Booking appointments in Google Calendar has become even easier as Google is now rolling out a new appointment scheduling feature to its calendar app.
First introduced to paying Google Workspace users last June, the company's appointment scheduling feature allows users to share their availability through a booking page.
This booking page may be used by external stakeholders, customers, partners, and others to schedule a time to meet in person or via video via Google Meet.
Creating a bookable appointment calendar in Google Calendar is as easy as setting up a new event or task and on desktop this can be done by clicking the plus icon. However, you'll need a paid individual Google Workspace account to try this feature out for yourself.
Appointment Scheduling vs. Appointment Range
While Google Calendar's appointment scheduling may seem similar to your existing appointment space functionality, they have completely different use cases.
The Appointment Slots feature in Google Calendar is designed for internal use cases where you don't know who's meeting with you, but want to be available. For example, teachers can use it to maintain their office hours, while an IT department can make itself available to employees experiencing computer problems.
Appointment scheduling, on the other hand, is suitable for external use cases and allows people outside of your organization, including those without a Google account, to schedule meetings. However, you won't have to worry about double bookings or rescheduling appointments, as the feature also supports automatic conflict detection with existing Google Calendar events.
Now that companies have started to implement hybrid work policies, this added flexibility makes it easy to schedule meetings and share your availability in a way that works for everyone.