Syncing Google Calendar
Connect Google Calendar so busy events on your primary calendar are automatically hidden from the customer-facing slot picker.
What it does
Without Google Calendar connected, the slot picker at /b/your-slug/book/<token> only knows about:
- Your working hours in Settings
- Slots already taken by other TradesOps bookings
- Manual blocks you've added
With Google Calendar connected, it also hides:
- Busy events in your primary Google Calendar (meetings, appointments, personal blocks — anything with a specific time)
That means a customer clicking on your booking link won't ever be offered a time when you're already committed elsewhere.
What TradesOps sees on your calendar
Only "busy" or "free" information, via Google's Free/Busy API. Specifically:
- Start and end times of events you have set as "busy" (Google's default).
- Nothing else — no event titles, no attendees, no descriptions, no locations.
TradesOps doesn't store your calendar events. Every slot-picker load queries Google fresh.
Connect
Settings → Google Calendar → Connect Google Calendar. Google's consent screen asks you to allow read-only access to your calendar. Approve.
TradesOps stores a refresh token securely on the server. You come back to Settings and it shows Connected with your Google email.
What about "free" events?
If you have an event marked as "Available" or "Free" in Google Calendar (some events default to this — all-day events, out-of-office reminders sometimes), the slot picker treats those times as available. Only events marked "Busy" hide slots.
Multiple Google calendars
TradesOps currently reads only your primary calendar. If you have a separate work calendar you'd like it to read instead, you can either:
- Move events onto your primary, OR
- Set the work calendar as your primary in Google Calendar Settings
Multi-calendar support is a fast-follow — email help@tradesops.uk if it's important to you.
Disconnect
Same page → Disconnect. TradesOps removes the refresh token immediately. Future slot picker loads fall back to working hours + manual blocks only.
Ad-hoc blocks that shouldn't go on Google Calendar
Sometimes you want to block out a couple of hours without cluttering your Google Calendar (school run, MOT, quick admin morning). Use Blocking out times for those — same effect, no calendar clutter.