You can connect Method to a new Google Calendar in your Google account. Appointments and meetings will sync back and forth between your Method calendar and your Google Calendar.
In this article, we will look at:
Setting up Google Calendar in Method
In Method, click Profile icon in the upper right, and then select Integrations.
On the integrations page, scroll down until you find Google Calendar. Click it.
This will take you to the below screen, where you can access a number of settings as well as see your connection status.
Click Connect to Google Calendar and sign in.
Now, when you go to your Google account, you’ll see a new calendar has been created with the default name of "User Name : Company Account".
NOTE: Do NOT rename the calendar, this will break the sync.
Google Calendar Settings
The Google Calendar Settings page allows you to
See the connection status, and either connect or disconnect.
Adjust the default status or type for calendar events.
View the last time a sync occurred, and manually start a sync.
To access the settings for your Google Calendar:
In Method, click profile icon in the upper right, and then select Integrations.
On the integrations page, scroll down until you find Google Calendar. Click it.
This will take you to the below screen, where you can access a number of settings as well as see your connection status.
Set Calendar Default Settings
Access the settings for your Google Calendar in Method as shown above.
Scroll down and click View calendar default settings.
On this screen, you will be able set the defaults for Google Calendar events:
Cancelled status
Pending status
Completed status
Appointment type
Disconnect Google Calendar from Method
To disconnect your Google Calendar from Method:
As outlined above, navigate to your Google Calendar setttings.
Scroll down and click the Disconnect from Google Calendar button.
Creating an Event in Google Calendar
When creating an event in Google Calendar, to ensure it syncs to Method, you need to select the calendar created by your Method account when you synced.
In the below example image, the Method account is called "Best4YouServicesInc", and the user is Mary.
Frequently Asked Questions
WHAT GETS SYNCED?
Activities (and also Work Orders) sync with Google Calendar, however, they have to be:
Scheduled one week ago and later.
Scheduled before six months in the future.
Not assigned to a '
Cancelled' Activity Status category.Assigned to an Activity Type with the '
IsOnCalendar' option 'Yes'.
NOTE: Only Method's Activity table is synced with Google Calendar
WHEN DOES THE SYNC OCCUR?
Syncs happen in the following ways:
Every 20 minutes a sync is triggered automatically.
When the Sync now link in the Google Calendar Preferences is clicked.
WHY IS A NEW GOOGLE CALENDAR CREATED?
Method's Google Calendar integration will create a new calendar instead of syncing with your default Google Calendar. This is a standard practice, and offers the following benefits:
You can easily share the calendar with other users without sharing all your non-Method appointments.
It gives you a clear way of deciding which appointments should be added from Google to Method and which ones shouldn't.
It is easier to permanently delete should you not want to sync your appointments anymore.
It is easier to reset for the purpose of troubleshooting.
If you have multiple Method accounts, there is a clear distinction between which appointments are for which account, since they each get their own Google Calendar.
If a user disconnects their Method account from Google and re-connects again in the future, the system will retrieve a list of all the calendars from Google and try to find a calendar with the same name as the one it would create in the following format
USERNAME:ACCOUNT_NAME
If a calendar exists, it will be used to sync the events going forward.
If calendar does not exists, then a new calendar will be created.
Any event created/modified/deleted within the timeframe when the Method account was disconnected from Google will NOT be synced.
If the user does not want to re-use the older calendar, then they would need to manually delete all existing calendars of that name USERNAME:ACCOUNT_NAME.
IS IT BETTER TO ADD OR MODIFY APPOINTMENTS IN GOOGLE OR IN METHOD?
It is better to create, move and modify appointments in Method for the following reasons:
Appointments in Method have more fields, including the customer, contact and activity status.
When an appointment is added in Google, Method has to guess at the desired status. It treats appointments created for the past as being 'Completed' in Method, and appointments created for the future as being 'Pending' in Method.
When an appointment is added in Google, there are no fields to allow for different types. So all appointments created in Google will sync over as Meeting.
When an appointment is moved to a different Google Calendar, it is treated as 'Cancelled' for the original user in Method, since Google gives Method no distinction between an appointment that was deleted vs. moved, so we must treat it as cancelled. If the appointment was moved to another user who also has their Google Calendar syncing with Method, then Method may be able to detect it and un-cancel the appointment and move it to the right user. If it cannot, then a new appointment will instead be created for that user.
HOW ARE THE APPOINTMENT FIELDS MAPPED?
NOTE: If you don't want Method to overwrite your title, location or comments in Google, use * as the first character in the field in Google.
Mapping from Method to Google
When Contact is specified in Method:
Method Appointment Type, Contact, Contact Phone → Google Event Title
Method Ship to / Bill to → Google Event Location
Method Comments → Google Event Description
Method Due Date Start → Google Start Date
Method Due Date End → Google End Date
NOTE: Method will use the Shipping Address if the first line of the Shipping Address is not empty, otherwise it will use the Billing Address. It will then look for the first line of the address that has a numeric value in it, making the assumption that this is the street address, and subsequent lines are city, state, zip and country.
When Contact is not specified:
Method Due Date Start → Google Start Date
Method Due Date End → Google End Date
Mapping from Google to Method
On an event when Contact is specified:
Google Event Description → Method Comments
Google Start Date → Method Due Date Start
Google End Date → Method Due Date End
On an event where Contact is not specified
Google Event Title, Location, Description → Method Comments
Google Start Date → Method Due Date Start
Google End Date → Method Due Date End
NOTE: While Method comments support HTML, Google's comments don't. When an event is modified in Google, it will sync non-HTML comments back, so you may lose some formatting.