Calendar integration: Google Calendar

If you sync your Google Calendar app with Scoro, you can add, modify and delete events and tasks in either of the applications. Scoro will keep everything in sync. However, you should still Scoro as the primary source for modifying and adding data. This way you can add more information to your events and get thorough reporting on all activities – break reports down by team member, client, project, and activity.

Google Calendar

Integrating Scoro with Google Calendar lets you access all your Scoro calendar events in Google Calendar and vice versa. You can add, modify and delete events in either of the applications and Scoro will keep everything in perfect sync.

NB! See below the special conditions that need to be met when managing recurring events from the Google Calendar side.

Quick setup – all users

To activate the integration go to Settings > Site settings > Integrations > Google Calendar.

1. Click Sign in with Google and log into your Google account.
2. Grant Scoro access to your Google Calendar. If you have several calendars in Google, you need to specify which one you wish to sync with Scoro after granting the permission.
3. Save your changes to connect your Google account.

Scoro is set as the primary calendar by default and Event sync is automatically enabled, unless your site admin has disabled it globally. See the settings breakdown below if you wish to customize your integration further. Note that you may not be able to change some of the settings, such as data sync options and sync direction, if your site admin has decided to manage these settings globally across the site.

• Data synced – if the calendar sync is enabled, all events are synced by default. If you no longer wish to sync your Google Calendar to Scoro, you can either:
  • toggle the event sync off (if the toggle is not disabled by your site admin)
  • disconnect your Google account
• Direction – determines whether the events are synced both ways, to Scoro or from Scoro. Note! If events are synced both ways with the two-way sync, then Scoro calendar will always be the primary calendar.
  
• Guests can modify events – gives guests the right to modify your events. This option is disabled by default.
• Guests can see and invite participants – choose whether guests can see and invite participants. This setting is enabled by default and will also be automatically enabled if you allow guests to modify events.
• Send error notifications to – define the e-mail address where notifications can be sent in case of any errors.
  

The calendar information is exchanged every 5 minutes. The first sync is activated right after these changes are saved.

In case of ongoing sync, the start date and time are displayed above the settings table.

In the case of two-way sync, the events can be accessed in both applications right after the first sync.

If there are events that were not synced, it is displayed so in the settings table.

Should any errors occur you can view the logs by clicking on the Logs button.

Global settings – admins

Admin users can manage the Google Calendar sync and certain sync settings globally. To control the sync settings for all users across the site, navigate to the Global settings tab under Settings > Site settings > Integrations > Google Calendar.

Don’t forget to click the Save button when you make changes to global settings.

Sync options

• Enable sync globally – if this setting is enabled, Google Calendar will be synced for all users who have their Google account connected. If you disable this settings, the sync will be disabled for all users. 
• Global sync direction – decide whether you want to enforce the same sync direction globally or let each user decide how they prefer it.
  • User preferences – every user can decide the sync direction under personal settings and toggle the event sync on/off. So if you are using global settings on your site, but would still like to give your users the power to decide whether they want to sync their connected calendars or not, then set the sync direction to ‘User preferences’. This way each user can toggle the event sync button on and off under their personal settings.
  • Two-way / from Scoro / to Scoro – the chosen sync direction will be enforced globally and users cannot change it individually. Users will not be able to disable the sync on an individual level.

Event details

• Event title display format – decide how the events created in Scoro are displayed in the Google Calendar once they’re synced.

Status mapping

Here you can determine how the statuses match up in Scoro and Google Calendar. We recommend having a separate Scoro status for each external status, so no data would get corrupted or overwritten when you opt for a two-way sync.

Domain aliases

If you’re using any user alias domains in a single Google Workspace, you should list the aliases here. Setting up domain aliases helps you ensure that Scoro recognizes all users correctly when they get added to events with any of the aliases. 

If you do not use aliases at all, leave this section untouched. If you do use domain aliases, you should also add your primary email domain to this list. Add the aliases without the @ sign. We do not limit the number of aliases, so we recommend adding as many as needed to cover all possible scenarios and ensure clean data and minimize manual modifications.

• Example. Let’s say your employee Sophie Smith is using Scoro with her primary email address sophie.smith@domain1.com. She also has an alternate email sophie.smith@domain2.com set up, which she uses only for some very specific client communications. Now let’s suppose she gets added to a Google Calendar event as sophie.smith@domain2.com and that event is synced to Scoro. If you as a site admin have not set up domain aliases, Sophie will be listed under the event as a guest because Scoro doesn’t recognize her as a Scoro user due to the different domain. However, if you have listed domain2.com among the aliases, Scoro will recognize this alternate domain as well and identify Sophie for Sophie. This helps to ensure she’s always linked to events as Sophie, not a guest, no matter which email alias is used.

NB! Keep in mind that removing aliases can corrupt future data if some users are attached to future events with the alias that gets removed. We encourage you to consider all possible consequences before removing any aliases.

Things to know about the Google integration

1. Sync options

• One-way sync is the perfect option if you manage all your events (adding, modifying, deleting, etc.) from a single calendar, either Google or Scoro.
  • From Scoro - use this sync direction if you wish to manage your calendar in Scoro.
  • To Scoro – use this sync direction if you wish to manage your calendar in Google.
• Two-way sync is the recommended sync direction if you wish to manage your calendar in Scoro and Google at the same time.

The primary calendar setting is relevant only in case of a two-way sync. If an event is modified in both calendars between two syncs, the primary calendar will determine which changes will be taken into account during the next sync. For example, let's say you change the event name in Scoro and then also modify the description of that event in Google within 5 minutes. If Scoro is the primary calendar, the changed name is carried over to Google with the next sync, but the event description would remain the same. If Google is the primary calendar, then the event name remains the same, but the new description is sent over to Scoro.

2. Participants

All Scoro users who are participants will be added as attendees on the same event when it is synced to Google or back to Scoro. Guests are added as attendees as well.

Participants for the event in Scoro are added based on the attendee's e-mail address in Google. If the attendee's e-mail address matches a Scoro user's e-mail, then this user is added as a participant. If any domain aliases are set up under global settings, then Google recognizes and matches those as well. Or if the e-mail matches with an inactive Google Calendar integration account, then the system will also find and match the Scoro user. This is very useful for participants that use a different e-mail address to set up the integration and want events to appear in Scoro as well.

 

3. Recurring events

Created in Google Calendar: one-way sync
Recurring events created in Google Calendar are currently synced only one way – from Google to Scoro. This means that if you later…

• …modify the event in Google Calendar, changes are synced back to Scoro as well
• …modify the event in Scoro Calendar, changes are not synced back to Google Calendar. An error message will inform you that the changes are not synced because the recurring event was originally created in some other calendar, not Scoro.

Prerequisites for the sync. When creating a recurring event in Google Calendar, the following conditions need to be met to ensure that the event gets synced to Scoro successfully:

1. Assign an end date to the recurring event or limit the number of its occurrences. Never-ending recurring events cannot be synced to Scoro. Whenever you create a recurring event, Google sets it as never ending by default. So you should always open the Custom option and set either an end date or a limit to the recurring event.
   
2. Use a recurrence pattern supported by Scoro. Google Calendar supports more flexible and customizable recurrence rules than Scoro. Therefore, you should always make sure that Scoro supports the recurrence pattern that you choose in Google Calendar, otherwise the sync will not work.
   
   

   If you wish to set up more complex recurrence patterns that are not supported by Scoro, you should simply create several events to cover the pattern. For example, if you want to add a meeting that repeats every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but Scoro doesn’t support that pattern, you can simply add three recurring events into your Google Calendar – one on Mondays, one on Wednesday, one on Fridays.

NB! Beware of duplicates. If you set up any recurring events in your Google Calendar before updating to 22.8 or turning on the Google-Scoro sync, keep in mind the following when modifying these entries in Google now:

• If you update a single calendar event using ‘This event’ criteria – nothing is synced to Scoro.
• If you apply changes to ‘This and following events’ or ‘All events’ – all events are synced over to Scoro, including the past ones. Note that if you previously added the same recurring event to your Scoro calendar manually, you will end up with duplicates. To avoid duplicate content, delete the manually added recurring event from Scoro before modifying its equivalent in Google Calendar.

Created in Scoro: two-way sync
Recurring events created in the Scoro calendar are synced from Scoro to Google and vice versa. However, please note that each event in the sequence is added into the Google calendar as a single event, so there are some limitations to updating the data.