How does Calendly work? (Everything you need to know to start scheduling)

Whether you’re setting up one-on-one interviews or distributing discovery calls across your sales team, Calendly makes scheduling external meetings a breeze.

You and your team can spend less time on admin tasks, and more time focusing on what matters — connecting with the right people, building relationships, and meeting your goals. Plus, your clients, prospects, and candidates will love the simple, professional scheduling experience. 

But how does Calendly’s scheduling software work?

Here’s everything you need to know to get started with Calendly.

Already a Calendly user? Learn how to set up your Calendly account and booking page with the Getting Started Guide in our Help Center.

Don’t have a Calendly account? Sign up for free!

How does Calendly work?

Calendly creates a booking page people can use to schedule meetings with you.

You connect your work and/or personal calendar(s) to Calendly and set your available hours. Calendly uses this info to show your available meeting times. (No one can see the details of your whole calendar — Calendly only shows the times you’re available.)

When you share your Calendly booking page, invitees — aka your clients, prospects, colleagues, or anyone else who wants to book a meeting with you — can quickly see when you're available. Available times will automatically be shown in invitees’ time zones, so nobody has to do mental math.

Invitees choose their preferred time and, in less than a minute, your meeting is scheduled! No more back-and-forth emails or phone tag to find a time that works for everyone.

Scheduled meetings are automatically published to your connected calendar. No admin work needed.

Is Calendly easy to set up?

Setting up Calendly is easy. In four simple steps, you’ll be well on your way to scheduling your first meeting.

1. Connect your calendar(s) to avoid double booking

Calendly integrates with the calendars you use every day, including Outlook, Google Calendar, and Exchange.

When you connect your calendar, Calendly looks at your complete schedule and only shows your open time slots on your booking page, so you don’t need to manually check for scheduling conflicts.

Connecting both work and personal calendars to your Calendly account means you’re never double-booked over professional meetings or personal obligations (or vacations!). Calendly's free plan lets you connect one calendar to your account. Users on all paid plans can connect up to six calendars.

For more details on connecting your calendar, check out this step-by-step tutorial.

2. Customize your first Event Type

Think of Event Types as meeting templates that you'll use over and over again. Any external meeting that you host regularly is a good candidate for an Event Type. Your Event Type could be objective-based, like a sales discovery call or hiring manager interview, or it could be time-based, like a flexible 30-minute meeting.

When you first set up an Event Type, you’ll add basic meeting details like the event name, duration, and location, so you don't have to manually enter them for every new event. You can also set how many days into the future invitees can schedule, add buffer time before or after meetings, set the minimum notice required before an event, and more.

Calendly will automatically create your first Event Type for you, so all you need to do is customize it!

The most common Event Types are One-on-One Event Types for meeting with one other person. For multi-person or more complex scheduling, you can also create Group, Round Robin, and Collective Event Types, available on all paid plans. Learn more about the different Event Types here.

For a step-by-step guide to setting up your first Event Type, check out this Help Center article.

3. Connect your video conferencing tool for easier virtual meetings

For virtual meetings, connect your video conferencing tool to Calendly, then set video conferencing as the location for your Event Type. Calendly will automatically generate video conferencing details when someone schedules with you, so you and your invitees don’t have to waste time trying to hunt down a meeting link.

Calendly integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, and Webex.

Learn more about Calendly’s video conferencing integrations.

“Calendly auto-generates Zoom links and Outlook meetings without me having to think about it. I appreciate anything that makes my life simpler when I’m juggling many, many meetings and emails.”

Kate Nachazel

Business Coach at Fireproof Performance

4. Share your Calendly booking page so people can schedule with you

Calendly offers several options for sharing your booking page with clients, prospects, and candidates, so you can avoid the endless back-and-forth emails.

The simplest way is by sharing your scheduling link (aka Calendly link or booking link). Your scheduling link is the URL that takes people to your booking page, where they can see your available meeting times and book a meeting with you.

Another popular option is adding clickable available dates and times to an email. You can even embed your Calendly booking page on your website, so clients or prospects can instantly book a meeting with you as soon as they’re interested.

The Calendly browser extension for Chrome, Outlook, Edge, and Firefox makes it super simple to share your scheduling link wherever you work, without having to jump between tabs or apps. In just a few clicks, you can share your scheduling link or add your available times in Gmail, Outlook, LinkedIn messages, social media, or anywhere else on the web.

However you choose to share, include a thoughtful invitation to schedule, and watch the meetings flow in.

“After using it for just a couple of weeks, I definitely experienced fewer headaches when it came to coordinating calls. When I realized I could easily share one link and empower my customers to schedule and reschedule calls, I was sold!”

Tiffany Keel

Head of Customer Advocacy, Product Marketing at ClickUp

Get started with Calendly

More than 20 million people use Calendly to save time and simplify scheduling. Ready to join them? Sign up for free today and start booking meetings in just a few steps.

Already have a Calendly account? Jump right into the app, or check out our Getting Started Guide for new users.

We’ve walked through the basics, but there’s more to discover when it comes to saving time and hosting better meetings with Calendly:

• Explore 100+ integrations with tools you use every day, like Salesforce CRM, HubSpot, Stripe, PayPal, Google Analytics, Zapier and more.

• Automate pre- and post-meeting communications with Workflows. Avoid last-minute cancellations and no-shows with text and email reminders, and spend less time on meeting prep and follow-ups.

• Invite teammates to your centrally managed Calendly org for streamlined, collaborative scheduling across team members.

• Keep your organization safe while making admin work easier for your IT team with enterprise security features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

… and much more. We can’t wait for you to explore it all. Happy scheduling!