How to connect Google Calendar to your web portal

You'll see the heading  Configure your integration on the next screen.

If you've successfully linked SAS to your Google Calendar, you'll see a red  'Disconnect' button to the right of the 'Connect to My Account' button.  Now you will need to Configure your integration.

Calendar Settings

Now that your calendar is connected, you'll need to tell the app how to book appointments for you by completing each section listed below:

• Limitation, Frequency, and Earliest
• Event Color
• HIPAA Enabled (if applicable)
• Canceling and Rescheduling (if applicable)
• Business Hours and Appointment Availability
• Appointment Notifications (if applicable)
• Appointment Data Fields

Limitation, Frequency, and Earliest

Just below the name of your calendar(s), you will need to adjust 3 different  Settings for each calendar that you would like the operators to use:

Limitation: How many appointments we can schedule per day

Frequency: The duration of each appointment

Earliest: When we can schedule your first appointment – Same Day, Next Day, After 2 Days, or After 3 Days

NOTE: If you schedule appointments for yourself, keep in mind that if you overlap your appointment Frequency, the next available time slot will be gone from the operators’ view. For example, if your appointment frequency is 30 minutes and you schedule an appointment at 1 pm for 45 minutes, the next available appointment the operators will see is 2 pm.

Event Color

If you would like, select an  Event Color to color-code the appointments our operators schedule for you so that you can differentiate them from appointments you schedule on your own.

HIPAA Enabled

If your business is HIPAA compliant, you must select  HIPAA Enabled. This prevents the operators from looking at the details of any appointments that have already been scheduled, including those that you schedule. Therefore, operators are not able to cancel or reschedule appointments for your patients, as this would give them access to patient information.

Canceling and Rescheduling

Cancel Appointments: If you would like to give operators the ability to cancel appointments from your calendar, select Cancel Appointments. Keep in mind that once an appointment is canceled, it is deleted from the calendar, and there will be no record of it. Therefore, use this feature with caution.

Reschedule Appointments: If you would like to give operators the ability to reschedule existing appointments (and cancel the original appointment), select Reschedule Appointments.

Business Hours and Appointment Availability

Set your  Business Hours. These are the hours that the operators will be able to schedule your appointments. First, click the checkbox under the day of the week that your business is open, and then use the drop down lists to set the hours.

If your appointment hours are the same every day or most days, click the yellow  Copy to all button. This will copy the hours you selected in one day to all days. Be sure to check the box under each day of the week that your business is open. When a box is left unchecked, that day of the week will not show as available on your calendar.

If appointments should not be scheduled during your  Lunch Hours, you'll want to set those hours as well. This will automatically block out time on your calendar so that operators cannot offer those slots to your callers.

IMPORTANT TIPS FOR ADJUSTING YOUR AVAILABILITY

• If you need to block out certain dates and times on days when our operators would normally be able to schedule appointments, you'll need to log in to your Google or Gmail account, and block dates and times directly on your calendar(s).
• Appointments blocked by someone with Shared access to your calendar will not appear as blocked to our operators. Dates and times must be blocked on the primary user's calendar(s).
• Note that if you would like to block a full day, you will need to block the day by hour. For example, set an appointment that lasts from 8 AM to 5 PM. Do not use the box "All day," as the Google Calendar app does not recognize dates that have been blocked using this option.

Google Calendar Appointment Notifications

Would you like to receive reminders for appointments that our operators schedule? If so, you can opt to receive  Notifications by email or pop-up a specific amount of time prior to the appointment. This feature will only be active when you're logged in to your Google or Gmail account.

NOTE: Be sure to check the Settings in your actual Google Calendar to ensure that Notifications are turned on.

If you would like a reminder, click the green  Add new option button.

Then, select the type of notification you would like, along with the reminder time. You can choose Minutes, Hours, Days or Weeks. These reminders are controlled by Google and sent out from the Google Calendar system. If you are logged in to Google, you will receive an email in your Google Email, and a Pop-up will show an alert on-screen.

Adding Appointment Data Fields

One last thing, and then your calendar is all set! You'll need to tell the system which script variables to include in your appointments.

Below Notifications, check the box next to  Appointment data, and from the drop down list, select the script where you'll be integrating the Google Calendar.

Once you've selected a campaign, a list of script variables will be displayed. Each script path will have custom step labels and default variables, such as [FirstName], [PhoneNumber], [Email], etc. Visit the call script builder to determine which script variables match the appointment scheduling path.

Then, click to drag and drop the variables from the Available fields list to the Name, Where and Description boxes on the right.

As you drag fields over, take a moment to format the details. Variables will be displayed one after another, so add spaces or commas in between to make things clear. In addition to using script variables, you can type text into any template. For example, if all appointments will be at the same location, you may want to add that into the "Where template" box. You can customize these templates to suit your needs.

NOTE: If you would like to add Advanced settings to your Google Calendar setup, you can learn more about those options here.