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Apple Calendar Sync

Updated

Due to recent changes by Apple, you must create an app-specific password before you sync your Apple Calendar with your TimeTap account - click here to learn more about this setup. 

Any time you change or reset your primary Apple ID password, all of your app-specific passwords are revoked automatically - this will cause the calendar sync to stop. You'll need to generate a new app-specific password and re-sync your calendars.

You can sync each of your staff accounts with one or multiple iCal accounts. Using Apple Calendar sync will allow you to - 

  1. See all of your TimeTap appointments on Apple Calendar and whatever devices you run that on.
  2. Sync any of your Apple Calendar appointments where you are listed as "Busy" to TimeTap and block your availability so no clients can book appointments at that time
  3. Add appointments to an Apple Calendar that you and your colleagues contribute to.
  4. Sync appointments to multiple Apple Calendar and sub-calendars.

In this documentation we'll go through - 

 

 

How to Set Up Apple Calendar Sync

In order to set up Apple Calendar Sync, you'll first need to click on your name in the upper right corner of the page and then select My Profile - 

 

From the staff profile, click on the Calendar Sync tab and then select the iCloud tab - 

 

You'll get taken to a gateway hosted by Cronofy, the 3rd-party app we use to host a few of our calendar syncs. Select iCloud from this gateway - 

 

You'll then get prompted by Cronofy to log in with your Apple ID and the app-specific password you created in order to authorize that TimeTap can access your calendar. Click on the black Link Apple Account button once you've entered your credentials - 

Once you authorize, you'll be taken back to TimeTap, and your sync will start to run. The first sync typically takes about 30 minutes to complete. After that the calendars will update automatically about every 15-20 minutes.

 

 

How to View Feed of Synced Appointments

To view which appointments are syncing between TimeTap and your Apple Calendar, you'll want to click on the View Feed button located under the Actions column under the Your External Calendar Sync Feeds section - 

 

Once you've clicked on the View Feed button a new window will appear, informing you of the most recent appointments that have synced over from your Apple Calendar. In the example below I can see that all of the appointments from my Apple Calendar have not loaded on my TimeTap calendar for various reasons - 

 

The table shown in the window seen above is broken down into 6 columns, each showing a different piece of information - 

  1. ID - This is the ID assigned to the appointment in TimeTap - you can use this number to search for this specific appointment in TimeTap.
  2. Starts at - This is the time and date the appointment is set to begin.
  3. Ends at - This is the time and date the appointment is set to end.
  4. Subject - This is the information stored in the subject field of your Apple Calendar at the time the appointment was created.
  5. Loaded - This lets you know if the appointment was successfully loaded into TimeTap or not.
  6. Info. - 
    1. If the appointment has been loaded, this will tell you the last time the appointment was updated in Apple Calendar.
    2. If the appointment has not been loaded (i.e., it is a TimeTap appointment or it is a Apple Calendar appointment that you are listed as "Available" for) then this section will tell you why it wasn't loaded.

If you are viewing your calendar sync feed and you see a red circle with a white x in the loaded column, don't panic! This just means that the appointment had synced to your Apple Calendar and when Apple Calendar sent the information to sync your TimeTap account, TimeTap rejected the appointment because it was already on your calendar or because it was a Apple Calendar appointment where you are listed as "Available" - 

 

 

How to View Appointments from Apple Calendar in TimeTap

When looking at your calendar view under the Appointments tab, you'll see Apple Calendar appointments come in with the prefix "[ext]" directly before them - 

 

Here is a close up - 

 

The [ext] just means that this appointment is coming from an external calendar source. If you click on it, you will get taken to the appointment profile - 

 

If you need to make changes to the iCal appointment, you'll need to log in into the associated Apple Calendar account to make those changes. If you try to make changes to an iCal appointment from TimeTap, you will get an error message saying that you cannot make changes to that appointment - 

 

 

How to View TimeTap Appointments in your Apple Calendar

While viewing your Apple Calendar, you'll see all TimeTap appointments come through with a "[tt]" directly in front of the name of the appointment - 

 

Here is a close up - 

 

While you cannot open the appointment on your Apple Calendar, if you double click on it you will see that you can make edits to it - 

 

However, it is recommended that you do not make any changes to TimeTap appointments from Apple Calendar. While Apple Calendar will allow you to, it will likely result in more confusion than anything. We recommend that if you need to make any changes to TimeTap appointments that you log in to TimeTap to make those changes.

 

 

How to Revoke Access to your Apple Calendar and Stop the Sync

If you need to stop the sync between TimeTap and your Apple Calendar, you can go to the Calendar Sync tab on your staff profile and click on the red Stop Sync button - 

 

A window will pop up prompting you to confirm that you want to stop syncing. You'll want to click on the red Yes, I want to stop syncing with this account button - 

 

And you'll see a brief confirmation message - 

 

The Calendar Sync tab on your staff profile will thenreturn to how it appeared before you initiated the calendar sync - 

 

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