How can I create an event without the participants seeing each other's details?

Calendars do not support the ability to invite multiple attendees to an event while keeping their details private. However, for many cases, such as an interview, you may want to generate a conference but also prevent the candidate from seeing the interviewer’s name and email address on the event. This can be achieved by creating a “main” event and then one or more events or Smart Invites for the other attendees.

  1. Generate the event in the host’s calendar. Set up conferencing and use Subscriptions to have Cronofy notify you of the join_url when it is provisioned.
  2. When the conferencing_assigned notification is sent, read the join_url field and add it to the body of a Smart Invite.
  3. Receive an iCalendar (ICS) file for your Smart Invite and send it to the attendee.

This results in the attendee receiving an isolated event invite that only contains their own details.

What happens if the attendee declines? #

To ensure you’re notified if the attendee accepts or declines the invite, we will send Push Notifications to the callback_url if you’ve provided one when creating the Smart Invite. This way, you can avoid having to make frequent checks for changes.

If you receive a notification that the attendee has declined the event, you can update the original event accordingly or delete it.

What happens if the host moves the event? #

In order to track any changes to the “main” event, you can set up a Push Notifications channel that will alert you of any changes made and allow you to update the Smart Invites accordingly. If you receive a notification that the host has moved the event, you can update the Smart Invites and re-send them to the attendees.

For further guidance on best practices when syncing events from an end user’s calendar with your application, please see our guide here, which outlines how to utilise Push Notifications, Read Events, and regular weekly syncs in order to be certain that the user’s events stay up to date in your system.