Sequenced Availability Query BETA

Required plan: Emerging

Description #

Inspects calendars to determine the common availability for a number of pre-defined events.

For example scheduling a series of events for an interview process.

A typical workflow of Sequenced Availability would be:

  1. User defines sequence of events to schedule with desired attendees.
  2. Application checks Availability for sequence for desired events each with a unique sequence_id.
  3. Application renders options to user to select from.
  4. User makes selection of sequence.
  5. Application upserts events in attendees calendars using selected option and sequence_id as a lookup for each event.

URL format #

{data_center_url}/v1/sequenced_availability

Example Request #

POST /v1/sequenced_availability HTTP/1.1
Host: {data_center_url}
Authorization: Bearer {API_KEY}
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

{
  "query_periods": [
    {
      "start": "2024-12-19T09:00:00Z",
      "end": "2024-12-19T18:00:00Z"
    },
    {
      "start": "2024-12-20T09:00:00Z",
      "end": "2024-12-20T18:00:00Z"
    }
  ],
  "sequence":[
    {
      "sequence_id":"123",
      "ordinal":1,
      "participants":[
        {
          "members":[
            {
              "sub": "acc_5ba21743f408617d1269ea1e",
              "calendar_ids":[ "cal_n23kjnwrw2_jsdfjksn234" ]
            }
          ],
          "required":"all"
        }
      ],
      "required_duration":{ "minutes": 60 },
      "start_interval":{ "minutes": 60 },
      "buffer":{
        "before":{
          "minimum": { "minutes" : 30 },
          "maximum": { "minutes" : 60 }
        },
        "after":{
          "minimum": { "minutes" : 15 },
          "maximum": { "minutes" : 30 }
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "sequence_id":"456",
      "ordinal":2,
      "participants":[
        {
          "members":[
            {
              "sub": "acc_64b17d868090ea21640c914c",
              "available_periods": [
                {
                  "start": "2024-12-19T09:00:00Z",
                  "end": "2024-12-19T12:00:00Z"
                },
                {
                  "start": "2024-12-20T10:00:00Z",
                  "end": "2024-12-20T20:00:00Z"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "required":"all"
        }
      ],
      "required_duration":{ "minutes": 60 },
      "start_interval":{ "minutes": 60 },
      "buffer":{
        "before":{
          "minimum": { "minutes" : 30 },
          "maximum": { "minutes" : 60 }
        },
        "after":{
          "minimum": { "minutes" : 15 },
          "maximum": { "minutes" : 30 }
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Example Response #

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

{
  "sequences":[
    {
      "sequence":[
        {
          "sequence_id":"123",
          "start": "2024-12-19T09:00:00Z",
          "end": "2024-12-19T10:00:00Z",
          "participants":[ { "sub": "acc_5ba21743f408617d1269ea1e" } ]
        },
        {
          "sequence_id":"456",
          "start": "2024-12-19T10:00:00Z",
          "end": "2024-12-19T11:00:00Z",
          "participants":[ { "sub": "acc_64b17d868090ea21640c914c" } ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "sequence":[
        {
          "sequence_id":"123",
          "start": "2024-12-19T11:00:00Z",
          "end": "2024-12-19T12:00:00Z",
          "participants":[ { "sub": "acc_5ba21743f408617d1269ea1e" } ]
        },
        {
          "sequence_id":"456",
          "start": "2024-12-19T12:00:00Z",
          "end": "2024-12-19T13:00:00Z",
          "participants":[ { "sub": "acc_64b17d868090ea21640c914c" } ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Request parameters #

data_center_url required

The URL for the data center you want to communicate with. Possible choices are:

  • api-au.cronofy.com - 🇦🇺 Australia
  • api-ca.cronofy.com - 🇨🇦 Canada
  • api-de.cronofy.com - 🇩🇪 Germany
  • api-sg.cronofy.com - 🇸🇬 Singapore
  • api-uk.cronofy.com - 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • api.cronofy.com - 🇺🇸 United States

Find out more about Cronofy's data centers.

API_KEY required  #

The client_secret of the client.

query_periods required  #

An array of 1 to 50 query periods, across up to 35 days of the period of synchronized events, within which suitable matches may be found.

query_periods.start required  #

The start of an query period as a Time.

It must represent a future point in time.

query_periods.end required  #

The end of an query period as a Time.

Must be at least 1 minute after the corresponding start and within 35 days of the earliest start.

sequence required  #

An array containing the parts of the sequence to find availability for.

A maximum of 5 parts can be specified for a sequence

sequence.sequence_id required  #

A String value to identify this part of the sequence, must be unique for this request.

sequence.ordinal  #

A Integer value to define the order of this part of the sequence, this is used to determine desired order of the sequence.

sequence.participants required  #

An array of the groups of participants whose availability should be taken into account.

At least one group must be specified, a maximum of 10 accounts may be specified over a combination of groups.

sequence.participants.members required  #

An array of participants that should have their availability taken into account as part of this group.

At least one participant must be specified and you must have been granted the read_free_busy scope for each participant involved in the availability request.

Note that the read_events scope implicitly includes this scope as it allows access to a higher level of information than free-busy so you do not have to have both.

sequence.participants.members.sub required  #

The internal Cronofy ID for the account, as an ASCII-only String.

This can be retrieved by calling the UserInfo endpoint with a valid access_token

sequence.participants.members.available_periods  #

An array of 1 to 50 available periods within which the member is available. If omitted it is assumed the member is available whenever they do not have a “busy” event in their calendar.

sequence.participants.members.available_periods.start required  #

Thestart of an available period as a Time.

It must represent a future point in time.

sequence.participants.members.available_periods.end required  #

Theend of an available period as a Time.

Must be at least 1 minute after the corresponding start and within 35 days of the earliest start.

sequence.participants.members.calendar_ids  #

Restricts the events contributing towards the members availability to those within the set of specified calendar_ids.

sequence.participants.members.ignore_tentative optional  #

A Boolean specifying whether events where the user is marked as tentatively attending will be considered as free periods or not. By default these events are considered as busy periods.

sequence.participants.members.availability_constraints optional  #

An Array of constraints that must be satisfied for each slot or period.

sequence.participants.members.availability_constraints.period required  #

A String value specifying the time period over which the constraint is to be applied.

You can specify one of the following values:

  • day will apply the constraint each day. You must also pass the tzid parameter to indicate which timezone you want to use to determine when a day starts and ends.
  • week will apply the constraint over the period of a week. A week is considered to be Monday to Sunday in the UTC time zone, following the ISO standard.
sequence.participants.members.availability_constraints.tzid optional  #

A String value specifying the time zone to use when the period is set to day. Must be a known time zone identifier from the IANA Time Zone Database. See the time zones page for more information.

Currently specifying a time zone is only supported with the day constraint period.

sequence.participants.members.availability_constraints.limit required  #

An Integer value specifying the maximum number of events allowable per period. If tags are provided then limit will only consider events with all of the given tags.

sequence.participants.members.availability_constraints.tags optional  #

An Object describing zero or more contextual Tag values to search for against each event when searching for availability. If more than one tag is provided the events must have all of the specified tags to be considered.

Tags may be treated as an empty set by omitting the tags field, setting it to null, the empty object {}, or leaving the context as an empty array { "private": [] }.

The context of “private”, as seen in the example below, is the only context currently supported.

POST /v1/sequenced_availability HTTP/1.1
Host: {data_center_url}
Authorization: Bearer {API_KEY}
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

{
  "query_periods": [
    {
      "start": "2024-12-19T09:00:00Z",
      "end": "2025-01-02T18:00:00Z"
    }
  ],
  "sequence":[
    {
      "sequence_id":"123",
      "ordinal":1,
      "participants":[
        {
          "members":[
            {
              "sub": "acc_5ba21743f408617d1269ea1e",
              "calendar_ids":[ "cal_n23kjnwrw2_jsdfjksn234" ],
              "availability_constraints":[{
                "tags": {
                  "private": [
                    { "value": "Interview" }
                  ]
                },
                "limit": 3,
                "period": "week"
              }]
            }
          ],
          "required":"all"
        }
      ],
      "required_duration":{ "minutes": 60 },
      "start_interval":{ "minutes": 60 }
    },
    {
      "sequence_id":"456",
      "ordinal":2,
      "participants":[
        {
          "members":[
            {
              "sub": "acc_64b17d868090ea21640c914c",
              "availability_constraints":[{
                "tags": {
                  "private": [
                    { "value": "Interview" }
                  ]
                },
                "limit": 5,
                "period": "week"
              }]
            }
          ],
          "required":"all"
        }
      ],
      "required_duration":{ "minutes": 60 },
      "start_interval":{ "minutes": 60 }
    }
  ]
}

Tags on events are managed via the create or update event endpoint.

sequence.participants.required required  #

Either a String of all to specify that all members of the group need to be available for a period to be viable, or an Integer to specify the minimum number of the group that must be available.

sequence.required_duration required  #

A Duration describing the minimum period that the participant groups must be satisfied for a period to be deemed as available.

Must be greater than zero minutes in length.

sequence.buffer.before.minimum  #

A Duration specifying the minimum number of minutes that must be free before the event starts.

sequence.buffer.before.maximum  #

A Duration specifying the maximum number of minutes that must be free before the event starts.

sequence.buffer.after.minimum.  #

A Duration specifying the minimum number of minutes that must be free after the event ends.

sequence.buffer.before.maximum  #

A Duration specifying the maximum number of minutes that must be free after the event ends.

sequence.start_interval  #

A Duration describing the frequency that a sequence can start on.

For example, “every hour” or “every 15 minutes”.

Must be one of 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, or 60 minutes.

excluded_events optional  #

An array of objects describing events that should not be considered during the Availability calculation.

{
  ...
  "excluded_events": [
    { "event_id": "interview_123" },
    { "event_uid": "evt_external_64f758b2707e9e455c32e9e" },
  ]
}

Each item must specify either event_id for a Managed Event or the event_uid of an External Event (you can learn more about the difference between these here).

If the specified events appear in any of the calendars queried, they will not block time from being considered as Available.

This is useful for operations such as querying to reschedule a meeting, where omitting the current event representing the meeting may make some additional slots available. It can also be used to customize your query based on context, such as allowing a query for an important customer meeting to ignore several reschedulable internal meetings.

Response parameters #

sequences  #

An array of possible sequences that match the criteria specified in the request.

sequences.sequence  #

An array of available periods which meet the criteria specified in the request.

sequences.sequence.sequence_id  #

A value to identify this part of the sequence.

sequences.sequence.start  #

Thestart of an available period as a Time.

sequences.sequence.end  #

Theend of an available period as a Time.

sequences.sequence.participants  #

An array of participants that are available for the given period.

sequences.sequence.participants.sub  #

The internal Cronofy ID for the account, as an ASCII-only String.

Error responses #

401 Unauthorized #

The request was refused as the provided authentication credentials were not recognized.

Note that whilst many accounts can be part of the availability request that authentication is performed via theaccess_token for only one of them.

When an OAuthrefresh_token is available then it should be used to request a replacement auth_token before the request is retried.

402 Payment Required #

The request was refused as your plan does not include the required feature.

422 Unprocessable #

The request was unable to be processed due to it containing invalid parameters.

The response will contain a JSON object containing one or more errors relating to the invalid parameters.

For example, if you omitted the required required_duration parameter, you would receive a response like:

{
  "errors": {
    "required_duration": [
      {
        "key": "errors.required",
        "description": "required"
      }
    ]
  }
}

The key field is intended for programmatic use and the description field is a human-readable equivalent.