An easy-to-use tool for automated meeting scheduling

Calendly

Scheduling meetings can be an absolute hassle. You go back and forth, suggesting meeting times, but you can't seem to find a time that works for everyone. That's where scheduling tools like 

In this guide, I'll show you how you can use Calendly to make scheduling meetings a completely automated process. Let's dive right in 👇

 is a powerful tool that gives clients a beautiful and easy interface to book calls with you. This makes it super easy for you to schedule meetings with clients & co-workers. Instead of endless back- and forth, this is how it works:

Just copy your Calendly booking link and send it to your client.

When your client opens the link, he/she will be sent to your personal booking page that looks like this:

Your client can then choose a meeting type that works for them. These meeting types are completely customizable and can be set up however you want to (more on that later).

Once the client has chosen a meeting type, they will be redirected to another page:

That's where they can book the actual timeslot for your meeting. Now comes the Calendly magic: Calendly automatically checks your calendar for other events and only allows your client to book a timeslot where you're actually available.

This means you never need to worry about overlapping meetings and tedious scheduling again. As easy as that!

Now on top of that, Calendly gives you many more features to make this process even smoother. For example you can:

... and much more. If you're using Calendly as a freelancer/consultant, you can even create meeting types, where users have to make a payment before scheduling a call with you.

We'll explore some of these features in the rest of this guide.

. Calendly offers a couple of different plans that have varying degrees of access to all the Calendly features.

. It allows you to connect Calendly to one calendar, get a personalized link, provide meeting notifications, one on one event types, and much more features. However, it's limited as compared to the other plans. 

 is the standard paid plan that gives you additional features from the basic free version. It is ideal for both individuals and small teams as it features group meetings. The premium version gives you access to additional features like multiple event types, connections, and much more. 

If you have a bigger company, you can choose the 

. The pro version allows you to connect to various software tools that can come in handy for your company, have automated workflows, and much more. You also get advanced branding options. You can check the 

Now that you've got your Calendly account ready, let's set it up!

One of the most important things to set up in Calendly is “calendar integration”. Calendar integration is a key factor that makes Calendly powerful. Not only does the feature allow Calendly to add meetings booked to the calendar, but also checks all your connected accounts for conflicts. 

This makes it impossible for a newly booked meeting to overlap with an already existing one, so definitely connect your calendar :)

 To connect, click on your account on the top right side of the menu bar. On the drop-down select calendar connections. You will be redirected to another page.

 Now you can set up the calendar account. 

Depending on your account plan, you will be able to connect a different amount of calendars to your Calendly account. The basic version only allows one calendar, premium allows 2 calendars per user, pro offers 6 calendars per user, and enterprise 6 calendars per user. 

 Next, choose which of these calendars should be used to "Check for conflicts". These are the calendars that Calendly will look at to determine whether you're free or already booked for a specific time.  

 On “Add to Calendar”, set up the calendar you would like to add newly scheduled events. All events booked through Calendly will appear there. If you normally use multiple calendars, connect them all to prevent any arising conflicts. 

That's it! Now we're ready to move to the next step :)

The next step is to fill in your profile information, which will make your booking page more professional & welcoming. To do that, go to accounts on the top menu bar and the drop-down choose: “Account Settings”.

Let's go through the different tabs one by one:

Here you customize things about yourself. Definitely make sure that you're using the right time zone, because otherwise you might get some scheduling issues.

Also, try to include a welcome message because that makes your booking page much more welcoming.

Lastly, choose a profile picture. It will show up on your booking page, so it's a great touch to make the booking process more personal again :)

On the branding page, you can set your company logo. Again, this will show up on your booking page, so make sure to add it. If you're on one of the 

, you also have the option to remove Calendly branding from your booking page.

Lastly, you can customize your Calendly link to fit your brand or your name on the "My link" page. This is the link you will be sending out to clients, colleagues, and co-workers to book a meeting.

If you've used Calendly for a longer time, please be careful when doing this, because it causes all your existing links to no longer work!

Now it's time to create our first Calendly event type. To do that, we just clickt the "Create" button in the Calendly dashboard.

If you want to create a new event type, simply go back to your Calendly dashboard, then click on the “Create” button. 

 is like one single booking to a single person. It's good if you don’t want people to repeatedly book meetings with you using the link after it's been booked once. You get to invite someone to pick a time to meet with you.

 is great for your regularly scheduled events. The next thing is to choose the event type. There are two options:

If you plan on using Calendly with your entire team, you will have two additional event types available which are "Round Robin" and "Collective", which allow you to schedule meetings with multiple people at once. You can get access to them in the 

 event. I'll just be using some dummy text for this. Here's what we'll go through:

 “Add a location” by connecting to the conferencing provider of your choice. You can choose from lots of different providers, but I like Google Meet most.

 After selection, Calendly will generate a new meeting link according to your chosen web conferencing platform like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

 Next, you can add a description. This is where it makes sense to tell your invitees, how this meeting is going to go down and who should book the meeting in the first place.

 Additionally, you can customize the link to the specific event type. You can also choose a color – mostly for design purposes to differentiate the event types. 

Next, we'll set up when and where your event can be booked. This gives you all the control you need to keep your calendar in shape. Let's dive right in!

 – It has three options: You can choose how many days into the future a meeting can be booked, within a certain date range, or indefinitely into the future. 

– This option allows you to set the duration of the event. This is the amount of time that this event will take up when added to your calendar.

 - You can either use an existing schedule or set custom hours. More on that later :)

- This allows you to add a bit of buffer before and after your events. For example, if you add 15 minutes of buffer at the end of an event that goes from 9:00PM to 9:30PM, you will be available for new meetings starting 9:45PM.

Calendly has some additional options that can be useful to you.  Click on the “Additional rules for your availability” to access them.

 – It allows you to control how big the start time increments will be. How often can people be able to book events? 

if you set it to 30min, people can only be able to book events for 30 minutes, eg 3 pm, 3:30, and so on. 

Learn how to use Calendly to automate your meeting scheduling in an easy & effective way.