Set your availability so no one can book you at the wrong time

When you share your Calendly booking page with customers, candidates, and colleagues, they can choose a time and schedule a meeting with you in just a few clicks. But first, you need to complete a few quick setup steps so your booking page always shows your up-to-date availability. Once you do it’ll be smooth scheduling for you and your invitees — no endless back-and-forth emails, no missed opportunities.

Availability in Calendly is based on your: 

• Connected calendars, so you don’t get double booked over other events

• Working schedule, so meetings take place during your set business hours

• Event Type settings, so you have control and your workday stays balanced

By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to share your meeting availability with confidence and never worry about double bookings or scheduling surprises again.

1. Connect calendars to check for conflicts

Ensure you’re only offering times when you’re truly available by connecting your work and personal calendars. You can connect one calendar on Calendly’s free plan, and up to six calendars on paid plans. Check out all of our supported calendars on your integrations page.

Once you connect your calendar(s), Calendly will automatically show availability when you’re not listed as “busy.” (No one can see the details of your whole calendar — Calendly only shows the times you’re available.) This means no need to flip back and forth between calendars to find a time that works, and no risk of getting double-booked! Calendly will also add booked meetings to your connected calendar so your schedule stays up to date.

“With the Outlook integration, Home Loan Specialists don’t even have to go into the Calendly system if they don’t want to. As long as they keep their Outlook calendar up to date, their Calendly links will offer the availability they want.”

Nancy McMahan

Director of Client Engagement at Churchill Mortgage

Learn more about connecting multiple calendars in this help center article.

2. Set working hours for your meetings

Next, create a schedule for your working hours in the Availability tab. Your default schedule sets hours you’re typically available to take meetings. For example, you might generally be open to meet from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m (unless your connected calendar shows you as busy). You can also add blocks of unavailability to your schedule, like a set lunch break. 

“My favorite part about Calendly is that you have full control over your calendar. You set the times you're available and everything else is blocked off, giving you space for focused work.”

Kate Nachazel

Business Coach at Fireproof Performance

Depending on your business needs, you can create additional schedules that reflect different sets of available hours. For example, you might only offer tutoring sessions from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays after your “day job.” Add this schedule to your tutoring service Event Type so students can only schedule sessions with you during that timeframe.

Learn more about setting up Calendly schedules in this help center article.

Prevent scheduling during holidays, vacations, and time off

Calendly also helps you block time off when you’re out of office, so you can truly unplug. You have four options when marking yourself as unavailable for part of the day, a full day, or multiple days:  

• Add a busy event to a connected calendar. We recommend you start here.  

• Use Calendly’s holidays feature to block off full days for country-specific holidays. 

• Include date-specific hours on a Calendly schedule to mark yourself as unavailable. 

• Add custom availability within an Event Type to block off time for those specific meetings.

If unplanned time off pops up and you need to reschedule or cancel a meeting, don’t worry — Calendly sends invitees and hosts an email notification so everyone stays in the loop. You can even add a custom message to let people know why the meeting has changed, which is always a nice, personal touch. 

3. Customize availability and booking preferences 

Connecting your calendars and adding your working hours schedule sets a great baseline for your availability. Now, let’s fine-tune what times are offered within each of your Event Types. Think of Event Types as meeting templates for your most common meetings, like a one-hour product demo over Zoom or a 20-minute candidate phone screen. Each Event Type has its own booking link so you can schedule the same type of meeting over and over without needing to input the same meeting details each time, like the description, duration, or location.

Event Types include optional settings that help you prioritize and protect your time so you can stay productive. Admins on Teams and Enterprise plans can also tailor availability preferences for their team with Managed Events.

Prevent last-minute bookings

You likely need at least some notice that a meeting has been booked before it begins so you can get ready for that conversation or travel to your meeting place. Add a scheduling notice within the Availability section of your Event Type editor to ensure someone doesn’t schedule moments before your meeting time and catch you off guard.

For example, update the scheduling notice from the four-hour default to 24 hours to give yourself time to prep materials for a client meeting. 

You can also limit how far in advance someone can book with you to create urgency for high-priority meetings, like a final contract review or candidate offer call. 

Learn more about scheduling notices and date ranges in this help center article.

Now, let’s take a look at additional availability features found in the “More options” section of your Event Types.

Add meeting buffers to make time for breaks

Back-to-back appointments don’t give you enough space between meetings to prepare, debrief, or just take a break. Add buffers before or after your Calendly meetings to build in some breathing room.

Many Calendly users add a buffer 30 minutes before a meeting, like a sales demo, so they can review past meeting notes, prepare materials, or simply get a glass of water. Include a buffer 10 minutes after that same meeting to earmark time to send a thank-you email. (Pro tip: Users on paid plans can also automate pre- and post-meeting emails with Workflows.) 

You can also sync buffers to your connected calendar so teammates don’t accidentally book over the time you’ve intentionally set aside around meetings.

Learn how to set up buffers in this help center article.

Balance your schedule with meeting limits

Maintain balance in your workday by setting max meeting limits. This creates a cap — whether it's daily, weekly, or monthly — for how many times a certain Event Type can be booked. For example, a recruiter may want to limit the “Software Engineer - Hiring Manager Interview” Event Type to two interviews per day and six interviews per week. That way, the hiring manager doesn't burn out and still has time for other work.

Try starting with per-day meeting limits and reviewing and adjusting limits for popular meeting types at a regular cadence so you don’t over-limit your availability. 

For a step-by-step guide to setting meeting limits, check out this help center article.

Add booking exceptions to open up time slots

Want to create more availability for a specific Event Type? Allow invitees to book over meetings where your attendance isn’t mandatory, like a focus block, flexible lunch period, or an optional meeting with the Free/busy rules feature. 

For instance, you might have a weekly “Email office hours” meeting that you only attend as needed. You can add that meeting as an exception to free up that hour on your calendar and provide more time options for invitees.

We recommend adding these exceptions to your most high-priority or time-sensitive meeting types where you want to offer maximum availability. If you choose to add many meeting exceptions, consider also including meeting limits (see above) so your schedule stays balanced. 

The final scheduling-related customization we recommend is to set your preferred start time increments — like start meeting slots at the top of the hour — and whether you want automatic time zone detection so you show open times in your invitees’ time zones (especially helpful for virtual meetings). Once you’ve set those up, it’s time to give your booking page a final once-over.

Learn more about availability settings in this help center article.

4. Preview your booking page

Your booking page is what people will see when you send them your Calendly link. You can preview your booking page from within the Event Type editor or by copying the booking page link into your browser. Click through the booking experience and double check the time slots, using the troubleshooting tool if needed.

For more details on troubleshooting availability, check out this help center article.

5. Share your scheduling link and start booking

Once everything on your booking page looks good, you’re ready to share your link. Check out this guide to sharing your scheduling link for everything you need to start booking better meetings, from etiquette tips to sharing your link on the go. 

“We haven’t played the ‘scheduling game’ since we bought Calendly. It’s in every email we send, and customers book instantly — saving us thousands of back-and-forth emails.”

George Avetisov

CEO at 1up.ai

Happy scheduling!