Do you want to make it easier for others to book time with you or maybe you want to make sure that you understand all of your Calendly settings? Well, in this video I'm going to show you everything you need to know to get the most out of your Calendly account.
Calendly account settings
Now, before we go ahead and create our first or new event, I want you to come up here to your account settings and select profile.
Profile picture & name
There's a couple of things I want you to change or edit First. Number one, make sure that you've included a profile picture when it comes to your booking page. This makes it a lot more professional and will appear on your booking screen, so make sure that you've got a nice clear headshot to include within your profile.
Account branding & logo
Next, we want to come down to branding, and I would also encourage you to upload an image such as your logo here within the branding section. Once again, when someone clicks on your booking page, you want to make sure that your visitors know that they are in the right place and that they're connecting with the correct business or the correct brand.
Calendar sync & connect
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, let's come all the way down to our account settings and select calendar sync. This is the place where we can connect multiple calendars where Calendly will check for conflicts, but will also place the correct bookings on the correct calendar.
Here in the first section, we can select this add calendar account button, and whether you use Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, or Apple iCloud calendar, you can easily and quickly connect your calendars. You can connect a maximum of six calendars per Calendly account.
Then down at the bottom of the screen is where you have the opportunity to match or select which of the above calendars will be checked for conflicts. So for example, I've included both my business calendar and my personal calendar to my account, and I want Calendly to check both of those calendars for conflicts.
So for example, if I have a dentist appointment on my personal calendar, and of course I'll have a number of other events and meetings on my business calendar, I want to make sure that I am never double booked. So in this example, Calendly will be looking at both of those calendars and then down below we have the option to select which calendar new Calendly events will be added to.
In my case, I want all new Calendly accounts to be added to my business calendar, so that's where they will appear based on this selection. Now let's return back to the home screen by selecting the Calendly link in the top left-hand corner.
Availability & schedules
But just before we go ahead and create that next new event, there's one other place
that I want us to visit and it's important that you visit this area first. That's a section called availability. By clicking on this, we have the opportunity to create one or more schedules that will be applied to our event types. Now this is very, very important because you're probably wanting to use the same schedule or similar schedule for multiple event types.
So rather than creating this for each and every event type, you have the opportunity to create it once and then apply it to multiple event types. Let me show you what I mean by default. I have a schedule here called meeting hours, and if I scroll down below, you can see that I've made myself available Monday through Friday 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Now, it's very easy for me to edit these hours.
Let's say on Mondays I only want to be made available until 12 noon, so I can select that option here and maybe I don't want to be available on Wednesday at all. I'm going to come over here and uncheck this box.
So now I've changed my meeting hours in just one place, but if this schedule is applied to multiple events, I don't have to change it anywhere else. Now in this particular example, it's showing me that it is active on actually zero event types.
This can also be very, very helpful. If I select this dropdown, I can easily check any of these other events which I've created and immediately apply this single schedule to multiple event types. Now let's take a look at these schedules in a little more detail. Number one, if you want to create multiple times in a single day, you can do so. Remember how I changed this from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM Well, maybe I also want to make myself available later that same evening. In order to do so, I'm going to come over here to the right and hit this plus button and it's going to add a new time interval for that day.
So maybe I'm going to say I also want to be available from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM and yes, I can't have the start time be a little earlier. It gave me that warning, but now those changes have been saved, so now I'm available in the morning and also the late afternoon and maybe I want to be available in this exact same timeframe on Thursdays as well.
Well, rather than hitting the plus button down here, I can come over to the copy button. I can select this and say, let's apply this to Thursday as well. I'm going to hit apply, and now that same multiple time interval has been added here down below.
Now on the right hand side of the screen, we can add date specific hours, so perhaps there's a particular date in the future in which I want to block off or change.
I can do so over here as well. Now if it comes to just blocking off a date, I'm going to recommend that you actually do that within your own personal or professional calendar by just blocking off the date.
Remember that Calendly is always going to be using that as a reference, but let's say there's maybe a date somewhere in the future where I want to make myself available from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM and that's something that I'm not going to do very often. This is where I may want to add that date specific hour.
You'll also notice up above here we can change from the list view, which is listed in weekly hours to a calendar view. It's going to show us the exact same information, but instead of a weekly view, it's going to show us a calendar in real time.
Now, any of these available dates I can click on and start to edit, but I find that many users get confused and it can be a bit of a hassle to edit things here within the calendar view. So in most cases, I would encourage you to stay within the list view to make your changes. You'll also notice up above it will show you the multiple schedules.
Here, for example, I have three different schedules which I've created, and if I need to create a new one, I can simply come over here and create a new schedule. Lastly here in the availability screen, you will see that there's a tab called holidays. This can be very, very helpful. You can choose the country in which you live in or the country in which you want to see the statutory holidays, and you can enable either all of them or deselect certain ones as well.
This is much easier than removing certain specific dates or making sure that you have them blocked off on your personal or professional calendar. So make sure that you review this holidays tab as well. Now that we've set up our availability and our schedules, let's go back to the home screen and create our first event.
Create a new event type
Now you can do it in one of two ways. We can come up to this blue button and select create, and then select event type. Or we can come over here to the right and say new event type.
Now our first option is to choose what type of event we would like to create, and Calendly gives us four different options. One-on-one with one host and one invitee is going to be the most popular, and that's what we're going to use today for our example, but let's look at the other three options available to us.
You can create a group event where there is one host with a group of invitees. This can be really great for things like webinars or maybe an online class. Maybe you want to allow a maximum of five people to join you in a group coaching session.
In this case, you would want to select the group option. There's also a collective event type. This is kind of the opposite of group. This is where you and multiple hosts are meeting with one invitee.
This can be helpful in the case of a job interview when you and a group of others are interviewing an individual or perhaps if you are having other members of your team join on a group sales call, this can be helpful as well.
Lastly, there's an event type called a round robin where you have a host which rotates with one invitee. This can be helpful if you have a certain process as you're bringing a new client or perhaps a new lead through different members of your team, but the most common one is the one above one-on-one. So let's go ahead and continue with that example.
If you have multiple members as a part of your account, you can choose who will be the host. In my case, I am the only member here, so I will be the host by default. I'm going to select next. And now we are brought to our new event type screen complete with a preview here on the right hand side.
Add name, duration & location
Now the first thing we're going to need to decide is to name our event. And remember, this is something that is going to be public or is going to be visible to people who both view this booking page, but it may also appear in other things such as a calendar invite and email reminders. So in my case, I'm going to give it a very simple title such as a 45 minutes intro deduction call.
Perhaps I am interviewing a new lead or wanting to get to know a new client to the left. You can also see that we can choose a different color if we'd like to be beside this particular booking type. If I change it from purple to red, you will notice that there is neither purple or red on the booking screen itself.
But if I go to my main booking page where all of my listings are, you can see that there will be a color.to the left of each event type.
If you would like to create some distinction between your events, you may want to change those colors here. These may also be helpful as you're managing multiple events right here from within Calendly.
Down below we need to select our duration, and if it's a 45 minute meeting, I better make this 45 minutes in length. So I'm going to select that option here. If you need something beyond 60 minutes, you can select the last option here, custom and choose your desired length. I'm going to select 45 minutes, and then lastly, before we hit continue, we need to decide where this meeting will take place. Now by default, it's giving me three options of Zoom, a phone call or an in-person meeting, but if you don't use Zoom meetings, don't worry. Calendly interfaces with Google Meet Microsoft Teams, WebEx and GoToMeeting, so you can connect any one of your video conferencing clients directly to Calendly.
If you'd like to also set a custom option, you can choose that here as well. Now in my example, I'm going to choose a phone call and depending on the location that you choose, you may have some other options as well.
So for example, by choosing a phone call, I need to decide if I will call my invitee or if my invitee should call me. So for example, in this case, I will have to require to ask them to leave their phone number so I know who to call or if I want them to call me, I can choose this option, but don't worry, Calendly will not provide your phone number until after the event has been booked.
In this case, I'm going to say I will call my invitee and I'm going to say update. So here it will be displayed when they are viewing my booking page. They will know ahead of time whether it's a phone call, a video conferencing meeting, or something in person.
At this stage we can hit continue. Our event is technically created, but we have a number of other options available to us and you're going to want to make sure that you review all five of these sections. So first off, let's come back to our event details
Event description & instructions
where we have most of the same information we just selected, but now you will see that we have a description slash instructions area. This can be really helpful to further explain what this event type is all about.
And remember, information such as this can also be included in email reminders, confirmations and on their own calendar event once they've booked the call.
In my example, I'm just going to put something very, very basic here, but you can add additional formatting, you can add additional details including links if you like. Right here, I'm going to say save and close,
Hosts & invitees
and we are brought back to our main screen and we're going to come down to hosts and invitees. Now, there's not a lot of options available to us here, but there is an important one.
Do we want to allow those who book a time here to be able to add other guests? Do we want them to be able to add other email addresses to this booking or do we want to ensure that this is strictly a one-on-one call?
If you want it to be one-on-one, make sure to uncheck this box, or if you're fine with them inviting others, you can leave this checked. There's one other area where we can make adjustments here, but this is probably going to be your quickest way
Scheduling settings
to make this type of change. Next up is our scheduling settings, and it is by far the most detailed and the most important options on this entire new event screen. So first up, let's select our date range, meaning how far in advance can someone book us into the future?
By default, when you are creating a new event in Calendly, it's going to be set to 60 calendar days in the future, meaning that someone could come to this page and see my availability for the next two months.
If that's too far out in advance or not far out enough, we can click on the number dialogue and maybe I only want to make myself available 30 days in the future. You'll notice beside the number, we can also choose between calendar days and weekdays.
Calendar days will count every single day where weekdays will exclude the weekends and only count business days Monday to Friday, so you can choose which one is right for you.
Now, while this first option is the most common way to set up your event types, you can also choose a particular date range. If I choose this option here and click within the field could say something like, I only want to be able to be booked between April 1st and April 30th and hit apply, meaning that that is the only availability that will be made available in this particular case.
The last option here is indefinitely into the future, and I would be very hesitant to select this option. It basically means that someone could book you anytime into the future, even next year or perhaps beyond.
So I would encourage you to look at one of the first two options. In most cases, these rolling days, a certain number of days into the future is going to be your best option. Now down below we have our hours and calendar settings,
Hours & calendar settings
And this is where that availability comes into play, which we set up earlier. Now, if you already have one or more event types created, you will see a dropdown here called copy from. By selecting this, you will find a full list of all of your other event types where you could select and have their availability, whatever availability they are using apply to this event type.
So let's say this 45 minute introduction call is very similar to my standard meeting. I could simply select that meeting here and the same availability would be carried over, but I can also come down below and select this arrow.
This is going to open up a window where we can choose our availability, which we set up earlier within our settings. So down below you can see that this is the availability that we set up as our default, and if we come up here you can see that it is listed as meeting hours.
That's the name of our default availability, but if I click on this dropdown, you can see that I have my other schedules available as well. So in just a single click, I can apply that schedule to this event type as well.
Now, while Calendly does give us the ability to make some changes here within this screen, be careful. Sometimes it can be confusing to change your availability and change your schedule event type by event type.
I would encourage you to go back to your settings where we were earlier so that you can manage your availability and your schedules at a higher level. Now that we're happy with our availability here, I'm going to hit save and close and we are brought back to this screen and we want to scroll down a bit to event limits.
Event limits & buffer time
Now, don't ignore these options here down below. The first one is called buffer time, and by default none will be set. Buffer time allows us to give a little bit of room either before or after an event so that we don't have bookings right after one another.
How many times have you had a meeting that was supposed to end at the top of the hour and you have a new meeting starting at the top of the hour, but it goes a little long? This can be both embarrassing and unprofessional when you are meeting with new clients.
So if you want to make sure that you don't have meetings that run right into one another, you can choose to select a buffer time. So for example, if I select 15 minutes, it will make sure that it will never make an available option here if I have a meeting 15 minutes before that time. So you can choose if you'd like to add a buffer time or not.
Next up is our minimum notice, and you are definitely going to want to change or review this setting. This means how far in advance can someone book me
Minimum notice
for this event? Now, by default, it is going to be set for four hours, meaning that if it's 10:00 AM right now my local time, someone could book me as early as 2:00 PM this afternoon. That may be fine in your case, but depending on your needs, maybe that is too soon. Maybe you want to make sure that you have several more hours notice or maybe even a few days.
So for example, I'm going to change this to one and I'm going to say one day, meaning that here in my preview you can see that tomorrow is no longer available because it doesn't meet this minimum.
Instead, the person who is looking at my booking page, we'll have to look out further in advance. So make sure that you review these options here. And then down below we have an option called daily limit.
Daily limit
Now, this may not be applicable to everyone and every event type, but if you want to set a maximum number of events a day, you can choose that here. For example, maybe you only want to allow two consulting sessions per day.
If that's the case, you're going to want to enter in the number two, meaning that if two of these event types are booked on the same day, all of the other event types will no longer be made available.
Again, this may not be applicable to all users, but you may want to experiment with this if you want to create a maximum. Lastly, we want to come down to the bottom and look at additional options.
Time zone display
Now, the time zone display by default will be the invitees, meaning wherever they are in the world, regardless of their time zone, this will be shown in their local time. I strongly encourage you to use this and keep this setting unless you are meeting in person.
If you are having people book you for a meeting at your office or a physical location, then you will want to use your local time zone or the time zone you'll be meeting in. But in almost all other cases, we want to leave this as the first option so that anyone who views this page will see it in their own time.
Start time increments
Lastly, we want to take a look at our start time increments, meaning when can someone book us within the day? If I click on this date of the third, you can see with 30 minute increments, I have options such as 2, 2 33, 3 30, but if I only want to be made available on the top of the hour, I can come down here and select 60 minutes.
You will notice now that I'm available at two, three and 4:00 PM and while this may look a lot cleaner, keep in mind that you may reduce the total number of bookings that you have in a day depending on the increments that you choose.
You have a lot of options here when it comes to those increments. I would say that 30 minutes is the most standard or most common, so I typically leave mine at the 30 minute slot.
Once we're happy with making all of these changes, let's select save and close and move on to the last two sections of this screen. Next up is our booking page options.
Booking page options
So these are a combination of the fields in which we are going to be asking someone, but also the questions which we may ask as well. Now, at the very top of this screen, we have the opportunity to change the link or the URL to this particular booking page.
Don't worry, anything that you change here will not change the name of the event, but for example, maybe I'm going to reduce this to 45 min, meaning that the link that I will share will be calendly.com/simplivity/ 45 min.
That's relatively short. It's also relatively easy to remember, so this is a great opportunity to shorten your links and make it a lot more meaningful.
Booking form questions
Down below we have our questions. Now by default name and email will be required, but we can choose the name format. Do we want it just to be listed as name or do we want them to include their first and last name separately? I try to leave this as name to make it as easy as possible for those who are booking with me.
We also have the option here to allow an autofill if someone has already booked time with us, that information will automatically be input into the form. We also have the option here again to choose if we want to allow invitees to add guests, and it's as simple as a toggle on or off.
This is the same option that we saw earlier, but we can choose to change it here as well.
Lastly, in this question section, we can choose to ask a default question or even multiple questions before they confirm their booking.
So by default it's going to ask, please share anything that will help prepare for our meeting, and that might be a perfectly fine question to ask, but if we select on edit, we can come up here and change this question to anything that we want. We can choose if we want to make it required, and we can also choose if we want to change this into a radio button or a checkbox or a dropdown menu. So you have an awful lot of options available to you. Here.
You're also not limited to asking just one question. Maybe you want to ask two or three separate questions as a part of the booking process. You can come down here and select add new question.
Collect payments
Now, below this, you also have the option to collect payments. Now in this tutorial, we are not going to go into the details, but you can connect either your Stripe or your PayPal account if you want to require a payment in order to complete the booking.
This can be very beneficial if you provide coaching or consulting sessions and you want to take payment upfront, but of course, this is not required and in most cases we can say that we do not want to collect payments for this event type.
Confirmation page
Lastly, we have a section called the confirmation page. Now, this isn't the confirmation email that's coming up next. This is simply the page that people will be redirected to once they've completed the booking. By default, it's going to send them to a Calendly confirmation page, but if you like, you can redirect them back to your website or to your own custom thank you page down below.
Last but not least, we can choose if we want to ask them to schedule another event or add a custom link. So if you're expecting people to make multiple bookings at once, you may want to turn this on, or if you want to encourage them to click another custom link, you can add that here.
When we're happy with this screen, we are going to select save and close, and we're brought to the final or the last section within our new event type screen
Communications & reminders
that's called communications. And here we're going to take a look at all of the reminders and also how this event will appear within their own calendar. Let's get started with our first notification, and that is our calendar invitation.
Calendar invitation
By selecting the more buttons and then selecting edit, we can see how this booking will look like within our calendar. It's broken down between title, body and timing. Now, by default, Calendly is going to put in a number of variables.
Anything that has this gray shade around it is going to be pulling directly from our event type. So for example, the title would read invitee full name, so Jane Doe, and well, it's going to be my name, Jane Doe and Scott Friesen, but maybe that's not the title that I want to appear within their calendar.
You can edit any of these variables and include additional text as well. So I'm going to remove this and instead I'm going to click on variables, and I'm going to say I want it to read the event name. I want it to say 45 minute introduction call. And here's where I could include my name as well.
So any combination that you like. You don't have to include any variables if you don't want to, but this can be very helpful if you do end up changing this event name. It will also change here as well. We can come down to the body and again, review the different things that will be listed here.
I find that the default works fairly well. It's going to include the name, this description, the location, and also any questions and answers which they have added down below. We can't change it, but it will tell us that it will send immediately once it is booked.
And lastly, we can choose if we want to add a cancellation policy and if we want to include cancel and reschedule links.
Email confirmation
Now, before we hit save and close, we actually want to scroll all the way back to the top because there is a switch to email confirmation. I'll be perfectly honest with you, I find that this is very difficult and almost hidden to many Calendly users.
We've been looking at the calendar invitation, what will show up on their calendar, but of course they will also receive an email confirmation. So let's be sure to click this link. And we have a different set of options available to us. So for example, if we want to edit the reply to address, we can do so here. Maybe the subject will be a little different.
The default is going to say Confirmed event name with my name on this - Particular date, but we may also want to change the body of that email as well. So pay special note to this link.
If we want to switch back to the calendar invite, we can do so here, but that is separate and we can't access it from the main menu. When we are happy with that, we can come down and select Save and Close. And next we can move on to email reminders.
Email reminders
Now, I find this is one of the most powerful things with using Calendly or any booking tool. If you want to make sure that someone shows up to your meeting, make sure that you turn on at least one email reminder by selecting edit here.
We can come in here and choose what those email reminders will look like if we want to change the formatting at all. But I think what's most important of course, is the timing.
For example, by default, it's going to include a 24 hour reminder, which I think is great to give people 24 hour notice that this meeting is coming up, but I don't think it is often enough. So here I can select another interval if I want to. So maybe I want to remind them two hours before the event as well.
Keep in mind this timing will apply to the exact same information up above here. So they'll receive the same subject and the same body of the email, but they will be sent at two different intervals. You can add as many reminders as you like.
I would suggest not adding more than three, but making sure that you have at least one, perhaps one to three hours before your event is scheduled.
And to make sure that this is on, make sure to change the status to on here, and you can choose a different or custom cancellation policy if you like. When I'm happy with those settings, I'm going to select save and close Text Reminders is also an option available to you here.
It's available on a credit system here within Calendly. We're not going to go into those details, but if you like, you can choose this option to edit. And then lastly, we have an option here
Email follow-up
to add an email follow up. So if you'd like to automatically send a custom message or something for them to review afterwards, you can do so here as well. Just take note.
Depending on what this event type is used for, you may want to be careful with how you use this automatic follow up. For example, what if the meeting didn't go well and they don't want to do business with you? Don't create a follow up email that says, here's the next step in doing business together.
So just be careful of if you need the ability to send an email follow up or not. Finally, when we're happy with all of the changes here within communications, we can come down and hit save and Close. We've now created or edited all of the - Components of our new event type.
Sharing your event type
What's next? Well, we want to share this event type. Now, the easiest way would be to come up here and copy the link. If I come up here to my browser and I'm going to paste it into my browser tab, it will bring me directly to this booking screen where people can immediately start to look at my availability and start to book me for that event type.
But you may want to be able to share your booking page with others in a few different ways. For that, we want to come up here and select the share button. Once again, we're going to be presented with that link, so you can copy this link and include it in an email, or you can add it to a button on your website. We also have the option to add times to an email.
This can be great if you only want to offer a few different options.
