Customize How Your TimeTap Appointments Display in Your Google Calendar




How to customize how your TimeTap appointments display in your Google Calendar

If you need to refresh your memory on how to sync you Google Calendar, click HERE.

First let's take a look at how your Google Calendar displays the appointments created in TimeTap. To make it easy to see the TimeTap appointments, I have set the calendar that they sync to to display in blue (as shown in the image below). This is a Google Calendar setting you have control over through their interface. You'll also notice that they have a [tt] in front of their event name:


If we take a closer look at a TimeTap appointment, you'll notice that by default the subject contains the client's name, phone number and reason for the appointment: 


If you double click the appointment you will notice that TimeTap automatically fills in the details with the client's details and custom fields information:


Let's say, however, that instead of the client's name, phone number, and TimeTap reason, we just want a generic name in the subject line for all TimeTap appointments that are sent to Google Calendar. We also want the client's first & last name, mobile phone number, and the custom field I created (How did you hear about us?) to appear in the appointment details. 


Once you've synced your Google Account, click on your name on the top right corner of the screen and select My Profile::


Once in your profile, click the Calendar Sync tab:


Once in the Calendar Sync tab you will be able to see the Google Calendar you are currently syncing to: 


If you look under the Google Sync Feeds section you will see

  1. The ID of the Google calendar this particular staff member is syncing to
  2. The name of the calendar (this is one of the sub calendars of the calendar ID that was selected from #1 above)
  3. Whether this staff member is uploading to the Google Calendar 
  4. The reasons (services/classes) being uploaded to this calendar
  5. Whether this staff member is downloading events created in Google 
  6. Whether this staff member is downloading the details of the events created in Google
  7. The last time TimeTap downloaded information from this Google Calendar
  8. Action that can be taken, such as Edit the feed, Remove the feed, or view feed details


Click the Edit button under the actions section:


A new window will appear. This window will contain the following information:

  1. This is the Google account this staff member has been granted access to
  2. A list of all calendars associated with the Google Account selected in step 1. These are typically sub calendars created within your Google calendar or calendars other people have shared with you
  3. Check this box to upload all appointments set in TimeTap for this staff to the selected Google Calendar
  4. Check off which services/classes you want to sync up to Google Calendar (most of our users have all of them selected but you can pick and choose if you'd like)
  5. This is the title of the TimeTap appointment once it appears as an appointment in Google calendar. If you leave it blank it will display the client's name, phone number, and reason (service/class) or you can use tags to display different information
  6. Once the TimeTap appointment gets added as an appointment in the synced calendar, this is what would appear in the appointment's description. If you leave it blank it will display the client's name, phone number, and reason (service) or you can use tags to display different information
  7. Check this box to download all appointments from the Google Calendar you've selected to the staff member's TimeTap calendar
  8. Check this box to allow this user to download the appointment details from the Google Calendar you have granted access to


Because we want to change the information displayed in the TimeTap appointments appearing in the Google Calendar, we will make changes to sections 5 and 6. In the event title section I will enter the type of appointment and in the event details section I will use tags to enter the client's first & last name, the client's phone number, and the custom field I created (How did you hear about us?). Keep in mind that you can also include tags assigned to custom fields. Click Update Sync Detail to commit to the changes:


After the changes have been saved, go back to your Google calendar and take a look at one of the TimeTap appointments. You'll notice that the subject corresponds with the changes made in TimeTap:


If we double-click the appointment to view the details we will see that the tags added in TimeTap pushed the information we want to see to Google:

Please note: The tag %MARKETING_INFO% is not one of the standard TimeTap tags. I created a custom field specific to my business and then assigned that field the value tag of %MARKETING_INFO%. 


Once you've made the changes mentioned above, it will make it easier for you to see to identify your TimeTap appointments in your Google Calendar and see the information you're most interested in from that Google Event's details:





How to customize how your TimeTap appointments display in your shared Google Calendar

Now that you've granted your staff access to your Google Account, and everyone's appointments are starting to sync to your shared calendar, it is a good idea to customize the way these appointments display in your Google Calendar. In the example below I created a company calendar where all staff can download and upload appointments to it. I've created a sub-calendar for each one of my staff (in this case instructors 1, 2, and 3) and assigned a different color to each one of them. This will make it easy for me to differentiate whose appointment it is when I look at the calendar. The steps to create this scenario can be found here

First, let's take a look at how the shared Google Calendar displays the appointments created in TimeTap. You'll notice that each subfolder has a different color and the corresponding appointments have the same color:


If we take a closer look a TimeTap appointment, you'll notice that it contains the client's name, phone number and reason for appointment: 


But in this case I want the name of the instructor to appear in the subject line and the appointment details in the body of the appointment. From here we go back to TimeTap and go to each one of the instructor's profile page and click the Calendar Sync tab: 


Once in the Calendar Sync tab you are can see the calendar the instructor is syncing to:


If you look under the Google Sync Feeds section you will see

  1. The ID of the Google calendar this particular staff member is syncing to
  2. The name of the calendar
  3. Whether this staff member is uploading to the Google Calendar 
  4. The reasons (services/classes) being uploaded to this calendar
  5. Whether this staff member is downloading appointments created in Google 
  6. Whether this staff member is downloading the details of the appointments created in Google
  7. The last time TimeTap downloaded information from this Google Calendar
  8. Action that can be taken, such as Edit the feed, Remove the feed, or view feed details


Click the Edit button under the actions section:


A new window will appear, this window will contain the following information:

  1. This is the Google account this staff member has been granted access to
  2. A list of all calendars associated with the Google Account selected in step 1. These are typically sub-calendars created within your Google calendar or calendars other people have shared with you
  3. Check this box to upload all appointments set in TimeTap for this staff to the selected Google Calendar
  4. Check off which services/classes you want to sync up to Google Calendar (most of our users have all of them selected but you can pick and choose if you'd like)
  5. This is the title of the TimeTap appointment once it appears as an appointment in Google calendar. If you leave it blank it will display the client's name, phone number, and reason (service/class) or you can use tags to display different information
  6. Once the TimeTap appointment gets added as an appointment in the synced calendar, this is what would appear in the appointment's description. If you leave it blank it will display the client's name, phone number, and reason (service) or you can use tags to display different information
  7. Check this box to download all appointments from the Google Calendar you've selected to the staff member's TimeTap calendar
  8. Check this box to allow this user to download the appointment details from the Google Calendar you have granted access to


Because we want to change the information displayed in the TimeTap appointments appearing in the Google Calendar, we will make changes to sections 5 and 6. In the event title section I will enter the name of the instructor and in the event details section I will use tags to enter the name of the clients, the client's phone number, and the service. Keep in mind that you can also include tags assigned to custom fields. Click Update Sync Detail to commit to the changes:


After the changes have been saved, we can go back to the shared Google calendar and take a look at one of the TimeTap appointments booked for Instructor 1. You'll notice that the subject correspond with the changes made in TimeTap:


If we double-click the appointment to view the details we will see that the tags added in TimeTap pushed the information we want to see to Google:


Once you've made the changes mentioned above to each instructor sharing this Google Calendar, it will make it easier to identify each appointment in Google:


If you have any questions about this process please contact our Support Team. We will be happy to assist you.