Google Calendar – how the sync works

While similar in their functionality and purpose, Google Calendar and Scoro Calendar are not identical and treat some data differently. This article will describe how the two calendars exchange information once the integration is set up.

1. Sync direction

You can choose between a two-way sync or a one-way sync. The sync direction choice depends on the purpose of the sync and how your team tends to use the Google Calendar in relation to the Scoro one. You can find use-case-based recommendations here.

• Two-way sync – events are sent over from Scoro to Google and from Google to Scoro. You can add, modify and delete events in either of the applications and Scoro will keep everything in sync. However, to minimize the risk of any sync issues, it is still highly recommended to manage events primarily from one calendar and let the sync take care of the rest.
• One-way sync – this is the perfect option if you manage all your events (adding, modifying, deleting) 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.

2. What is synced, and when?

Once you enable the integration, all the events start syncing between the two calendars. The calendar information is exchanged every 5 minutes.

3. Syncing out-of-office events as time off

Once you've connected Scoro with your Google Calendar, you can sync out-of-office events from your Google Calendar to Scoro. The out-of-office events sync doesn't create events in the Scoro Calendar—instead, it creates time-off entries, reducing your availability everywhere in Scoro.

You'll recognize the time-off entries coming from your Google Calendar by the calendar icon.

This is a one-way sync, meaning you can't modify the synced time-off entries in Scoro, but you can modify or delete your out-of-office events only in Google Calendar. Once modified or deleted there, the changes will be represented in Scoro.

Site administrators can also decide whether to enable or disable the out-of-office event sync as time off globally for all site users or let them set their own preferences.

Learn more about time off in Scoro and how the sync settings can be managed globally by site admins and individually by each user.

4. Participants and guests

From Google / two-way sync:
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, this user is added as a participant. If there are any domain aliases set up under global settings, Google recognizes and matches those with the correct users as well. Or if the e-mail matches with an inactive Google Calendar integration account, the system will also find and match the Scoro user.

To ensure calendar invites don’t get lost in the spam folder in Google, head to Google Calendar, navigate to Settings > Event settings > Add invitations to my calendar and set the value to From everyone. Otherwise, events may not show up in your Google Calendar and wouldn’t get synced to Scoro either until you respond or confirm you know the sender. Read more about it here.

If user A creates an event for user B in Scoro, and this event is synced to Google, user A will be the owner of the event. The ownership can be changed for the event in Google Calendar:

5. Notifications

Notifications about events are important, but you should make sure you get notified only of relevant changes to keep unnecessary noise to a minimum.

In Google Calendar

Google Calendar allows each user to determine what notification they want to get. In your Google Calendar view, open Settings > Settings for my calendars to customize the notifications.

In Scoro Calendar

In Scoro, all users that have permission to modify an event can manually trigger a notification for all participants. Note that the notification is sent out to Scoro users, but not to guests.

If you use the Notify button, all participants receive a notification. If you want to send a notification only to certain participant(s), we recommend simply tagging the users in the comment section under the event to trigger notifications.

6. Recurring events

Created in Scoro: synced two-ways

Recurring events created in Scoro Calendar are synced from Scoro to Google and vice versa. However, each event in the sequence is added into the Google Calendar as a single event, so there are some limitations to updating the data.

Created in Google Calendar: synced one way

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. A warning will inform you that the changes are not synced because the recurring event was originally created in some other calendar, not Scoro.
  

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 Wednesdays, one on Fridays.

Note! Be considered when it comes to creating multiple recurring events, as it can slow down the integration. It is recommended to create and sync recurring events in smaller batches.

How to handle recurring events that were created in Google before enabling the Scoro-Google integration?

It is best to end them and create a new sequence after you enable the sync. In general, we recommend not scheduling recurring events too far into the future. Adjust and review recurring events from time to time and create new ones when needed. It's easy to duplicate and recreate them as you go. Keeping the recurring sequences shorter will help to minimize issues with duplicate data and with ownership when people leave the organization.