Project owners and collaborators can connect a Google or Outlook calendar to help your team view availability from inside your User Interviews project draft or live project and view tentative and/or booked sessions on your calendar so you don't double book a meeting or other event at a session time.

How do I connect my calendar?

1. Go to the "Manage availability" section and navigate to the "Connected calendars" sidebar on the right and click "Connect your calendar". You can also connect your calendar from the "Schedule" section of the project builder.

2. You'll be asked to select the type of calendar you want to connect. We support Google and Outlook 365 calendars.

3. Once you select your calendar type, you'll be asked to sign in to your Google or Outlook account. Give the system a minute to do its work. You might see the following screen briefly:

4. Once your calendar is connected, you'll be redirected back to your live project or project draft. You'll see a confirmation alert at the top of the screen, your name will appear in the list of connected calendar, and any events from your calendar will appear on the project calendar, labeled and colored to match your name.

5. Click anywhere on the schedule to add a research session!

How can I invite teammates to connect their calendar?

1. Go to the "Manage availability" section and navigate to the "Connected calendars" sidebar on the right and click "Invite to connect".

2. You'll be prompted to enter in the email of the person you'd like to invite to connect their calendar. Please note that inviting them to connect their calendar on this project will also add them as an edit collaborator to this project.

3. Your teammate will receive an email prompting them to collaborate with you and connect their calendar.

More details

• If a teammate has connected a calendar with a project they launched in the past, you’ll be able to see their availability without having to invite them first.
• Instead of displaying event titles, the schedule only shows each teammate’s name. This makes it easy to see whose events are whose, and avoids sharing any embarrassing "take cat for manicure" events. (Your secret’s safe with us.)
• If you're the project owner, you can choose to automatically send calendar invites to collaborators for confirmed sessions.

What viewing options do I and teammates with synced calendars have?

As the project owner, all confirmed sessions will automatically get pushed to your synced calendar.

Show unconfirmed sessions on my calendar

To make sure you don't schedule a meeting or other event during available sessions, toggle "Show unconfirmed sessions on my calendar" on on the "Connect calendar" sidebar. All tentative sessions will appear on your calendar.

Invite collaborators to confirmed sessions

You can also choose to automatically invite collaborators to confirmed sessions. To keep everyone's calendars uncluttered, only confirmed sessions (not tentative ones) create calendar events. 

Invitations will only be sent to sessions confirmed after you flip the switch. Invites won't be sent for any confirmed sessions already on the books at the time you activate this feature.

Please note that sessions will be created for all collaborators. If you have many collaborators on a project who will not be pitching in on all sessions, it may be better to just invite individual collaborators on the calendar event itself.

Extra perk: You and your collaborators can edit the event description (note-taking document, prototype, etc.). The edits will show up on both of your calendars (but not the participant's). Great for coordinating sessions and sharing notes ahead of time!

How do I disconnect my calendar?

Disconnecting your Google or Outlook calendar from a project will remove all User Interviews sessions from your personal calendar and will no longer show your availability in User Interviews.

Here's how to disconnect your calendar from a project:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Navigate to a project.
3. Go to the "Manage availability" section.
4. Click the "Disconnect" link in the "Connected calendar" sidebar on the right.

Q&A

Is this a two way calendar sync?

No. If you need to add, edit, or remove a session, be sure to do this within the UI platform. Connecting your calendar pushes sessions from our app to your Google or Outlook calendar—not the other way around. Adding, deleting, or rescheduling a session can only be done from within the User Interviews app.

Can I connect multiple personal calendars?
You can connect one calendar per User Interviews account.

Can participants see my calendar? 
No; participants will only be able to see the schedule of available sessions you create.

If I update my Google or Outlook calendar, will the UI platform automatically update? 
Yes. Changes you make to your connected calendar will automatically update your availability in the User Interviews project calendar (you might need to refresh the page). Important notes:

• ‍Please only add/edit/delete User Interviews sessions inside our app—not in your Google or Outlook calendar. Changing calendar events created by User Interviews outside of the app can cause errors in the connection.
• That said, feel free to edit the event descriptions for User Interviews sessions in your Google or Outlook calendar (for instance, to add a link to a prototype or a notes document). This can be especially handy for sharing information with any collaborators invited to the session; participants won't see any of the information in your connected calendar events.

What permissions does User Interviews need in order to connect my calendar?
The User Interviews app only accesses your connected calendar in a limited number of ways, for a limited set of purposes:

• to create and delete calendar events for User Interviews sessions
• to display your availability (but not individual event names) on active project calendars inside User Interviews to you and collaborators you invite
• to send calendar invitations to you and (optionally) to collaborators you invite