Did you know you can view your Smart Service schedule from any mobile device? How about display your calendar on the big screen for the entire office to see?
Google Calendar Integration gives you a robust, real-time scheduling board you can push to any internet-enabled device. Throw it onto a giant screen for the benefit of your whole office, push it to a technician’s tiny, pocket-sized phone, or do anything in between. Wherever Google goes, your Smart Service schedule will travel with it.
Google Calendar Integration is available as part of the purchase of the iFleet 4 mobile application. If iFleet 4 is not on your radar, you can purchase Google Calendar Integration licenses separately, as well.
How to Set Up Google Calendar
Check to see if your company uses a free personal or paid organizational Google account as organizational accounts have more options available. In the article below, we’ll cover the options available for each type of account.
Personal (free) Gmail Users
For those of you using free personal accounts for Gmail. You will need to create a free Gmail account for each of your iFleet users before continuing. You can use their existing personal accounts if they have them, or start creating new accounts for them here.
Once you have a Gmail account for each of your technicians, head back into Smart Service to complete the next few steps.
To continue, you will need permission to access the Smart Service Settings. If you do not see the settings option in your Smart Service, you may need to contact your system administrator to complete this step.
To link your technician’s schedule to their Google Calendar, click “Set up Smart Service Add-ons” and choose the “Google Calendar” tab. Using this window you can specify what information to display on the Google Calendar and how many days worth of jobs will be sent to Google Calendar. In the spaces below, you can right click to choose from our list of fields that will be displayed on the appointment in Google Calendar
Once you’ve set the number of days to send and the information that you would like to have displayed, you will need to click on the “Set up Calendar Accounts” button. In the new window that opens, find the first technician you would like to set up and click on the “Authorize” button to the right of their name.
By clicking the authorize button, you will be met by a new window, which will require you to sign in to the Google account that you are setting the calendar up for.
Once successfully signed in to the Google account, you’ll return to Smart Service to see your list of calendar accounts. Check the employee you are currently authorizing (select only ONE person at a time throughout this process). Continue with these steps until your calendars are fully linked!
When using this method, make sure you are switching to the appropriate Gmail account. You can switch accounts by clicking on your account in the top, right-hand corner.
Sharing Across Accounts
If you enter the technician’s new gmail account, you can share their Google Calendar to another gmail account by clicking the three vertical dots next to the calendar’s name and sharing it with the account of your choice. This is a great option for office administrators who want to see everyone’s calendar from their personal device.
Google Business Accounts
In order to get Google Calendar up and running for your office, you need a Google account. You can create one here if your business doesn’t have one yet. This one account’s calendar will act as the master copy of your Smart Service schedule. From this account, you may share the schedules you create with an unlimited number of Google account holders. To make that happen, you’ll need to create a calendar named after each technician as shown below.
Linking Google Calendars to Smart Service
To continue, you will need permission to access the Smart Service Settings. If you do not see the settings option in your Smart Service, you may need to contact your system administrator to complete this step.
To link your technician’s schedule to their Google Calendar, click “Set up Smart Service Add-ons” and choose the “Google Calendar” tab. Using this window you can specify what information to display on the Google Calendar and how many days worth of jobs will be sent to Google Calendar. In the spaces below, you can right click to choose from our list of fields that will be displayed on the appointment in Google Calendar
Once you’ve set the number of days to send and the information that you would like to have displayed, you will need to click on the “Set up Calendar Accounts” button. In the new window that opens, find the first technician you would like to set up and click on the “Authorize” button to the right of their name.
By clicking the authorize button, you will be met by a new window, which will require you to sign in to the Google account that you are setting the calendar up for.
Once successfully signed in to the Google account, you’ll return to Smart Service to see your list of calendar accounts. Check the employee you are currently authorizing (select only ONE person at a time throughout this process). Continue with these steps until your calendars are fully linked!
When using this method, make sure you are switching to the appropriate Gmail account. You can switch accounts by clicking on your account in the top, right-hand corner.
Sharing your Google Calendars
Google Calendar Integration will not only allow your field technicians to view their schedule, it also will allow field supervisors, department leaders, and even the owner of the company to view what your company has scheduled for any given day.
In order to get this set up, you will need to take a trip back to the Smart Service integrated Google Calendar in your preferred internet browser. Along the left side of the calendar, you should see all of the technicians you have added to this calendar with a colored checkbox next to their name. One of these calendars should be listed as the main calendar (typically this will be the first in the list), click on the three vertical dots and select the “Settings and Sharing” option. This process can also be used on a single technician’s calendar to share their information, if necessary.
This will direct you to the settings for the main Google Calendar account. Once you are inside of settings, you should see an option for “Access Permissions”. Inside of this section, you can share with your entire organization (this requires the other parties involved to have their own Google account) or you can share with specific people. If you need further information on sharing your Google Calendar in general, visit this link for more information.