Google Calendar

Google Calendar can be the calendar in your playbook: the assistant offers times when the right staff member is free, and books the meeting on a Google calendar with that person invited. Your CRM stays the CRM. It still recognises callers, saves new contacts and logs the call.

A rep who connected their own calendar in Personal settings → Calendar is booked on that instead, and this calendar books the others.

Info

AnswerStack is an independent product. Google Calendar and Google Workspace are trademarks of Google LLC, and their use here describes compatibility only, not affiliation or endorsement.

Before you start#

A Google Workspace account that can hold the meetings. Usually a shared mailbox such as tours@ or the sales manager's own account. Meetings go on its main calendar, or on another calendar it can add events to.
Staff emails. Each staff member who takes meetings needs their Workspace email on their staff profile (Groups, the community, Staff). That is how AnswerStack finds their free and busy times and invites them.
An owner or admin of your AnswerStack account, to add the connection.

Connect it#

Open the connect dialog
On Connections, under Add a connection, press Connect Google Calendar.
Name it and choose the booking calendar
Give the connection a name your team will recognise. Leave Booking calendar ID empty to use the main calendar of whoever signs in, or paste the ID of another calendar (in Google Calendar: the calendar's Settings and sharing, Integrate calendar).
Sign in with Google
Press Continue to Google. Google opens in a new window. Sign in with the account that should hold the meetings and allow every permission AnswerStack asks for. If one is unticked, nothing is saved and you are asked to start again. Finish in the same browser where you are signed in to AnswerStack: only the person who started a sign-in can finish it, so a sign-in link passed to someone else saves nothing.
Check and save
AnswerStack checks that it can see the booking calendar and add events to it, then saves the connection. The card shows Signed in as and the Google account.
Use it in a playbook
In the playbook editor, on Integrations, choose the connection as the calendar. Keep your CRM as the CRM.

What happens on a booking#

sequenceDiagram
  participant H as AnswerStack
  participant G as Google Calendar
  H->>G: When are these staff members busy? (free/busy only)
  H->>G: Which meetings did we book for them?
  G-->>H: Busy times
  Note over H: Offers two open times inside the community's meeting hours
  H->>G: Are they still free at the chosen time?
  H->>G: Create the event on the booking calendar, staff member invited
  G-->>H: Event ID, kept as the confirmation

What it reads and writes#

What	Read or write	Details
Staff availability	Read	Free and busy times only, for the staff emails on your community's profile. AnswerStack never sees their event titles
Meetings AnswerStack booked	Read	Only events AnswerStack created on the booking calendar, to know who is already booked
The meeting	Write	One event on the booking calendar, titled like "Tour with Linda Carver", with the staff member invited
A cancelled meeting	Write	The event is deleted and Google tells everyone invited
The booking calendar settings	Read	Only to check that the calendar exists and the account can add events to it

AnswerStack asks Google for these permissions and no others: your email address, "see the availability on Google calendars you have access to", "view and edit events on all your calendars", and "see the list of Google calendars you're subscribed to". It never reads or changes events it did not create.

Who is invited, and what they see#

The staff member is invited, so the meeting appears on their own calendar. The event description holds the booking notes: what the caller told the assistant and a short summary, so they walk in prepared.

The caller is not invited unless you turn on Send the caller a Google invitation. Everyone invited to a Google event can read its description, so when the caller is invited the booking notes are left off the event. Your own confirmation email or text goes to the caller either way.

Keeping it connected#

AnswerStack renews its access to Google on its own. If access stops working, for example because the person who signed in left or removed AnswerStack from their Google account, the connection shows Not working with Access was revoked or has expired. Any owner or admin can press Reconnect and sign in again. If the meetings go on a calendar chosen by its ID, any Google account that can add events to it can sign in. If they go on the signed-in account's main calendar, a reconnect must use the same Google account: another account could not see or cancel the meetings already booked. To move to another account's calendar, add a new connection.

Deleting the connection also gives AnswerStack's access back to Google.

Limits#

A CRM is still needed. Every booking belongs to a contact in your CRM.
No attended rate from Google. Google Calendar does not record whether someone attended, so attended rates come from your CRM, or are left empty rather than guessed.
No video links yet. Meetings are booked without a Google Meet link.