Tips on how to manage your linked Google Calendars to ensure your availability is aligned with session scheduling
Personal errands, private appointments, time-sensitive reminders or just the need to step away for a bit is a reality that every recording engineer or studio manager faces. But how do I keep my calendar open to accepting new bookings without temporarily disabling bookings for my studio, changing scheduling preferences for my recording services or rejecting/rescheduling new room bookings and recording sessions that conflict with my schedule?
This article provides tips on how to block off time slots on your calendar as busy, add personal reminders to your calendar marked as free, and consolidating prior booked sessions so you can avoid these issues.
- Block off time-slots to mark calendar as "busy"
- Add private calendar events and mark as "free"
- Consolidate schedules
Blocking off time-slots on your linked calendar to mark as "Busy"
When you link your Google calendar, EngineEars creates an "EngineEars" sub-calendar in Google for your recording service, and additional sub-calendars for each studio room that you add to your studio's profile (e.g. Studio Room A, Studio Room B, Studio Room C etc). These sub-calendars in Google serve as the source of truth when it comes to services/room availability for bookings.
To block off a timeslot on your linked calendar to ensure a particular studio room or recording service is not available for session bookings on EngineEars, follow these steps.
1. Goto Google Calendar
2. Create a new calendar event by clicking the "+Create" button or dragging the specific time slots on a particular date
3. Give your calendar event a name e.g. "Doctor's Appointment"
4. Click the pencil icon to edit the newly created calendar event
5. Select the particular sub-calendar you want this calendar event to apply to e.g. a particular studio room and/or the "EngineEars" sub-calendar for your personal recording service
6. Click event visibility and make sure it is marked "Busy" (not "Free")
7. Save changes
The timeslot for the calendar event you created on the studio room's sub-calendar will be marked "busy" and therefore will not be eligible for session bookings via EngineEars.
Tips:
- If you have multiple studio rooms and sub-calendars that you want to block off time slots for, make sure to repeat the above steps for each room and sub-calendar to block off that time as "busy" and not available.
- If you need to make changes to your blocked off time slots, go into Google calendar and modify the date/time for the calendar event that you've marked as "busy" so your calendar reflects your availability most accurately.
Consolidate previously booked sessions onto EngineEars for centralized management
If you have session bookings on other calendars separate to or scheduled prior to onboarding onto the EngineEars platform, you can consolidate your session bookings onto one schedule management system to make life easier.
Follow the above steps to re-create these other session bookings on the appropriate sub-calendars to block off those timeslots.
This allows you to avoid double bookings via EngineEars for sessions already booked elsewhere/previously.
Adding personal reminders/events on your linked calendar to mark as "Free"
To add personal reminders/events on your linked calendar without blocking off timeslots and ensuring a particular studio room or recording service is still available for session bookings on EngineEars, follow these steps.
1. Goto Google Calendar
2. Create a new calendar event by clicking the "+Create" button or dragging the specific time slots on a particular date
3. Give your calendar event a name e.g. "Reminder to Call Auto Insurance"
4. Click the pencil icon to edit the newly created calendar event
5. Select the particular sub-calendar you want this calendar event to apply to e.g. a particular studio room and/or the "EngineEars" sub-calendar for your personal recording service
6. Click event visibility and make sure it is marked "Free" (not "Busy")
7. Save changes
The timeslot for the calendar event you created on the studio room's sub-calendar will be marked "Free" and therefore will remain eligible for session bookings via EngineEars.
This allows you to see your entire personal schedule and recording/studio schedule in Google calendar without interfering with each other.
