Google Calendar Appointment Scheduler Walkthrough

by | Jan 18, 2023 | Digital Marketing Tips

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Google announced a new appointment booking interface to all G-Suite users in the fall of 2022. If you book appointments in your business and want to automate this by allowing customers to book directly with you, this is a great option. There are many fee-based apps that provide online booking services like this one, but if you are already a G-Suite customer, it’s a great option.

To see if this feature is available in your account, go to your Google Calendar and click on the ‘Create’ drop-down. If you see ‘Appointment schedule,’ this function is included.

Let’s walk through the feature and how to set it up inside Google Calendar

For this example, we are assuming you have a G-suite or Google Workspace account.

  1. From Google calendar and under Create, click on the Appointment schedule. It will open the built-in schedule builder system.
  2. Give your appointment type a title like “Client Call”
  3. Set the call duration or length
  4. Set your availability. For example, you can set that you are available from 10am to 2pm on certain days.
  5. Check the time zone
  6. Under Scheduling Window, you can set the start and end dates for your availability
  7. Set how far in advance people can schedule; for example, 20 days
  8. Set the minimum time in advance; for example, 4 hours
  9. Mark any certain dates you are unavailable
  10. Set your buffer time, which is how many minutes between appointments
  11. Set the maximum number of bookings per day
  12. Set the specific color on the calendar if you would like

What’s great about this calendar is that people will see only the times available, based on both the restrictions you set and times slots not already filled on your personal Google calendar. So if you happen to book something personally during an available appointment time, Google will not let someone book at the same time.

Click Next.

Now you can modify the settings for your booking page.

  1. You can confirm your photo and name
  2. You can update the location of your call. This is great because Google Workspace users have Google Meet built in, so if you want these to all be video calls, you can set this to video call. If you know your clients all want to meet in person, you can say this is how to book a meeting with me at my office (or free session at my gym, or I’ll come to you). You can create all kinds of custom features. In this case I’m going to make it a phone call.
  3. You expand the description of the appointment. When someone books a consultation, I can add notes here to say, “Rebecca VanDenBerg will call you at your allotted time.” That means I will need their phone number, which is collected under the booking form.
  4. Edit the booking form
    1. Here there are four fields–all by default and all required–but you can add additional required questions, like “topics” or “Questions you have.” Whatever information you want to collect, you can add it here.
    2. If you keep the “require email authentication” box checked, it adds a security measure for those without Google accounts. They will just get an additional email to verify who they are.
  5. Set booking confirmations and reminders. Here you can customize confirmation and reminder notices. For this example, I’ll set it to remind the client an hour before. You can also add an earlier reminder, perhaps for the day before.
  6. Hit Save

Now you have created a booking appointment page. If you click on “Open Booking Page” you can see what it looks like. This is what the customer will see when you share the link.

To share this calendar with your customers, click the blue share button in the top right. You will need to copy the link and send it to them in an email.

Or you can embed the entire booking page on your website. We recommend using the “Inline Booking Page” code option. Just copy and paste it on the new page of your website.

I hope this walkthrough helps explain how to set up a booking calendar within your Google Workspace Account.

If you don’t have a Google Workspace account and are interested in signing up, we have a new signup discount. Get 10% off your first year on either the Google Workspace Business Starter or the Google Workspace Business Standard plan. Email me at [email protected] for a special discount code.

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