After Someone Books

A booking through one of your availability links creates a real meeting on your real calendar, and everything downstream of a meeting follows from there. This page covers your side of that. For what the person booking sees, see Your booking page.

What Lands on Your Calendar

The meeting is created on the calendar the link names under Book onto, or on another of your connected calendars if that one is no longer connected or has needed reconnecting for more than 7 days.

Part of the invite	What it says
Title	The link's name and the person's name: 30-minute intro — Dana Reyes
Attendees	You and the person who booked
Description	A line naming who booked and their email, then their note, then the link's description if it has one
Meeting link	A Google Meet link when Attach a meeting link is on and the booking landed on a Google calendar

Both of you get the invite from the calendar provider. Groupthink sends nothing on top of it, so that invite is the only thing the person who booked receives.

Their answer to What's this about? is in the invite description. It is the one piece of context they had a chance to give you, so it is worth reading before the call rather than after.

When Your Calendar Is Slow to Answer

Groupthink writes the booked meeting to your calendar while the person waits. If Google or Outlook doesn't answer in time, Groupthink does not treat the booking as failed, because your calendar may already have created the meeting and sent the invite. It looks at your calendar first:

• The meeting is there. The booking stands, as normal.
• Groupthink can't tell. The booking stands and the time stays held on your links. Check your calendar. If the meeting isn't there, nothing was sent, and the time stays held until it passes.
• The meeting isn't there. After two full checks of your calendar come back empty, nothing was sent. The booking doesn't go through and the time goes back on offer.

Groupthink never tries the create a second time on its own, so a slow calendar can't put two copies of the meeting on it.

Does the Notetaker Join?

A booked meeting is an ordinary meeting on your calendar, so it follows the same rule as everything else: your attendance setting decides. Set that under Today > Calendar & booking, under How should Groupthink attend your meetings?. There are three choices, and a booking is treated exactly like a meeting you scheduled yourself:

• Automatically Join All Meetings — the notetaker joins your bookings.
• Privately Take Notes — Groupthink captures the call on your Mac instead of sending a bot. Needs the desktop app.
• Let Me Choose Each Time — nothing joins on its own. Add Groupthink to the booking from your dashboard when you want it there.

There is no separate setting for bookings, and no way to make bookings behave differently from the rest of your calendar.

Two cases where nothing joins, whatever you picked:

• There is no video call to join. If you turned Attach a meeting link off, the invite has no link in it. Note that setting a Location does not turn it off — for a genuinely in-person link, switch Attach a meeting link off yourself.
• The booking landed on an Outlook calendar. Attach a meeting link creates a Google Meet link and does nothing on Outlook, so the invite goes out with no video link even though it was turned on. Point the link at a Google calendar under Book onto, or set a Location and treat it as in-person.

Once the notetaker is in, the meeting behaves like any other: notes, transcript, and a recap.

How It Shows Up in Your Relationships

The person who booked becomes a relationship in Groupthink as soon as the meeting is created, and the meeting sits on their record like any other. You do not have to add them.

Two things to expect:

• The record starts empty. Groupthink does not invent anything about someone from a booking form. You have their name, their email, and their note. Everything else fills in when you actually meet, from the meeting itself and from anything you log about them afterward.
• The clock does not start yet. A booking is not an interaction. The date of your last interaction with them only moves once the meeting has happened.

If you want context before the call, meeting prep works on a booked meeting the same way it works on one you scheduled yourself.

Seeing Who Has Booked

Each link's row on the Calendar & booking page shows a running count at the end of its summary line: 30 min · 4 hr notice · 14 days out · 3 bookings. The count is confirmed bookings taken through that link, for as long as the link exists.

There is no list of bookings in Groupthink yet. Your calendar is the list, and the invite title tells you which link each one came through.

Changing or Cancelling a Booked Meeting

You change a booked meeting on your calendar. The person who booked can change it from their confirmation email.

On your side. Move it, cancel it, or send a note on the calendar invite like any other meeting. They are an attendee, so they are notified by your calendar provider.

On their side. Their confirmation email has a Cancel or reschedule button. It opens a page, no account needed, where they can:

• Cancel, with an optional note to you. Groupthink takes the event off your calendar, puts the time back on offer, and emails both of you.
• Move it to another open time on the same link. The old time goes back on offer, the new one is booked, and they get a new confirmation email. The button in the old email stops working, so they use the new one from then on.

Both work until the meeting starts. The confirmation page also tells them they can reply to the calendar invite, which reaches you directly.

When you cancel, the time is freed. When you move it, it is not. If you delete a booked meeting from your calendar, Groupthink sees it go the next time your calendar syncs and puts that time back on offer on all your booking links. Moving is different. Groupthink keeps holding the original start time against your booking links, so if you move Tuesday 2pm to Wednesday, nobody can book Tuesday 2pm until Tuesday 2pm has gone by. A move the person makes from their email does free the old time, because it goes through Groupthink.

When a Link Is Paused or Deleted

Neither one touches a meeting that is already booked.

• Pause stops the link working for anyone who opens it from now on. Bookings already taken through it stay on your calendar, and the count on the row stays where it was.
• Delete does the same and removes the link from your list. Groupthink says so before it does it. The meetings survive; only the ability to book new ones goes away.

Frequently Asked Questions

Someone booked and never showed up. What happens?

Nothing automatic. Delete the meeting from your calendar if you want it gone.

Can I stop one person booking again?

There is no way to block an address. Pause the link if you want a break from all of it, or delete the link and create a new one. The new link gets a new web address, so the copy that person is holding stops working.

Does a booked meeting count toward my plan?

It is an ordinary meeting, so the same rules apply. Having the notetaker join any meeting needs an active trial or paid plan. See Manage billing.

Why did the meeting land on the wrong calendar?

Either the link was left on First available calendar, or the calendar it named was disconnected, or had needed reconnecting for more than 7 days, and Groupthink fell back. Open the link on the Calendar & booking page, click Edit, and set Book onto explicitly.

Related

• Share your availability — creating and managing booking links
• Your booking page — what the person booking sees
• Keep your calendars in sync — so the times you offer are the truth
• Google Calendar: the attendance setting, which lives in Today > Calendar & booking

Getting Help

Questions about a booking? Email support@groupthink.com.