The widget would show availability (by looking at free/busy info from Google Calendar) in slots of time determined by a setting (Eg. 1 hour, 2 hours, 1 day etc). So for example if my google calendar had a busy slot for tomorrow from 11:10 - 13:20. Click on any date or time and a popup will open. Select “Appointment Slots” tab and click “More Options” button. On a new tab that’ll open up enter name of your slot; Enter time that are allowed for people to setup appointments with you. I’ve selected 8:30am to 6pm. With Available, you can select 15 min, 30 min, 45 min, or 1 hour slots from your calendar and insert them into your email as plain text. No need to share calendar links or dealing with the hassle. Appointment slots are only available to schools or universities who are using G Suite for Education. The slots must be created with a G Suite account, however any Google account can be used to book them. Creating appointment slots. Open your Google Calendar. Click in a time slot, or click and drag to select multiple hours.

• Calendar With Time Slots

Want to allow you clients to book appointments on your website using Bookable Appointment Slots in Google Calendar? I wouldn’t be writing this tutorial if I could find a comprehensive tutorial online, or if Google help documents weren’t as confusing. It turned out not as simple and intuitive as I originally anticipated. I hope this short tutorial will help my clients and others find their way around google account in order to create google calendar and embed it on their website.

I know that your time is precious, so let’s keep this a point form shall we? Before we start we need a mind-map of what we are doing and why.

Prerequisites – You need G-Suite:
So what’s the catch? The catch is that google wants you to be on their G-Suite plan. Their basic plan is $6 / month. If you don’t have G-Suite you might want to create one.

I’d appreciate if you use my affiliate link: https://goo.gl/9HTDpa
As a bonus google hands out 20% discount for those who sign-up through a referral program.
G Suite Basic Coupon Code – UC9JMYD6HAUJLTP
G Suite Business Coupon Code – V3CAN4MDF6R6D7X
Coupons expire on: 05/2020 (if they expired, please let me know so I could update them)

Why we are creating bookable calendar on the website?

• Because you might want your clients to book appointments with you on your website.
• Because google calendar is likely already integrated with your every-day-life.
• You avoid expensive client management systems by using free Google Calendar features.

What are we doing?

• Creating a custom calendar that’s separate from your personal calendar.
• Allowing public to use that new calendar.
• Adding specific appointment slots.
• Publishing it on a WordPress website (but any other website will do)

Before we dive in:

If you feel comfortable sharing your login information to your google account, we’ll be happy to setup calendar and embed it into your website on your behalf. So if you are an existing or a potential client of ours and feel comfortable sharing your login info to your google account, you can skip all of this and simply email us your login credentials and we’ll do everything on your behalf.

Deep Dive Starts Now:

Let’s create a calendar specific to your business.

• Login into your google calendar.
• Left menu click “+” to create new calendar, name it, Create it and click back to settings.

We now have created calendar specific to your business.

Setup Reoccurring Bookable Appointment Slots

• Deselect all calendars and select only your new calendar. In our case it’s “Conference Appointment”
• Click on any date or time and a popup will open. Select “Appointment Slots” tab and click “More Options” button.

• On a new tab that’ll open up enter name of your slot
• Enter time that are allowed for people to setup appointments with you. I’ve selected 8:30am to 6pm
• I’ve selected “Slots with duration” set to 60min.
• Make sure to set how often it should repeat. In my case I set Monday to Friday every weekday.
• Add a description and Save.

Making this calendar available to the public & notifications

• Select the 3 dot icon and click on “Settings and Sharing”
• On access permissions elect “make available to the public”

• If you don’t want to have schedule conflicts, make sure to select “…do not conflict”

• I’d recommend adding email notification so that you know that someone has booked an appointment with you

Allow people to book appointment on your google calendar

Many people think that embedding a calendar allows your website visitors book appointments using google calendar. That is however not the case. Google calendar creates specific link that can be linked to a button that will allow visitor to be redirected to a booking page. Here is how to find that link and add it to your website:

• On you calendar you should now see appointment slots. You first need to (Left Click) to bring out a menu.
• On the menu you will see a blue text “Go to appointment page …” you need to Right click to bring out another menu.
• Left click on “Copy Link Address” to save it. Now it can be sent to a developer to add to your site.

Add link to your site yourself

All that you’ll need is a code like this:

<a href=”your_copied_link_goes_here” target=”_blank”>Link</a>

All that you’ll need to do is to replace “your_copied_link_goes_here” with the actual link and insert it into your theme template file that’s specific to your WordPress page, or to your static HTML page. It can also be inserted in a text editor of your WordPress content block.

If it sounds too confusing, please don’t do it, tampering with source code will likely ruin your site. Simply ask a professional and it can be done under a minute. If you are charged over $20 for this by a developer – you are being ripped off. Find someone else.

Last but not least

If you need help, feel free to reach out to us at 717-543-8020

All Best,

Peter K.

You can use Google Calendar’s Appointment Slots function to create appointments that other users can book. For example, faculty can create office-hour or class-presentation appointment slots that students can then book themselves. This function creates an additional view of your calendar that only shows the available appointment slots. Visitors can then click on a time slot to book it. Then once a time is booked, the time is filled in and unbookable by others.

Note: Appointment Slots are currently only available to Google Apps users (i.e., not to personal Gmail users). Users must be signed in with their Daemen email to access the appointment slots.

There are several things you can do with appointment slots:

• Setting up appointment slots
• Adding others to the appointment
• Inviting others to book appointments

Setting Up Appointment Slots

1. Go to Google Calendar.
2. Click on the date you want to set the appointment slots for.
3. In the event box, click “Appointment slots”. Enter the event title, time frame, and slot duration then click save. For example: If you select the time as “9am-11am” and with “slots with duration of 30 minutes” then 4 appointment slots would be createdeach lasting 30 minutes during that time period.

4. Once saved, click on the appointment to edit the event and add additional details like location or description.

Adding Others to the Appointments

Adding others to the appointments is not the same as inviting them to book an appointment. When adding someone to the appointments, they will be invited to every appointment so only add people who will be assisting with all the appointments (i.e. – if it is for an Office or Department, you may want to add others in the office so they can see the appointments).

1. Click on the appointment slots and select “Edit”. Enter their username in the “Add Guests” field (to the right).

Inviting Others To Book Appointments

You must set up the actual appointment slots before others can book them.

1. Go to Google Calendar.
2. Click the appointment slot event on the calendar, then click on “Go to appointment page for this calendar”.
3. Copy the calendar’s appointment page link found at the top of the page.
4. Email this link to people looking to book an appointment.

Calendar With Time Slots