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Using Calendar Sync
Using Calendar Sync to sync calendars in multiple directions
Using Calendar Sync to sync calendars in multiple directions
Reclaim's Calendar Sync feature is powerful enough to support sync policies that sync in multiple directions.
Henry Shapiro avatar
Written by Henry Shapiro
Updated over a week ago

Sometimes you may want events to be blocked out in both directions. For example, you may want to block events from your work calendar on your personal calendar as well as block events from your personal calendar on your work calendar. For the purposes of this document, we'll call them "Calendar A" and "Calendar B"

Setting this up in Reclaim is super easy. All you need to do is set up two sync policies: one that syncs Calendar A to Calendar B, and the other that syncs Calendar B to Calendar A.

Example: setting up a sync in both directions for two calendars

Sync Policy #1: Calendar A -> Calendar B

First, go to Settings -> Calendar Sync and click "+ Create Sync":

Pick Calendar A as the calendar that you want to sync from, and then pick Calendar B as the calendar you want to sync to.

Click "Next: Preferences" and pick your settings for the synced calendar. These settings can be completely different from the second sync policy that you'll create next. For example, if Calendar A is a personal calendar and Calendar B is a work calendar, you might want to set a Personal Calendar Type for Calendar A.

Sync Policy #2: Calendar B -> Calendar A

Now, go back to Settings -> Calendar Sync and hit "+ Create Sync" again:

Pick Calendar B as the calendar you want to sync from, and pick Calendar A as the calendar you want to sync to (note that in the screenshot, the calendars are reversed):

Hit "Next: Preferences" and set your preferences for the sync policy, hit "Start Syncing" and you're done.

🎉 Congrats. You now have your calendars syncing in both directions!

What about my Habits and Tasks?

You can still use Habits and Tasks even if you're syncing calendars in both directions. In fact, Reclaim will even sync your Habits and Tasks across calendars so that your routines and to-dos don't get interrupted by someone looking at another calendar.

That being said, Reclaim will only block Tasks and Habits on your primary calendar associated with your Reclaim account. Our recommendation is to identify the calendar you use most frequently and use that as your primary calendar in Reclaim, and then set up sync policies to ensure those Tasks and Habits get blocked elsewhere.

For example, let's say you have three calendars:

A) a personal calendar,
B) a side gig calendar, and
C) a calendar for your main job.

In this example, we'd recommend using the following setup:

  • Sign up for Reclaim using C (your main work calendar) as the primary. This is where your Tasks and Habits will be created.

  • Create sync policies to cover all your availability across all three calendars -- that way, when someone looks at any of your calendars, they'll see when you're busy across all three of them. The list of sync policies would be:

A -> B, A -> C, B -> A, B -> C, C -> A, C -> B

Caveats

  • Reclaim doesn't support "daisy-chaining" calendars. For example, if you sync Calendar A -> Calendar B and then sync Calendar B -> Calendar C, we won't sync the already-synced events from Calendar B. This helps avoid bad situations that you won't want on your calendars!

  • Reclaim will give you an error if you try to sync events to a calendar that is already listed as a "primary" in another Reclaim account. For example, if you are trying to sync Calendar A -> Calendar B, and Calendar B is already associated as a primary calendar in another Reclaim account, Reclaim won't let you create the sync policy. Again, this is to protect your calendars.

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