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Syncing Your Cobot Calendar With Google Calendar
Syncing Your Cobot Calendar With Google Calendar

Synchronize your Cobot Resource Bookings with Google Calendar.

Amanda avatar
Written by Amanda
Updated yesterday

We've built an add-on that takes care of synchronizing your Cobot booking calendar with Google Calendar. It's called Google Calendar Sync. This allows you to embed your Cobot calendar outside of Cobot so visitors can see what's available in your space without signing up for a membership.


Setting up the Integration

The first step is to create a new Google Calendar for each Cobot Resource you wish to sync (one Resource = one calendar on Google). To avoid confusion, it is a good idea to name your Google Calendar the same or similar to your Resource in Cobot.

  • For example: if the Resource is called 'Meeting Room' in Cobot, name the Google Calendar 'Meeting Room.'

A Google Calendar interface displaying the date August 23, 2022, with a highlighted calendar entry for "Team Meeting" scheduled from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. The left panel shows multiple calendars, including "Event Space," "Meeting Room," and "Phone Booth," with checkboxes to toggle visibility.

You need a new calendar because all existing bookings in your Google Calendar will be pulled over to Cobot. If you use a personal or internal company shared calendar, all bookings will be pulled over to Cobot.

It is not possible to sync multiple resources to a single Google Calendar. You must have one calendar per resource.

1. Once your Google Calendars are set up, log in to the Admin side of Cobot » Add-ons » Google Calendar Sync » Get Started.

A screen titled "Cobot Calendar Sync for Google" with an explanation of how to sync Cobot booking calendars with Google Calendar. It states that bookings are synced both ways to prevent duplicate bookings and includes a "Get Started" button for setup. On the right is the Google Calendar logo.

2. Select the Cobot space you wish to connect » 'add calendar'.

A message stating, "No calendars set up at the moment," followed by a link labeled "Add Calendar" for setting up a new calendar.

3. Log into your Google account to fetch the calendar you wish to sync. You will need to initiate a sync for each Resources/Google calendar.

  • Make sure you allow all requested tasks after clicking on "Sync Calendar."

A screen for syncing a Google Calendar with a Cobot resource. The options include:  1. **Google Calendar:** Dropdown menu to select the desired Google Calendar (e.g., "Meeting Room"). 2. **Resource:** Dropdown menu to select a corresponding resource on Cobot (e.g., "Meeting Room").

Syncing Existing Bookings

After finishing this setup, all of your events (from within the last month) will be brought from the selected Google Calendar into the selected Cobot Resource’s bookings and vice versa.

  • Any existing events in your Cobot Resource will prevent the addition of the Google Calendar bookings at those times.

  • Any existing events on your Google Calendar will NOT prevent the addition of resource bookings at those times, so you may see double bookings.

  • Any recurring bookings in Google will result in the same number of recurring bookings into the future in Cobot. So make sure these have an end date (where applicable) in Google before syncing to Cobot.

Once this synchronization is complete, all new entries and changes will be automatically synced between calendars. Synchronization from Cobot to Google takes a few seconds, and from Google to Cobot, up to 5 minutes.


What Booking Information Is Synced

Any changes or bookings made on your Google Calendar will result in an action or post on your Cobot Dashboard Activity Feed. These will always appear in your activity feed under the administrator who sets up the Google Calendar sync.

Any bookings created in the Google Calendar will appear in the Cobot Calendar without a member or admin attached to them. When making a booking in Cobot, they will appear as they do when leaving the 'Member Name' field blank.

Any information added under the comments section in the Cobot booking will appear in the Notes section of the Google bookings and vice versa.

The image shows a Google Calendar event titled "Daily Stand Up," scheduled for Friday, August 19, from 9:00 to 11:00 am. Amanda Wolf is the sole guest invited to this meeting, with a request included in the event details for coffee to be provided during the session. The event is set to take place in the Meeting Room and was created by Cobot Test. It is visually marked on the calendar with a red label, clearly indicating its scheduled time and location.

Once the sync is live and changes to a booking are made, Google will not send out invites/updates about synced bookings to the person or guests on the booking (or anyone).


Recurring Bookings

Once the sync is set up, any new recurring bookings created in the Google calendar will populate in Cobot. Every booking in the series will show in Cobot.

Editing individual events or the entire series within Google will update your corresponding Cobot bookings.

Recurring bookings created within Cobot will only populate the first booking in the series on Google. The rest of the series will not be populated.


Disconnecting the Calendar Sync

Go to Add-ons » Google Calendar Sync » Get Started » Stop Syncing.

You will be presented with an option to delete all synchronized bookings. If you leave it unchecked, all bookings will stay in place.

The image displays a confirmation page titled "Stop Synchronizing Calendar." It explains that stopping synchronization will halt any new bookings in Cobot and Google Calendar for "Recording Studio #1" associated with the user's Cobot space. There is a checkbox option to delete "2319 synchronized bookings from Cobot/Google Calendar," which is selected. Below the explanation, there is a blue button labeled "Stop syncing" and a link labeled "back" for navigation.


💡 PRO TIP: Know Whether an Admin or an Automation Made a Booking

  • Create a special 'bot' gmail account for our Google Calendar integration and give it a creative name, like 'Google Calendar Autobot 🤖'.

The image shows the "Administrators" section in a management interface. It allows adding more administrators with full access to setup, management, and analytics features. One administrator is listed as "Google Calendar Autobot" with the email address `<a href="mailto:cobotcalendarintegration@gmail.com" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">cobotcalendarintegration@gmail.com</a>`, which is described as being created specifically for calendar integration. Options available for this administrator include "Make owner," "Edit," and "Remove." A blue button labeled "+ Add Administrator" is positioned at the top right of the section.
  • Whenever a booking is made, you'll now see the name of the Google Calendar Autobot you just setup:

Google Calendar notification in Cobot Activity Feed


If you have any questions, or unable to sync your calendar, send us a message to support@cobot.me


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