📌 Note:
This article covers iOS and Android app.
If you’re using Beside on macOS, see: How do I connect my calendar on macOS?
📆 Why connect your calendar?
Connecting your calendar allows your AI Receptionist to:
Schedule meetings in real time with callers
Check your availability to avoid double bookings
Respect your preferred business hours
Add meetings automatically to your Google or Outlook calendar
Your calendar is used only to check availability and create events - nothing else.
🔧 How to connect your calendar
To set up calendar permissions for Beside:
Open the Beside app
Go to Settings
Select the phone number (if you have multiple numbers)
Tap AI Receptionist
Under Phone: go to Actions
Tap Book Appointments
Tap Continue and Connect
Choose Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar
Sign in and grant permissions when prompted
When granting calendar access, you can allow Beside to:
Check availability (to avoid conflicts).
Schedule events (AI will add meetings to your calendar).
Once connected, your AI Receptionist can start scheduling appointments based on your availability.
📌 Important: Beside currently supports Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar.
📅 Choose which calendar to use
If your email account contains multiple calendars, you can choose which one the AI Receptionist will use.
This ensures meetings booked by callers appear in the correct calendar.
For example, under the same email address ([email protected]) you might have a personal calendar and work calendar. Select the calendar where you want the AI Receptionist to create and block appointments.
🕒 Set your preferred hours (required)
Your AI Receptionist will only book meetings during the hours you choose, and only on the selected days.
To configure them:
1️⃣ Go to Settings → Your phone number (if you have multiple numbers) → AI Receptionist → Book Appointments
2️⃣ Tap Preferred Hours
3️⃣ Choose:
The days you’re available
The time ranges
Your AI receptionist will never book appointments outside these hours.
❗ At this time, it isn't possible to set different business hours for each day. However, you can exclude entire days (e.g. Saturday and Sunday) by leaving them unchecked.
⏱ Event duration (iPhone only)
On iPhone, you can choose the default duration for appointments booked by the AI Receptionist.
Available durations range from: 15 minutes → up to 3 hours
This duration will apply to all appointments booked by the AI Receptionist.
⚠️ Currently, it is not possible to adjust meeting duration based on the caller, request, or day.
✍️ Booking confirmation texts (iOS)
On iOS, you can choose whether callers receive a confirmation text message when an appointment is booked.
To enable or disable this:
Go to Settings → Your phone number (if multiple phone numbers) → AI Receptionist → Book Appointments
Under the Duration section
Toggle Booking confirmation texts
When enabled, callers receive a confirmation SMS from your Beside number after a meeting is scheduled.
⚠️ On Android, booking confirmation texts are currently enabled by default and cannot be disabled yet.
⚙️ Managing or updating permissions
If you need to change permissions later, go back to:
Beside app → Settings → Your phone number (if you have multiple numbers) → AI Receptionist → Book Appointments
⚠️ Remember to restart the Beside app after changing permissions for the new settings to take effect.
🔐 Calendar permissions explained
Beside needs permission to:
View your free/busy status
Check availability to avoid conflicts
Create events on your selected calendar
These permissions are handled through Google or Microsoft OAuth, not in your device’s system settings.
Privacy: Beside only checks availability and books events in your calendar. It does not share or expose personal calendar data.
Privacy: Beside only checks availability and books events in your calendar. It does not share or expose personal calendar date