🗓️Google Calendar
Connect your Google Calendar so inspections land on it automatically, and your own commitments block the slots clients can book.
Connecting Google Calendar makes ScribeWare and your personal calendar aware of each other, in both directions:
Out to Google — your inspections, services and block time appear on your Google Calendar as they're scheduled.
In from Google — your own appointments show as busy on the ScribeWare calendar, and stop clients booking over them.
Find it under Settings → Integrations, on the Google Calendar card.
This integration is in limited release and is switched on per company. If you don't see the Google Calendar card in Settings → Integrations, it isn't enabled on your account yet — contact ScribeWare support.
It's Per-Person, Not Per-Company
Each team member connects their own Google account, and only ever sees their own. Your inspections go to your calendar; your colleague's go to theirs. Nobody has to share a login, and one person connecting doesn't connect anyone else.
Connecting is done on desktop. There's no connect button on mobile yet, though anything that syncs shows up on the mobile calendar like it does everywhere else.
Connecting
Go to Settings → Integrations and find the Google Calendar card.
Click Connect Google Calendar.
Your web browser opens on Google's sign-in page. Sign in and allow access. (Google requires a real browser for this — that's why it doesn't happen inside ScribeWare.)
Google shows a Connected — you can close this tab page. Close it and go back to ScribeWare.
The card now shows Connected as your Google address, along with when it last synced. Your upcoming work is pushed across straight away, so expect to see the next couple of months of inspections appear on your Google Calendar within a minute or two.
Choosing Which Calendars Do What
Two settings on the card, and they do different jobs:
Calendars that block availability
Which of your Google calendars ScribeWare reads. Tick the ones whose appointments should make you unavailable.
Add inspections to
Which single Google calendar ScribeWare writes to.
Your primary calendar is ticked and set as the destination when you first connect. A good setup for most people is to leave the primary calendar doing both, and tick anything else you genuinely schedule around — a shared family calendar, say — while leaving subscribed calendars like holidays or sports fixtures unticked.
What Goes Out to Google
Everything you're assigned to, within roughly the next two months:
Inspections where you're the inspector or one of the additional inspectors.
Services and block time where you're one of the listed inspectors.
An inspection arrives on your Google Calendar as:
Title — Inspection: 123 Main St
Location — the property address, so Google can navigate you there
Description — the client's name
Length — the report's Duration (hours), or two and a half hours if that's blank
Services and block time carry their own title and note across.
Reschedule a job in ScribeWare and the Google event moves with it. Unassign yourself, or delete the job, and it disappears from your calendar.
Duration is worth setting properly on each job. It's what decides how much of your Google Calendar an inspection takes up, and it's the same number your booking page uses to work out when you're next free.
What Comes Back from Google
Appointments on your ticked calendars become busy time in ScribeWare. ScribeWare deliberately ignores anything that doesn't represent a real commitment:
All-day events don't block. A birthday, a holiday marker or an all-day reminder won't take you off the schedule.
Events marked "Free" don't block.
Invitations you declined don't block.
Cancelled events don't block.
Events ScribeWare itself created don't block — your own inspections don't get counted twice.
Everything else — an ordinary timed event you're busy for — blocks.
On the ScribeWare calendar
Busy events appear on the desktop calendar alongside inspections, greyed out and read-only. You can't click into them or edit them from ScribeWare; the place to change them is Google.
Your own events show their real title. Teammates looking at the same calendar see only Busy, so a personal appointment stays personal.
On your booking page
A Google busy event takes you out of that time slot. If a colleague is still free, the slot stays bookable and the job is offered to them instead — one person's dentist appointment doesn't close the company's schedule.
🚀Getting Started with SchedulingScribeWare Stays in Charge of Inspections
Inspections are owned by ScribeWare, not by Google. If you drag a synced inspection to a new time in Google Calendar, or delete it there, ScribeWare puts it back the way it was and emails you to say so. The change is also written into the job's Report Activity, so there's a record of it.
This isn't ScribeWare being stubborn — moving an inspection means telling a client, re-checking availability and possibly re-sending paperwork, and none of that can happen from a drag in Google. Reschedule in ScribeWare and the Google event follows.
Anything you add to your Google Calendar by hand is yours and is left alone. It's only the events ScribeWare created that get put back.
Disconnecting
Disconnect on the same card revokes ScribeWare's access, stops the syncing in both directions, and clears the busy events it had mirrored in.
Inspections ScribeWare already put on your Google Calendar are left there. If you want them gone, remove them in Google.
When Something Goes Wrong
If Google access lapses — you changed your Google password, or removed ScribeWare from your Google account — the card shows a warning with a Reconnect button. Nothing is lost; reconnecting picks everything back up.
ScribeWare keeps a rolling window of about two months ahead and a day back. Book something further out than that and it syncs across as the date comes into range.
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