TABLE OF CONTENT

• Introduction
• Requirements
• Activation
• Define category
  • In external calendar
  • In the Calenso Dashboard
• Create availabilities directly in the calendar
  • View in the external calendar
  • View in the Booking Widget
• Benefits

Introduction

Previously, all availabilities for possible appointments had to be created in the Calenso dashboard. Now it is also possible to define availabilities in the Office365 and Exchange calendars. Calenso will automatically adopt these externally created availabilities and offer them as possible dates in the booking widget. This is particularly helpful if appointments need to be made available at short notice without the need to log into the Calenso dashboard.

Requirements

In order to connect these calendars to Calenso, you need at least a Business or Enterprise licence. You can find all licences and their functions on our website: Calenso-licenses and features.

You need an Office365 or Exchange calendar that is connected to Calenso. In the following support article you will find the appropriate instructions on how to link your calendar:

Office365-calender synchronization
Exchange-calender synchronization

Please define in advance the different categories in your calendar that you want to use in future. These can be as follows, for example: Bookable / Absent / Day off / Out of office / Holiday / Public holiday etc.

Activation

To be able to define availabilities via the external calendar, this function must first be activated in the booking widget settings. To do this, go to Settings in the navigation bar and open the booking widget settings.

Just before the Stores section, you will find the setting Load availability from external calendar (...). Activate the switch here to be able to configure your services with corresponding categories in the next step.

This switch also appears under the calendar links. This makes it possible to temporarily deactivate the function for the linked calendars, even after the configuration has already been completed.

Define category

In external calendar

To name a category in the external calendar, right-click in the empty field in the calendar view. Then select New event:

Now you can add a new category:

In our example, we name the category "Bookable in Calenso", select the colour green and save the new category:

In the Calenso Dashboard

As soon as the function has been activated in the Booking Widget Settings, the category for availability can be added to each service.

To do this, go to Services under Settings. Select one of the services by clicking on the three dots on the right-hand side and then on Edit:

You can now specify the category under the advanced settings for the service. As a result, this service will be made bookable for all externally created availabilities with the corresponding category, provided this is assigned to your user. If several categories have been created, services can also be offered in different categories. For example, with a "Friday counselling" category, all services that are only to be offered on Fridays could be assigned to this category.

Only appointments with the status Free for availability are taken into account. Any other status is interpreted by Calenso as a blocker.

Create availabilities directly in the calendar

You can now create your availabilities and much more in your external calendar. We will explain how to do this in the following steps.

Open your Exchange/Office365 calendar. Now you can select the desired date and enter your available time by right-clicking in the calendar and entering a new event:

Enter the name of your availability in the corresponding field, adjust the date and duration if necessary and save:

The availability will now appear in your Exchange/Office365 calendar as "Bookable" or as you have previously defined in your category.

View in the external calendar

In our example, we have also entered a private appointment to demonstrate how the booking widget reacts to this. The widget will take this external appointment into account as not bookable during appointment scheduling:

View in the Booking Widget

Here we can see in the Booking Widget that only the available time is shown. This means that the widget has recognised the booked dates as "busy" and therefore not offered as availability:

Benefits

• Faster creation of availabilities
• No login to the Calenso dashboard required
• Limitation of the range of services by assigning categories
• A temporal limitation of a service is possible
• Differentiation between branch, online and on-site appointments by assigning the status