Most businesses keep appointments in more than one place: some in Google Calendar, some in the system you book jobs in, some taken over the phone. Calendar in the left menu puts all of them on one grid, so you can see your actual week without opening four tabs.
It is also what your agent reads to know when you are free, so the times it offers a customer are times you can actually work.
A double-booked morning usually costs you one of the two jobs, and often that customer for good. Seeing every appointment in one place is how you spot the clash before the van leaves.
Where your appointments come from
Every appointment on the grid keeps the source it came from, and its colour on the grid tells you which:
Source | What it shows |
Beside bookings | Appointments customers booked through your booking link, ones added in Beside, and any you set on a job that no connected calendar took. Bookings your Receptionist makes on a call show under the calendar they were booked into instead. |
Google Calendar | The calendars you picked on the Google Calendar connector page |
Housecall Pro | Your jobs and your estimates, read live each time you open Calendar |
Jane | Your clinic appointments, from the last Jane sync |
GoHighLevel | Appointments from your GoHighLevel account |
Follow Up Boss | Appointments from Follow Up Boss, each under the person invited to it |
📌 Two that are not on the grid yet:
Square Appointments is listed as Soon and cannot be connected yet.
Calendly can be connected, but its appointments do not reach the grid yet.
Each appointment also carries where it got to, so a visit the customer turned up for is not left looking as though it were still to come.
💡 Calendar reads, it does not rearrange:
Beside never copies your appointments from one source into another. Your Google Calendar is not filled with your Jane visits, and your clinic schedule is not filled with your Google meetings.
Cancelled, archived and no-show appointments are left off the grid on purpose, so what you see is what is still happening.
Find your way around
Switch between Month, Week and Day. Beside reopens on the view you used last
Use Today and the arrows beside it to move around the calendar
Choose whether times read in Your time zone or your Business time zone. Useful when you are away and the business is not
Select any appointment to open it
An appointment shows the Customer, the Service, When, the Location, their Phone and Email, any Notes, and Booked via when it came from a booking link. From there you can open that customer, or the job it belongs to, without hunting for them.
Choose which sources you see
The gear icon at the top right of the calendar opens your list of sources. Each connected one can be switched on or off, and hiding one is only about your view: nothing is disconnected and nothing stops syncing.
Sources you have not connected yet show a Connect button that starts that provider's own setup, so you do not have to go looking for it in Settings. A new connection is switched on for you.
When your agent adds or changes an event
With Google Calendar connected, your agent can add events, move them and cancel them, for example when you ask it to in Chat.
It only writes to the calendars you ticked under Calendars on the Google Calendar connector page, and only to ones the connected Google account is allowed to edit. If just one qualifies, it uses that one. If several do, it puts the event where events of that kind already are, or asks you. A moved or cancelled event stays on the calendar it was already on.
Whether it asks you first is set in Autonomy, under Customer messages:
The event | By default |
Time just for you, with no guests: blocking it, moving it or removing it | Goes ahead on its own (Always allow) |
An event with someone else on it: adding a guest, moving it or cancelling it | Waits for your approval (Always ask) |
You can change any of these, or set them to Deny. 📖 Choose what Beside can do on its own
📌 If Beside says it can only read a calendar: the connected Google account cannot edit that calendar. Give that account edit access to it in Google Calendar, or pick another calendar.
Let customers book themselves
Calendar also holds your public booking link. Select Booking Link at the top of the calendar:
Share your link. Send it by text or email, or add it to your website so customers can find it when they need you
Customers book online. They choose a service, add their job details and service address, then pick an available time
See confirmed bookings. Confirmed appointments appear in Calendar and your connected booking service
Your Receptionist can also book a caller in over the phone. That booking goes into the calendar your Receptionist books into, so it shows here under that source, Google Calendar, Housecall Pro, GoHighLevel or Follow Up Boss, when the same calendar is also connected in Beside. A booking made in Calendly or Outlook does not reach the grid.
Troubleshooting
My Google Calendar events are not showing
Google's consent screen lets you untick the calendar permissions while still completing the connection, and that is the usual cause. The Google Calendar row in your sources shows a warning with a Reconnect button: use it and tick the calendar permissions this time.
If the connection is fine, check which calendars are selected on the Google Calendar connector page. Calendars shared with you as free or busy only are always left out, because there is nothing in them for Beside to read.
My Receptionist booked a caller, but it is not on the grid
Your Receptionist books into its own calendar, chosen under Settings → Receptionist → Call Handling → Calendar integration. The booking shows here only when that same calendar is connected as a source too: for Google Calendar, the same Google account, with that calendar selected on the connector page. Calendly and Outlook bookings do not reach the grid.
My holidays and birthdays are cluttering the grid
Those are Google's own public calendars. They appear on the grid but Beside never treats them as appointments to act on. Untick them on the Google Calendar connector page to clear them.
An old appointment is missing
Beside keeps roughly 90 days behind you and 60 days ahead on the grid. Anything outside that stretch is not read.
My Housecall Pro jobs disappeared
Housecall Pro is read live, so if that read fails Beside hides its jobs rather than showing you a copy that may be out of date. Open Calendar again in a few minutes.
An appointment appears twice
This happens briefly when a booking has reached your calendar but Beside has not finished filing it against the job. It resolves itself.
FAQ
Does Beside add my appointments to Google Calendar?
Does Beside add my appointments to Google Calendar?
Not the ones it reads. Calendar brings your sources together to look at, it does not copy appointments from one into another. A booking made through your booking link is different: it lands in Calendar and in the booking service you connected for it. Your agent can also add an event to Google Calendar when you ask it to.
Can I connect more than one Google account?
Can I connect more than one Google account?
No. A workspace connects one Google account, and inside it you choose which of that account's calendars Beside reads. If you have made no choice, it reads every calendar that account can read events on.
If the appointments you need sit in a second Google account, share those calendars into the connected one and they become available to pick. Share them with full event details: a calendar shared as free or busy only is always left out, because there is nothing in it for Beside to read.
Can I create an appointment here?
Can I create an appointment here?
Not on the grid itself. Appointments reach Calendar from the tools you connected and from your booking link. Your Receptionist's phone bookings appear too, under the calendar it booked into, when that calendar is connected here. To add one, ask your agent in Chat to put it on your Google Calendar, or create it where that customer's work lives, and it appears here on the next read.
I connected Calendly and nothing appears
I connected Calendly and nothing appears
That is expected for now. Calendly can be connected, but its appointments do not reach the calendar grid yet. Square Appointments is a step behind that again, listed as Soon and not connectable.
I cancelled an appointment and it is still there
I cancelled an appointment and it is still there
Cancelled, archived and no-show appointments drop off the grid, but the ones imported from Jane, GoHighLevel and Follow Up Boss come from the last sync rather than a live read, so there can be a short delay. Google Calendar and Housecall Pro are read live and update straight away.
When does an appointment count as finished?
When does an appointment count as finished?
It follows what the source says. A Jane visit the patient arrived for counts as finished once its scheduled end has passed, and a Follow Up Boss appointment marked as showed is treated the same way. Anything still ahead of you stays as scheduled.
If I hide a source, does it stop syncing?
If I hide a source, does it stop syncing?
No. Hiding is only about what you see on the grid: nothing is disconnected and your agent keeps reading that source. It is a temporary view preference rather than a saved setting, so reloading Beside brings every connected source back.
Does my agent use my calendar?
Does my agent use my calendar?
Yes, and it is one of the better reasons to connect one. Knowing when you are busy lets your agent time its follow-ups around your day instead of landing in the middle of a job. With Google Calendar, it can also add, move and cancel events for you.
Your Receptionist is set up separately: it books into the calendar chosen under Settings → Receptionist → Call Handling → Calendar integration, where Google Calendar connects through your Beside Phone sign-in. A Google Calendar connected under Connectors is not used for its bookings.