determine what each person can see. The phone switch is not protection for all customer details; calendar access and standing invitees still matter.

What to configure next

Choose only the options that fit what you want this feature to do.

1. Create or review your meeting types, which decide what customers can book and for how long.
2. Check booking rules and reminders and business days and holidays.
3. If you have more than one place, see locations and closing a location for a day above.
4. For multi-place offerings, see group classes.
5. Practice booking in a rehearsal before going live.

What happens when…

You connect for the first time

When no meeting types exist yet, connecting creates Appointment, a 30-minute meeting at the business address. When no bookable calendars exist yet, omotto adds the connected account’s primary calendar as Main calendar, if it has the required access. Names follow the business language; a Hebrew business starts with פגישה and היומן הראשי.

The starting calendar follows location hours and offers all active meeting types. Without configured location hours, the suggested schedule is 09:00–17:00 on five days. The days depend on the business’s country and, for some existing setups, its week-start preference. These are starting values, not confirmed opening times. Existing meeting types and calendars are not replaced on every reconnect.

Before launch, a business with no time zone set may receive its primary Google calendar’s time zone during connection. The actual location hours and business time zone still need checking before bookings begin. If no starting calendar was added, use the add-calendar procedure above.

You pause a calendar

Turning Active off stops new offers without cancelling existing Google events. Ordinary customer appointment listing and cancellation through omotto also exclude the inactive calendar. A customer may therefore be unable to find or cancel an existing appointment through the bot while it is paused.

While paused, handle those appointments directly in Google Calendar and communicate changes or cancellations to the customer. Turning Active back on restores inclusion only when access checks succeed, and also allows new offers again.

You clear the last selected meeting type

If no saved restriction remains, the calendar offers all active types again; clearing selections is not a reliable way to disable bookings. If links to archived types remain, clearing the last visible type can instead leave an archived-only restriction and offer no active types.

To make the intended offering explicit:

1. Select the active meeting types you want under Services offered here.
2. Check the result in Booking health.

Active is the pause control, with the consequences for existing appointments described above.

You change hours or one date

Several windows can exist in one day, such as morning and afternoon with a lunch gap. One-time windows add hours; they do not automatically replace regular hours.

For a completely different schedule on one date:

1. Choose Clear day… for that date in editing mode.
2. Add the required one-time windows.

For a regular grid window, All weeks is the default edit scope. Only this week changes just that occurrence. Recurring deletion offers Only this date, From this date onward, or All weeks.

Overnight hours are supported: 22:00–02:00 continues into the following date. A closure or day clear can affect a window that began the previous evening, so both dates matter.

For planned holidays and location-specific holiday hours, see the location’s Holidays settings. The business-day calendar used for counting working days is separate from appointment hours and closures.

You close or reopen a location

Also close calendars with unique hours is selected by default. When selected, it blocks bookings on all calendars belonging to that location, including those with their own hours. When cleared, unique-hour calendars continue following their own schedules. Other locations are not closed. A calendar set to Any location belongs to the primary location for this purpose.

A closure blocks availability; it does not cancel existing Google events. Reopening lifts the location closure and each affected calendar resumes its own schedule. It does not remove busy events or invent hours.

Google contains busy or all-day events

• Timed Google events marked Busy block their occupied time. Timed events marked Free do not.
• All-day Google events block their full date range in omotto, even if marked Free in Google. A birthday or informational all-day event can therefore remove that day’s slots.
• Additional blocking calendars count as well as the appointment calendar.
• Working hours do not override busy events.

A calendar that is neither an appointment destination nor a blocking source can hold all-day notes without blocking this setup.

A calendar becomes unreadable

If any required calendar cannot be read, omotto offers no slots on the affected bookable calendar. It does not assume a missing calendar is free. This includes additional blocking calendars.

You disconnect or change Google accounts

Disconnect opens a confirmation. It stops calendar management in omotto and turns bookable calendars inactive. It does not delete appointment events from Google.

After an explicit disconnect, reconnecting the same account can restore previously active calendars only if they remain writable and their blocking sources remain accessible. Calendars you had paused yourself stay paused.

Connecting a different Google account deactivates existing calendar mappings. Existing appointments stay in the old Google calendars, but omotto may no longer be able to display, change or cancel them.

Google’s third-party connections guide explains how to review app access. Removing omotto’s access in Google prevents the connection from working until you authorize it again.

Troubleshooting

Connection needs attention

This is an account-access problem, separate from an invitation warning.

1. Open connection management as described above.
2. Choose Reconnect Google when offered.
3. Authorize the same Google account again.

Disconnecting first is not necessary just to repair missing access.

Needs attention: invitations could not be confirmed

The separate Needs attention warning lists affected appointments and recipient email addresses. It means calendar invitations could not be confirmed for those recipients; it does not by itself mean the Google connection is broken.

1. Open connection management as described above.
2. Review the affected appointment and recipient addresses.
3. Choose View ticket if you need the conversation context.
4. Return to the warning.
5. Choose Retry for the affected appointment.

Retry queues another attempt; clicking it is not confirmation that the invitation has been repaired. The warning clears after Calendar confirms the recipients. If omotto asks you to reconnect first, follow the connection procedure above before retrying. If Retry is missing, an integration manager needs to perform it. If the warning persists or retry is unavailable, contact support with the appointment date and the displayed error.

A calendar is missing or the picker will not load

1. Check that the intended Google account is connected.
2. Check that it accepted the calendar-sharing invitation.
3. Check that it can edit events on the missing calendar.
4. Reopen the picker.
5. If the picker still cannot load, reconnect Google with the intended account.

Open hours but no slots

1. Check Active.
2. Check the offered meeting types, including paused or archived restrictions.
3. Check duration, start-time spacing and the post-appointment buffer.
4. Check minimum notice and the booking window.
5. Check busy sources and all-day events.
6. Use Booking health for the available summary, especially on a narrow screen.

A calendar could not be read

1. Restore the connected account’s access to the appointment calendar.
2. Check access to every Also blocks on source.
3. Reconnect if access needs authorization again.

A blocking calendar should only be removed if it truly should no longer restrict bookings.

Location changes do not have the expected effect

A calendar unaffected by location-hours edits may have unique weekly hours or dated exceptions. Return to branch hours removes both after confirmation. To remove just one unwanted dated exception while keeping the other settings, use that date’s remove action.

If a closed location still accepts bookings:

1. Check the calendar’s Location.
2. Check whether unique-hour calendars were excluded from the closure.

Controls are missing or changes will not finish

1. Ask the workspace owner to check integration, Meetings and location-management permissions if actions are missing or refused.
2. If a buffer-display transition does not finish, retry the switch.
3. Contact omotto support if Google Calendar is unavailable, reconnecting repeatedly fails, saves do not settle or the buffer transition still fails.

Include the displayed error, affected calendar name and date. Do not send Google credentials.

Related

• Meeting types and their settings
• Booking rules and reminders
• Location hours and holidays
• Group classes
• Workspace permissions