Ruh Care's Calendar can be integrated with the other calendars that you use, to streamline your operations, prevent appointments from being booked when you are unavailable, and make it easy to manage and align your schedule in one place.
A core advantage of using our Calendar, in addition to being able to schedule sessions that will vary in location, and appointment type, is that confirmation and reminder emails / SMS (text) messages are automated to increase attendance rates.
Fundamentals of Syncing Ruh Care with Other Calendars
You can sync your Ruh Care Calendar with the other calendars that you use in your personal and professional endeavors. Here are some things to note when syncing your calendar with iCal, GCal, or Outlook Calendars:
There can only be one Google account associated with one Ruh Care calendar.
You can set up a sync with multiple calendars to pull other calendar details in Ruh Care, but Ruh Care appointments can only be pushed to one outside calendar.
Your clients will never see any details of your synced session, nor will they be able to see other events that are on your calendar. They will simply be able/unable to book with you during a time that is blocked by an externally synced calendar since synced Calendar time will override your weekly availability.
To preserve HIPAA compliance, Ruh Care's Calendar will not push the First or Last Name of a client onto your External Calendar unless you have a BAA with that calendar provider.
To sign a BAA with Google/GSuite follow the instructions in this link. Then, message ([email protected]) to let us know that you have done so, so we can enable the sharing of clients' names onto your Google Calendar.
Our calendar pulls in events 90 days in advance from your Outlook, iCal, and Google Calendars. If you would like to extend this, please contact us at [email protected].
Ruh Care offers two-way syncing with Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook calendar and it is on our roadmap to add this capability for iCal. A two-way sync pushes Ruh appointments onto your personal calendar by creating a secondary calendar named 'Ruh Care', and pulls your existing events to override any weekly availability that you have set up, to prevent double booking.
All day events that may exist on your external calendars are NOT pulled into Ruh Care's calendar. If you'd like an event to be pulled into Ruh Care's calendar, please make sure it is not marked as "All Day."
Past appointments pulled into your Ruh Care calendar, from external calendars, are not saved on your Ruh Care Calendar, so you will not see these appear for past dates/times.
If you'll be out of the office, we recommend putting a time block on your Ruh Care calendar to prevent clients from booking.
Syncing between calendars can take up to three hours to occur. For example, if you remove an appointment from your Google Calendar, it could take up to three hours to reflect in your Ruh Care calendar within the platform.
When going through the permissions page within your email account, make sure that you are logged in to the correct account.
Once an external calendar is synced, 3 months by default of appointments are pulled into Ruh Care.
The calendar sync only applies to upcoming appts and doesn't update appts more than 3hrs in the past.
Clients adding appointments to their calendar
Your clients are also prompted to add a Session booked with you to their iCal, Google, and Outlook calendars. After booking a session with you, they will see a prompt to add this to a personal calendar that they manage.
Access Ruh Care's Calendar Sync
When logged into your Ruh Care account: Settings > Calendar > External Sync
The steps for syncing depend on the calendar type (Apple iCal, Google, or Outlook) you would like to connect. See the dedicated sections below to learn more about each calendar sync.
If your calendar shows as 'synced' but you do not see events pulled in, then in your Calendar page, please ensure the synced calendar box is 'checked', along with the appointment types "All" filter.
iCal Sync
Open iCal on your Computer. Select File > New Calendar Subscription. You will then be prompted to enter the URL that you copied from Ruh Care's Calendar.
Once the URL is in the bar, select Subscribe. You will then be prompted to enter a name for this Calendar (we typically recommend "Ruh Care Calendar").
To maintain HIPAA compliance, client names will not sync from Ruh Care to your iCal. On your iCal, the appointment generated will show up as the "Appointment Type" in iCal.
Please also confirm that you have set the refresh rate to be at least Daily, though we recommend a shorter time period, like every 15 minutes or every 5 minutes.
As a reminder, the iCal sync is 1-Way, which means appointments in Ruh Care will show up as events in iCal, but iCal events will not show up in the Ruh Care Calendar. To navigate around this, you can sync your iCal to GCal and sync Ruh Care to GCal which will pull your iCal events into Ruh Care. To sync your iCal to GCal, open your iCal account, select Calendar > Preferences > Account > Google CalDAV > Enable this Account
Sync an iCal Sub-Calendar
If there is a SUB-CALENDAR that you'd like to sync with Ruh Care, here are additional instructions to do so:
It is only possible to push appointments from Ruh Care to iCal. This means you'll see all of your Ruh Care appointments on your iCal.
To pull appointments from specific sub-calendars from iCal into Ruh Care, it'd be necessary to set up a sync with Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar. With this setup, appointments from Ruh Care would be pushed to iCal, and appointments from iCal would be pushed to Google Calendar/Outlook Calendar, these appointments would then be pushed from Google Calendar/Outlook Calendar to Ruh Care. In short, this means that sub-calendar appointments will also sync inside Ruh Care, and prevent clients from booking appointments during those additional calendar events.
To set this up, after subscribing to your Ruh CareCalendar with a sub-calendar in iCal:
Connect your Google Calendar with Ruh Care
In iCal, share the designated sub-calendar by making it public. If you are not the creator of that sub-calendar (ie. in the case of shared calendars) then you'll need to ask the creator to make it public. This can be done by going to your iCalendar app from your computer.
Copy the corresponding link for the sub-calendar from iCal
Create a new sub-calendar in Google Calendar with the URL (i.e. the copied link from iCal)
Ensure that the iCal sub-calendar shared with Google Calendar is enabled in Ruh Care
Note: Once done, it can take up to 24 hours for upcoming appointments from iCal to populate in Google Calendar and, subsequently, Ruh Care.
Google Calendar Sync
Ruh Care's sync with GCal is bi-directional, which means that Ruh Care appointments are pushed onto your personal calendar in addition to events on your GCal being pulled onto your Ruh Care Calendar, which can override weekly availability you have set up, to prevent double booking.
You are also able to request a BAA from Google, in which case Client Names can appear on your GCal. To sign a BAA with Google/GSuite follow the instructions in this link. Then, message the client care team or email [email protected] to let us know that you have done so, so we can enable the sharing of clients' names onto your Google Calendar.
When logged into your Ruh Care account: Settings > Calendar > External Sync > Connect Your Google Account
Review the onscreen calendar sync details and continue to > Connect my Google Calendar
This will launch the GCal authorization screen, and you will be prompted to log into your Google account associated with your GCal, to confirm that Ruh Care has access to your calendar to pull/push your schedule. Select Allow.
You will then be brought back to Ruh Care, where you will see a success bar notifying you that the sync has been completed. It can take up to 24 hours for the Sync to pull/push all appointments created.
Additionally, you'll see a few additional settings options for Google Calendar that can be enabled/disabled:
Push to Calendar: your Ruh Care calendar events will appear in your Google Calendar
Pull from Calendar: choose which Google calendars will appear in your Ruh Care calendar (if you have multiple calendars)
Pull event details: when turned on, event details from Google Calendar will be visible in your calendar in Ruh Care. When off, they will only show as "Busy." Clients cannot see any information about events on your calendar.
Best practices for setting up this configuration:
There can only be one Google Calendar associated with a Ruh Care Calendar
The same external email cannot be connected to two separate GCal syncs
Make sure "Pull in events from Google" is checked, so you are pulling events from GCal into Ruh Care's Calendar
Make sure "Add appointments to Google" is selected. This ensures you have a 2-way sync established.
Make sure you have checked all of the calendars you would like synced into Ruh Care. Also make note that if you have too many calendars added, since it will block your weekly availability, clients will be unable to book with you during the times you have blocked.
If your calendar has been synced successfully in the past but is no longer updating, you may need to re-sign in with your Google account.
Ruh Care's sync pulls in appointments where you are marked as busy in Google Calendar. When you go to edit an appointment in Google Calendar, only the appointments with "Busy" selected will be pulled in. If you would like to prevent an event from Google Calendar from being pulled into Ruh Care, please make sure that this event is marked as "Free" within Google Calendar.
By default, any Ruh Care-generated appointments that appear in Google Calendar do not display the client name. This is intentional.
For any Google Calendar events that you want to ensure sync & create a time block within Ruh Careare not marked as "Free" but as "Busy"
Changing your Ruh Care calendar color in Google Calendar:
In the list of calendars on the left side of the screen, hover your cursor over the Ruh Care calendar > Click the "Options" icon (3 stacked dots). From the resulting menu, you should be able to select the color of the appointment.
Unsubscribe to a Google Calendar
If you have synced & unsynced your calendar with Ruh Care, you may notice several "Ruh Care Calendars" listed within Google Calendars.
The unused 'Ruh Care' calendars can be unsubscribed by navigating to Google Calendar > Settings > Settings for my calendars using the correct Google account > Ruh Care and using the 'Unsubscribe' feature of each calendar. We'd recommend double-checking which calendars are actively synced to avoid accidentally unsubscribing from them.
Unsync Google Calendar
If you have synced a Google Calendar, and need to unsync it, here are the steps to do so:
Navigate to Settings > External Sync
Edit the Calendar Sync you wish to modify.
A side panel will display. At the bottom of the panel, you'll see the option to Disconnect Sync
Microsoft Outlook Sync
Navigate to Calendar > More > Sync Calendar > Outlook. You will be taken to the Microsoft Outlook login screen; simply sign into your Outlook account, and your Sync will be established. It may take up to 24 hours for appointments to Sync between Ruh Care and Outlook Calendars.
If you are getting an error message when attempting to sync your Outlook Calendar, it is likely that your email host has not permitted you to sync your Outlook Calendar with other platforms/calendars. This may have been done based on the permissions/guidelines of your institution.
If this is the case, you will need to reach out to your IT administrator (e.g., the IT member at your university or workplace) to provide access and enable Ruh Care to access your Calendar. Unfortunately, outside of your institution giving access, Ruh Care will not be able to pull information from your Outlook Calendar onto Ruh Care absent of this permission.
Quick Tips
For faster updates, set your iCal refresh rate to at least every 15 minutes.
All-day events won’t pull into Ruh Care. Change event duration to have them sync.