Why External Calendar Events Aren't Blocking Patient Scheduling

Events from a connected Google or Microsoft calendar show on your calendar grid as External event, or with their titles if you turned that on under Sync settings. If patients can still book over one, check the cases below.

Only "Busy" events block booking

Only events marked Busy in your source calendar block patient self-scheduling. Events marked Free still show on the grid but leave those times open.

To change an event, open it in Google or Microsoft Calendar and set Busy / Free (or "Show as") to Busy.

All-day events

All-day events are often Free by default, so they don't block your day. To block it, set the event to Busy, or add a Block in SigmaMD (New > Block, with "Block Calendar" turned on).

The reverse: a Busy all-day event removes the entire day

A Busy all-day event closes the whole day to patient self-scheduling, for every appointment type, not just the hours it seems to cover. A holiday or an accepted all-day invitation looks harmless in Google or Microsoft but leaves that day with no times in the patient app.

If patients say a day has no times available, check that date in your source calendar for an all-day event first. To keep the event but let patients book, set it to Free.

Calendars set to sync only from SigmaMD

A calendar set to SigmaMD to Google or SigmaMD to Microsoft receives your SigmaMD events but sends none back, so its events never show on your grid or block booking, even when Busy.

To have them block booking, go to Personal Settings > Integrations, click Sync settings next to the calendar, choose Bidirectional and click Confirm.

Events on another calendar

SigmaMD syncs only the connected account's primary calendar. Events on a shared or secondary calendar never block booking, so add the events that should block to your primary calendar.

A Busy event still isn't blocking?

Go to Personal Settings > Integrations and check the calendar. If it shows Connection expired, events added or changed since it expired don't block booking. Click Reconnect and sign back in; your sync settings stay the same.

If the calendar is connected and a Busy event still doesn't block, contact support with the date and time.

Editing external events

Events from Google or Microsoft Calendar are read-only in SigmaMD. Edit them in the source calendar, and the change syncs back.