Providing your availability

What is ScheduleOnce?   How does ScheduleOnce work?   How do I provide my availability?   What is my “tentative availability”?   How does ScheduleOnce integrate with Google Calendar?   How does ScheduleOnce connect with other calendars?   How do you protect the security of my Google login information?   Which calendar data is used by ScheduleOnce when my calendar is connected?   Is any information from my calendar saved on the ScheduleOnce servers?   Can I change my availability information and resubmit?   Why does my day have repeated or missing hours?   I want to set additional times that work for me, but they don't appear as an option. What can I do?   What are the system requirements for using ScheduleOnce?       What is ScheduleOnce?   ScheduleOnce is an online service that helps you find a common time for your meeting. With ScheduleOnce all attendees provide their tentative availability for the meeting while in the background, real-time calendar synchronization guarantees the accuracy of their availability at any point in time. This process allows the organizer the select a meeting time that works for all with no chance of double booking. ScheduleOnce is also the inventor of a patent-pending method for ensuring absolute scheduling accuracy across any combination of time zones and daylight saving changes. When scheduling meetings with ScheduleOnce you can rest assured that all invitees receive the correct time, anytime in the year and anywhere on the globe. Regardless of the calendar system you use, ScheduleOnce can make your meetings quick and easy to schedule. Check out the introduction video to learn how ScheduleOnce works.   How does ScheduleOnce work?   Finding a common time for a meeting with ScheduleOnce is a very simple process: 1. The organizer sets tentative availability for the meeting 2. Invitees reply with their tentative availability 3. The organizer evaluates invitee replies and schedules the meeting ScheduleOnce was specifically designed to integrate with Google calendar, and can be used directly from Google Calendar. Once your Google Calendar is connected, your busy time is constantly synchronized with ScheduleOnce so you don't have to worry about double-booking. Check out the introduction video to learn more.   How do I provide my availability?   To provide your availability, enter your name and click and drag to mark the times in which you are available on the row that corresponds to your name.   What is my “tentative availability”?   Tentative availability represents the times in which you can meet provided that you have no other event on your calendar at that time. Tentative availability is defined by marking timeslots in green. Events from your calendar are presented as blue-colored busy times. Invitees will not see the portions of your tentative availability that overlap with your busy times. ScheduleOnce constantly synchronizes with your calendar, ensuring that any event on your calendar is immediately evaluated against your tentative availability, resulting in availability that is accurate at any point in time. The tentative availability for all your in-progress meetings can be viewed in your Google Calendar. This is done with a new Google Calendar that is automatically created solely for that purpose under your account. Whenever you want to see your tentative availability you simply select the Tentative Availability Calendar.   How does ScheduleOnce integrate with Google Calendar?   ScheduleOnce does not know your Google account login – Authentication is done directly against Google which then grants ScheduleOnce permission to access your calendar via their API.   How does ScheduleOnce connect with other calendars?   ScheduleOnce has selected Google Calendar as its calendar platform and connects to Google Calendar via the Google Calendar Web API. ScheduleOnce has found this method to be very efficient and one that provides excellent performance without the need to download any software. In order to integrate with desktop calendars such as Microsoft's Outlook there is a need to download a small applet that communicates between the desktop calendar and the underlying web system. Google has already developed this applet to communicate between the desktop calendar and Google Calendar: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=98563 In our view, the best solution is to use the Google Calendar Sync program even if you are not actively using Google Calendar to manage your Schedule. When you download the Google Calendar Sync program simply choose the two-way Sync option between your desktop calendar and your Google Calendar. This option will expose your busy time to ScheduleOnce and will automatically create a calendar entry in your desktop calendar when the meeting is scheduled. All this will be done without creating any extra overhead on your system or work processes. More information on syncing your desktop calendar with Google Calendar can be found on: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/topic.py?topic=15305 Note that even if you don't have a Google Calendar account, you can open one just for the sake of connecting with ScheduleOnce. There is no need to actively use it in order to benefit from its synchronization capabilities.   How do you protect the security of my Google login information?   ScheduleOnce does not know your Google account login – Authentication is done directly against Google which then grants ScheduleOnce permission to access your calendar via their API.   Which calendar data is used by ScheduleOnce when my calendar is connected?   The only data used by ScheduleOnce is the free/busy information from your Google Calendar.   Is any information from my calendar saved on the ScheduleOnce servers?   Your Google Calendar data is read by ScheduleOnce in real time via the Google Calendar API and hence your private data is not saved on the ScheduleOnce servers. ScheduleOnce communicates with the Google Calendar API using a token that is generated by Google and therefore your Google user name and password is never known to ScheduleOnce and is not saved on our servers. The only data that is saved on the ScheduleOnce servers is your email address. You can find out more in our privacy policy.   Can I change my availability information and resubmit?   You can change and resubmit your reply as many times as you wish, by clicking on the link that was emailed to you.   Why does my day have repeated or missing hours?   Changes to the length of the day are caused by daylight saving time (DST) changes that occur for the organizer, the invitee, or both. DST, or daylight saving time, means “moving the clock” one hour forward in the Summer (skipped hour). End of DST means moving the clock one hour backwards in the Winter (repeated hour). Since these changes are normally done very early in the morning, you might not see their effect in the hour range of your meeting timeframe. ScheduleOnce has a patent-pending conversion engine that guarantees absolute scheduling accuracy across all time zones and daylight saving changes. Your meeting timeframe is modified to compensate for any skipped or repeated hours caused by daylight saving time changes.   I want to set additional times that work for me, but they don't appear as an option. What can I do?   The meeting organizer has set the timeframe in which the meeting must take place to best fit everyone's schedule. You can write a comment for the organizer in the comments box, asking to expand the timeframe in which the meeting can take place.   What are the system requirements for using ScheduleOnce?   • Internet Explorer 6.X, 7.x, and 8.X • Firefox 2.X and 3.X • Safari 4.x • Google Chrome 1.x and 2.x   Got more questions? Feel free to contact us