Booking Meetings with Groove Scheduler in Gmail

Send your calendar availability out with the Groove Scheduler

May 29, 2024
Knowledge

Created Date

5/29/2024, 5:17 PM

Last Published Date

5/29/2024, 5:18 PM

Article

Booking Meetings with Groove Scheduler in Gmail

This guide applies exclusively to G-Suite users.

The Groove Scheduler creates a streamlined experience for all parties involved in the meeting booking process by automating it. It significantly reduces friction and cuts out manual back and forth between users and their end recipients.

With the Groove Scheduler, you can insert your calendar availability into your emails from Gmail in two ways:

Your Groove Scheduler Link, which shows your real-time calendar availability; and,
Add Specific Times, which enables you to select specific time slots to offer to your email recipient.

Setup and Configuration

The settings that define how your Scheduler looks and what availability it shows to recipients can be found in the Scheduler section of Groove Settings. Customize your Groove Scheduler to your preferences through these steps to ensure it meets your needs.

Set your Calendar Availability and Time Zone to control what times show as available for booking.
Add Buffer Times to your Scheduler to prevent people from booking back-to-back meetings.
Build out Meeting Types to tailor the Scheduler to your different meeting needs.

Once you've configured your Groove Scheduler settings to your liking, jump into Gmail to start booking meetings. Groove's Scheduler functionality is pulled into Gmail via the Groove Chrome extension. Read here to install the Chrome extension.

Admin Settings

For users to be able to use the Groove Scheduler in Gmail, the Enable Email Bonus Features setting must be enabled for their Salesforce Profile in Groove Profile Settings.

Groove admins can also control the Scheduler's branding, what Form Fields users can include in their Scheduler, and create Round Robin groups for their teams from Manage My Org.

Accessing the Scheduler in Gmail

To insert your Scheduler into your Scheduler into your email draft, click the Scheduler icon in your Groove for Gmail compose bar.

Pro Tip: If you highlight text in your email before clicking the Scheduler icon, Groove will automatically hyperlink your Scheduler behind that text. If you do not highlight text before clicking the Scheduler icon, Groove will insert your Scheduler wherever your cursor was in the email.

Within the Scheduler modal, you'll see a handful of fields that you can fill out that will affect what availability is presented when you insert your Scheduler.

Schedule For

The Schedule For field will default to showing your name. You can replace your name in the Schedule For field with that of a teammate or a Round Robin link to send out their availability instead of yours. This feature comes in handy when you want to Schedule a meeting on someone else's behalf.

Only the names of other Groove Users at your organization will show up in the Schedule For field.
Only the names of Round Robin groups that you're assigned to will show up in the Schedule For field.

The person entered in the Schedule For field will show up as the organizer of the Google Calendar event that is created when the recipient books a meeting.

Meeting Type

Select from any of the Meeting Types you (or the Schedule For user) has enabled in the Meeting Types section of Groove Settings. The Meeting Type you select will determine the title, duration, location, and description of the Google Calendar event, as well as determine how much availability the recipient sees.

Add Teammates

Include additional teammates in the Add Teammates field to send out a joint Scheduler link. When teammates are added, the Groove Scheduler only offers the recipient times when all internal attendees have availability on their Google Calendars.

Customize Link Text

Use the Customize Link Text field to write configure the descriptive link you want to link your Scheduler behind in your email. If you had highlighted text before clicking the Scheduler icon, that text will initially populate in this field.

After you send you insert your Scheduler link, the next time you open the Scheduler modal in Gmail, the Customize Link Text field will automatically fill with the text you previously inserted.

Sending Out a Scheduler Link

If you want to send out a Scheduler link, once you've configured your Scheduler, highlight the text you want to add a schedule link to, then press the Insert Times button in the lower-right corner of the Scheduler modal. This will insert a your Scheduler link as a hyperlink into your email.

User Booking Experience

When the recipient opens your Scheduler link, they will see your (and any added teammates') real time calendar availability. Recipients can select a time they would like to book, then complete the Scheduler Form Fields you have configured for the corresponding Scheduler Meeting Type.

Note: Recipients will see your calendar availability in their time zone, making it easier on them to compare your availability with theirs. If they have one of Groove's supported languages set as their primary language in their browser, your Scheduler will automatically translate to that language.

Once the recipient books a meeting, Groove will automatically do a couple things in the background:

add the meeting to your calendar, the recipient's calendar, and any additional internal attendees,
send the recipient the booking details via email, and
send you (or the Schedule For user) a booking confirmation email to notify you of the booking.

Sending Out Specific Times

If you want to hand-select times to send to your email recipient, click the Add Specific Times button in the lower-left corner of the Scheduler modal. This will open the Add Specific Times window where you can further configure your meeting preferences and select the times.

Within the Add Specific Times window, the Schedule For, Meeting Type, and Add Teammates fields will automatically pull in what you had selected in the Scheduler modal before click Add Specific Times button. The following fields will fill based on the settings for the selected Meeting Type by default, though you can customize them to meet this specific meeting's needs.

Meeting Name – the name of the Google Calendar event that will be created
Duration – the length of the Google Calendar event that will be created
Video Conferencing Tool – when enabled, Groove will replace the Location of the Google Calendar event with a unique Google Meet or Zoom meeting link
Location – the location of the Google Calendar event that will be created
Description – the description of the Google Calendar event that will be created
Time Zone – the time zone in which the selected times will be displayed in the email
(this setting only converts the times once they have been selected; the Choose Available Times window will still be displayed in your time zone)

If you want to be able to offer times when you already have an event Scheduled on your calendar, toggle on the Enable Double Booking option and Groove will allow you to suggest times that would book over existing events on your calendar.

If you want to send the times as plain text as opposed to a link to your booking form, toggle on the Insert as Plain Text option.

Then, in the Choose Available Times pane, click on time slots to suggest individual times, or drag your mouse to suggest times in bulk. Once you're happy with your selections, click the Insert Times button to include the selected times in your email.

Booking Experience

When your recipient receives your email, they will see your specific times in the Time Zone you had selected in the Add Specific Times window. They can book a time with you by clicking on one of the selected times (when Insert as Plain Text is disabled), which will route them to your Scheduler Form to finalize the booking.

Once the recipient books a meeting, Groove will automatically do a couple things in the background:

add the meeting to your calendar, the recipient's calendar, and any additional internal attendees,
send the recipient the booking details via email, and
send you (or the Schedule For user) a booking confirmation email to notify you of the booking.

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Booking Meetings with Groove Scheduler in Gmail

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