Real-time scheduling

Real-time scheduling means offering and booking times from what’s in people’s calendars now, rather than a copy that may be out of date, and keeping the meeting right as plans change.

Scheduling Requests do this for you. Each one applies an Organizational Unit’s Scheduling Controls to the live availability of its members, books the time that’s chosen, and follows the meeting through rescheduling and cancelling.

Live availability #

Cronofy finds times from the connected calendars of everyone involved, whether they’re people or meeting rooms, across Google, Microsoft 365, Exchange, and Apple at once. Any busy time in those calendars is excluded, so every time offered is one that’s free right now.

Pre-approved availability #

Free time in a calendar isn’t necessarily time someone wants booked. Pre-approved availability is the time an organization has agreed in advance can be booked, without anyone confirming each meeting. It comes from the Organizational Unit’s Scheduling Controls:

• Each member’s working hours
• Selection Rules for who needs to attend, such as one interviewer from a pool
• Booking limits for how often each person can be booked, such as one interview a day
• How much notice a meeting needs, and which times to offer

The times offered are where pre-approved availability and free calendar time overlap, so a booking can go straight into the calendars.

Keeping it right #

When a time is chosen, whether on Cronofy’s booking page or on your own, Cronofy creates the event in the calendars it belongs in. It then keeps the meeting in step with those calendars: if the host moves the event in their own calendar, the Scheduling Request follows, and the recipient can reschedule or decline from the link they booked with.

Your application hears about each change through Scheduling Request webhooks, so its records stay in step too.

Using real-time scheduling #

• The Scheduler Embed lets your users create Scheduling Requests inside your product.
• The Scheduling Requests API creates them from your own code, with times offered on Cronofy’s booking page or in your own UI.
• The MCP Server lets AI agents find times and book meetings on your users’ behalf.

Getting Started walks through all of these with a Sandbox.

If you need to own every detail of the workflow yourself, the same live availability is available through modular calendar and availability control.