Setting Up Linked Calendars & Conflict Calendars

GHL Customer Care lets you synchronize external calendars (Google, Office 365, Outlook.com) to keep your availability up to date and prevent double-bookings. Use Connected Calendars to authorize GHL Customer Care’s access, Linked Calendars to import events and show true availability, and Conflict Calendars to automatically block GHL Customer Care slots when you have other commitments.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• When to Use Connected, Linked & Conflict Calendars
• Prerequisites
• Setting up the Linked Calendar
• Service Bookings Sync to Linked Third-Party Calendars
• Sync Preferences (Advanced Settings)
  • 1. Default Sync (One Way Sync)
  • 2. Two-Way Sync
• Conflict Calendars
• How these Calendars Work
• Best Practices & Considerations
• Common Troubleshooting
• Related Articles

When to Use Connected, Linked & Conflict Calendars

• Connected Calendars: Grant GHL Customer Care permission to read (and optionally write) events from an external calendar account.

• Linked Calendars: Import events and availability into GHL Customer Care so your true busy times display.

• Conflict Calendars: Mark certain connected calendars as blockers, automatically making overlapping High-Level booking slots Unavailable.

Prerequisites

• User Role: Admin or Manager access in the sub-account.

• External Calendar Account: Active Google Calendar, Office 365, or Outlook.com login credentials for each user.

Setting up the Linked Calendar

Step 1: Access the Connections Tab

In your GHL Customer Care sub-account sidebar, go to Settings → Calendars, then click the Connections tab at the top to go to Calendars and Connected Calendars. 

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Step 2:  Add a Calendar

1. Under Connected Calendars, click + Add New.

2. Select your provider: Google, Outlook, iCloud or Calendly Calendar.

3. Sign in and grant GHL Customer Care permission to read events (and write, if you plan to sync bookings back).

4. Once successful, you’ll see your email listed with its provider icon.

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Alert: Reconnect broken integrations

If you see a red banner like “Reconnect your integration” or the calendar tile is outlined in red, your OAuth token may have expired or been revoked. Click Reconnect and re-authorize GHL Customer Care to restore access.
If the third-party calendar was deleted at the provider, the banner can also display a Fix This option. Click Fix This to review all deleted calendar instances and use Remove Deleted Calendars to clean up broken connections. 

Automatic resync after reconnect or changes: When you reconnect a previously disconnected calendar, GHL Customer Care automatically pushes any unsynced upcoming appointments to your external calendar. If you connect a new calendar or switch to a different selected calendar within the same integration, GHL Customer Care automatically resyncs future appointments to the newly selected calendar.

Step 3: Configure Your Linked Calendar

1. In the Calendar Configuration section under Linked Calendar, click Add.

2. Choose one of your Connected Calendars to import events into GHL Customer Care.

3. Click Save.

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IMPORTANT:-
1. Writer's access is required for the user to select a calendar as a linked calendar. 

2. The linked calendar is by default added to the conflict calendar. This means any event created on the third-party linked calendar will be fetched in the system, and any event created in the system will be pushed to the third-party linked calendar. 

3. You can set your Sync Preferences from the Advanced Settings.

Service Bookings Sync to Linked Third-Party Calendars

Linked calendars help staff keep their assigned service bookings visible alongside the rest of their schedule. This improves day-to-day calendar visibility and makes it easier to manage appointments across platforms like Google, Outlook, and iCloud.

Service bookings can now sync to the linked third-party calendar selected in Calendar Settings > Connections.

Supported linked calendars include:

• Google
• Outlook
• iCloud

Important:

bookings assigned to you sync to your selected linked calendar

if a single booking includes multiple services assigned to different staff members, each staff member sees only their own assigned booking on their own linked calendar

This keeps service scheduling more accurate across teams and avoids unnecessary visibility into bookings assigned to other users.

Sync Preferences (Advanced Settings)

1. Default Sync (One Way Sync)

• Events created on the system will be synced to Linked Calendar (Eg, Google).
• Events created on Linked Calendar (Eg, Google) will be synced to the system.
  1. These events are synced as blocked slots.
  2. No contact is created for guests in the Linked Calendar (Eg, Google) events.
  3. No automations / workflows are triggered.

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2. Two-Way Sync

• Events created on the system will be synced to Linked Calendar (Eg, Google).
• Events created on Linked Calendar (Eg, Google) will be synced to the system.
  1. These events are synced as appointments.
  2. Contact is created for the guests found in the Linked Calendar (Eg, Google) events.
  3. Automation/workflows can be triggered like any other appointment created in the system.

For Example:John has created a google event from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm called 'Doctor's Appointment with Dr. Mark' and has added Dr. Mark as a guest in his google calendar.
Default Sync (One-way Sync): Only a blocked time from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm will be added in the system so that no one can book during that time.
Two-way Sync: An appointment is created in the system from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm so that no one can book during that time. A new contact for Dr. Mark is created in the system. If any workflows are created, they would get triggered for Dr. Mark.

Conflict Calendars

Events from third-party calendars added as conflict calendars are synced to the system, blocking your availability for the event's duration. As the name suggests, we read all the events from the selected calendar and block off the timings when the user is not available. The availability is blocked only if the event is marked as 'BUSY' in the third-party calendar. For events marked as 'FREE', the events are fetched in the system but the availability remains open. 

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This ensures accurate availability and avoids double bookings. You can add multiple calendars to be checked to prevent double bookings. In the Conflict Calendars section, we do not create any appointments, instead we just block off the time for any event already scheduled in your third party calendar.

How these Calendars Work

1. Booking Requests

   • When a client requests an appointment, GHL Customer Care checks both your Linked and Conflict calendars. Any overlapping events render those slots Unavailable.

2. Two-Way Sync

   • If you enable Write Back Appointments, GHL Customer Care will write new bookings into your external calendar.

   • Cancellations or reschedules in GHL Customer Care also update your external calendar.

   • Status-only updates: Marking an appointment as Showed or No Show** does not push an update to the external calendar. This prevents third-party “event updated” emails while keeping status tracking inside GHL Customer Care.

   • Reliability after changes: If your integration is reconnected, updated, or switched to a different calendar, GHL Customer Care automatically syncs upcoming appointments so your external calendar stays accurate without manual edits.
     

3. Calendar View

   • In the Calendar tab, external events display as shaded blocks, High-Level bookings as colored events, and blocked slots as Unavailable marking.
     

Best Practices & Considerations

• Limit Write-Back: Enable write-back on only your primary work calendar to avoid duplicate entries.

• Block Personal Events: Link personal calendars as Conflict Calendars so family or personal commitments auto-block booking slots.

• Align Time Zones: Ensure your external calendar’s time zone matches your GHL Customer Care profile to prevent mismatches.

• Periodic Reauthorization: If you change your external account password or security settings, reauthorize GHL Customer Care to prevent broken integrations.

Common Troubleshooting

Related Articles

• Calendar Scheduling Conflicts

• Round Robin Calendars: The Setup Guide

• How to Re-Integrate Google Calendar with GHL Customer Care for a User