Connect your Google Calendar with Freshchat and book meetings 24x7 directly from Messenger. 

With Meetings, you can keep your prospects and customers informed about your team’s availability and spend more time closing prospects and less time scheduling demos.

This integration includes the following steps:

1. Connect your Google Calendar with Freshchat 
2. Configure Calendar Settings
   • Configure Scheduling
   • Schedule Availability
3. Configure Global Settings

Connect your Google Calendar with Freshchat 

1. Log in to your Freshchat account as an admin and go to Admin Settings > Chat Meetings.
2. Click Google Calendar.
3. Click Connect. 
4. Login to your Google account and allow Freshchat to access your calendar.
5. You can now see your Google calendar connected in Freshchat.
   

Note: You can connect more than one Google Calendar with Freshchat. Freshchat will check the selected calendar for your availability.

Configure Calendar Settings

Once your Google calendar is connected to Freshchat, you can proceed with configuring your meeting schedules and your availability under the Calendar tab.

Configure Scheduling

1. Under Configure Scheduling, set up your meeting rules, like adding break time or meeting duration.
   • Buffer time: Select a buffer time you want to take between two meetings and avoid back-to-back meetings.
   • Minimum notice time: Select a minimum notification time before customers can schedule a meeting with you. For example, if you choose 30 minutes, customers can book a meeting only after 30 minutes from now.
   • Meeting duration: Select the duration for each meeting.
   • Time Window: Allow prospects and leads to schedule a meeting with you for the next seven days.
     
     Note: As an agent, you can make changes to this section only if your admin gives permission.
2. Click Save.

Schedule Availability

Once you configure meeting settings, the next step is to let your customers and prospects know when they can book meetings with you.

1. Under the Schedule Availability section, select how you want to set your availability. You can use your configured Business Hours or set a custom schedule. 
2. If you want to set your availability based on Business Hours, choose the Business hour from the drop-down.
3. If you want to create a custom schedule, select Custom Schedule, select the timezone, and then enter the meeting time for the days you want to be available. You can use the Copy To All option to copy the time set for a day to other days. 
4. You can also use the plus icon to add break and lunch timings of your team. Leave Saturday and Sunday unchecked if you are off on the weekends.
5. Click Save.

Pro-tip: We recommend that you use Meetings with Business Hours for a more powerful, unified experience. Plus, you don’t have to create a custom schedule from scratch.

Configure Global Settings

If you are an account admin/admin, you can globally configure the meeting rules for all your agents in your account.

1. Click on the Global tab on the left panel and enter the global meeting rules for all your agents.
2. If you want the agents to individually define their meeting rules, toggle the Allow agents to override these settings option. If enabled, agents can configure their meeting schedules under the Calendar tab.

Using Google calendar in Freshchat

Once you integrate Google calendar, you can help customers book meetings or schedule a demo with you by sharing your calendar directly from the Freshchat Inbox.

1. On your Team inbox, click on the Meetings icon in the reply text box. 
2. You can share your calendar or another agent’s calendar with your customer. 
3. Your customer will receive the calendar in their chat box and can schedule the meeting based on your available slots. Once they schedule the meeting, they will receive an email and you will get a response within the conversation.

Note:

If your prospect or customer does not have a Google account (or may not use Google Calendar), they can still book a meeting and will receive an invitation. If their email provider does not support a calendar, they can use the invite.ics calendar file attached in the invitation and manually add to any other calendar.

Scheduling Meetings in the Freshchat mobile app
You can also book meetings from your Freshchat  Android & iOS mobile apps.