Connecting Google Calendar

Google Calendar is Allison's pre-built OAuth integration today. For HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Notion, or any other app, use Allison's REST API and outbound webhooks — see "Connecting via API and Zapier" for worked examples.

Connecting Google Calendar

1. Go to Integrations in the dashboard sidebar
2. Find Google Calendar
3. Click Connect
4. You'll be redirected to Google's sign-in page
5. Sign in and authorize Allison to access your calendars
6. You're redirected back to the dashboard — the integration is now active

Google Calendar

After connecting, your agent can:

• Check availability on your calendars
• Book appointments (creates calendar events with attendee details)
• Reschedule existing appointments
• Cancel appointments
• Check availability across multiple calendars at once
• Look up a caller's upcoming appointments by their phone number so they can cancel or reschedule without a confirmation code

Cancelling or rescheduling by phone

When someone calls to cancel or move an appointment they booked through Allison, the agent looks up their upcoming appointments using their caller ID — no confirmation number, no verifying their name letter-by-letter. The agent reads the appointment details back ("I have you down for Swedish Massage on Tuesday at 2pm — is that the one?") and only cancels or reschedules after the caller confirms.

If the appointment was already removed directly in Google Calendar (e.g., you deleted it yourself), Allison tells the caller honestly and offers to take a message — she won't pretend to cancel something that's already gone.

Appointments booked through other channels (walk-ins, direct entry in the Google Calendar UI, bookings made before this feature shipped) aren't in Allison's records, so the agent won't find them. In that case she'll say she doesn't see the appointment and offer to take a message for the business.

Configuring Calendars

After connecting Google Calendar, click Configure Calendars on the Google Calendar card. You'll see all calendars from your Google account. For each calendar you want Allison to use:

1. Click Enable to activate the calendar
2. Set a Display Name — how this calendar appears to the agent (e.g., "Jane's Schedule")
3. Optionally attach Team Members — who uses this calendar (one person or a group)
4. Optionally attach Locations — which locations this calendar serves
5. Optionally attach Services — which catalog items can be booked on this calendar
6. Add Agent Notes if needed — scheduling rules or special instructions
7. Set one calendar as Default — the fallback when no specific match

If no services are attached, the calendar handles all services (general booking). This is fine for simple setups — a solo practitioner with one calendar doesn't need to configure services.

Examples:

• A spa might have one calendar per therapist, each tagged with their location and services
• An HVAC company might have one calendar per technician
• A restaurant might have two calendars at one location — one for dining, one for private events
• A dentist who works at two offices gets one calendar tagged to both locations

The agent reads the calendar metadata and picks the right one based on what the caller needs.

One calendar per person (recommended)

For businesses with multiple staff, connect a separate Google calendar per person and associate one team member with each calendar. Google returns availability as a whole-calendar busy/free signal — it can't tell "Erin is free but Jane is busy" on a shared calendar. If two staff share one calendar, Allison will treat a booking with either person as blocking the whole slot for both.

Shared calendars still work for businesses where multiple staff genuinely share one appointment book (a single shared reception slot, a small team splitting walk-ins), but you accept coarser availability as the tradeoff.

What Allison puts on the calendar event

When Allison books an appointment, the Google Calendar event includes:

• Title — service name and caller name (e.g., "60-min Swedish Massage — Jane Smith")
• Time — start and end in your business timezone
• Location — your business's street address, for in-person services only (omitted for virtual or phone bookings)
• Description — a labeled block with Service, Customer, Phone, Email (if provided), and any Notes the caller mentioned
• Attendee — the caller's email address if they gave one (Google sends them an invite with the event details)
• Internal tags — the call ID and your org ID attach invisibly to the event so you can reconcile calls to bookings later

The agent asks for the caller's email once; if the caller declines or hesitates, Allison books the appointment without an attendee — no second ask, no pressure. For repeat callers, if Allison already has an email on file, she'll offer to use that instead of collecting fresh.

Inviting the assigned team member

Each calendar has a toggle: Add assigned team member as a calendar invitee. When on, Allison also adds the staff member associated with the calendar as an attendee — Google sends them an invite too. Requires:

1. The calendar has exactly one team member associated (matches the 1:1 recommendation above).
2. That team member has an email on their profile (see the Team page — there's an optional email field for transfer contacts used specifically for this).

Leave the toggle off if your team manages their own schedules separately. It's off by default.

Troubleshooting missing Google invite emails

If the caller (or team member) doesn't get a Google invite email:

• Check Google Calendar directly — did the event get created? If yes, the booking worked; the invite delivery failed.
• Verify the email address on the event looks right. Misspellings are the most common cause.
• For team members: confirm they have an email on their Team profile and that the calendar's "Add assigned team member" toggle is on.
• Check spam/junk folders — Google invites from some calendars land there for first-time recipients.
• Gmail occasionally suppresses invites to addresses that previously marked your calendar's sender as spam. Google's own settings, not something Allison controls.

If an event was created but the invite genuinely wasn't sent, the fix is in Google Calendar / Google Workspace settings, not Allison.

Calendars removed from Google

If you delete a calendar in Google after configuring it in Allison, it will show as "Removed from Google" with a cleanup option. Click Remove to clean it up.

HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, and other tools

Connect via Allison's REST API and outbound webhooks. The fastest path is Zapier: subscribe to webhook events in Settings → Webhooks, point them at a Zapier webhook URL, and wire up any of their thousands of supported apps. Full step-by-step in Connecting via API and Zapier.

Testing the Google Calendar Integration

Google Calendar has a Test button on its integration card. Click it to send a test availability query and verify the connection is working. You'll see the request, response, and latency.

Disconnecting

Click Disconnect on the Google Calendar integration. The agent will no longer use it during calls. Calendar configurations are preserved — if you reconnect, you can re-enable your calendars from the Configure Calendars screen. No data is deleted from Google.

When you disconnect, Allison also tells Google that access is no longer needed — so the connection doesn't linger on your account. If you check your Google account's Security → Third-party apps with account access page after disconnecting, Allison Voice will be gone. The next time you connect, you'll see a fresh consent screen rather than a "we already have some access" banner.

If Google is temporarily unreachable during your disconnect click, Allison's side still disconnects cleanly — the subscriber-visible behavior never fails. The Google-side cleanup is best-effort; if it fails, the local disconnect still goes through and you can revoke manually from Google's account settings if you want belt-and-suspenders.