Google Calendar Integration

Absence reports in Flowtly ​​can be automatically synchronized to Google Calendar. All absences will be automatically added as soon as they are approved or created by the manager. The entire integration works similarly for changes and deletions. Integration requires changes to the Google Workspace organization settings and the configuration of the Flowtly ​​calendar itself. A few simple steps are all it takes to complete this process.

Google Workspace Organization Settings

First, you need to configure your organization's global settings to allow external users to manage events in secondary calendars. This step is necessary because your calendar must be shared with an external service that must be able to manage events in the calendar. To do this, go to settings: Google Workspace 🔗

1. Go to the "Apps" section in the main menu on the left
2. Then go to the "Google Workspace" section
3. Select "Calendar"
4. Open the "General Settings" tile by clicking the arrow on the right
5. Edit the "Options for sharing secondary calendars outside the organization" parameter and select "Any information can be shared, and external people can make changes to the calendar"
6. Save your changes. Please note that they may take several minutes to take effect.

Creating a secondary calendar

The integration works based on a so-called "secondary calendar" shared with an external service—in this case, Flowtly. Therefore, you need to create a new, secondary calendar and share it with the Flowtly ​​user. To do this, go to settings. Google Calendar 🔗

1. Open the settings menu at the top of the page (gear icon), then select "Settings"
2. In the menu on the left, open the "Add calendar" section
3. Then select "Create a new calendar"
4. In the "Name and Surname" field, enter the name of your calendar, e.g. "Flowtly ​​Holidays"
5. Click the "Create Calendar" button
6. After a moment, the new calendar will appear in the "My Calendar Settings" section on the left

Sharing your calendar with Flowtly

The app must have access to the calendar it will be working on. To do this, go to Google Calendar 🔗 settings and then:

1. Select the calendar you want to share from the "My Calendar Settings" section on the left
2. Then select "Shared with"
3. In this section, click on the "+ Add people and groups" button
4. A window will open where you should enter your email address: flowtlycalendar@flowtlycalendar.iam.gserviceaccount.com Flowtly ​​app
5. At the same time, in the second field, select the option "Can change events"
6. Click the "Send" button which will make the calendar available to Flowtly

In this section of the Google Calendar settings, we need to retrieve the unique calendar ID, which we need in the next step. It's located in the "Calendar Integration" section.

Adding a calendar ID in Flowtly

For the app to know which calendar to use for making and modifying entries, we need to tell it which calendar to use. This is done based on the unique calendar identifier, which can be found in Google Calendar settings (from the previous step). Go to the Flowtly 🔗 app, and then:

1. From the user context menu we go to settings
2. Then in the "Organization Settings" section, select "Google Calendar"
3. In the CalendarID field, paste the previously copied ID
4. Save the changes
5. Enable the "Link holidays to Google Calendar" option

From now on, newly created absences in Flowtly ​​will be synced to your Google Calendar. You can set your calendar to read-only, allowing you to share this information across your entire organization.