Booking Google resource calendars with Free/Busy

When a Google Workspace organization is connected in Free/Busy access mode, the event invitations that Cronofy send to resource calendars are not automatically accepted by Google.

To get an event onto a resource calendar with Free/Busy access, invite the resource’s email address as an attendee on the event. Cronofy sends an email invite to the resource. Without updating the configuration in the Google Workspace, events will not be booked into the Calendar, potentially leading to a double booking of a room.

You will need to do the following:

1. Approve the domain of the email Cronofy uses to send the event invite.
2. Turn on Auto-accept invitations for the resource calendar.

1. Approve the sending domain #

Verify which Cronofy data centre your Application Vendor uses to determine which domain to approve:

You can confirm the correct domain by checking the mailed-by value on any invite Cronofy sends for a Free/Busy event.

In the Google Admin console, navigate to the resource you want Cronofy to be able to book and approve this domain. This Google Documentation here will talk you through the steps and link you to the correct settings page in the Admin Console. Note that this setting has to be applied to each individual resource. Each room will need external access approved.

2. Turn on Auto-accept invitations #

Once the domain is approved, set the resource calendar to automatically accept invitations. See Google’s documentation on configuring how resources respond to invitations for where to find the Auto-accept invitations setting.

Result #

With both steps in place, inviting a Google resource calendar’s email address as an attendee on a Free/Busy event will be recognised by Google and the resource will auto-accept the booking.