Blocking off company-wide calendar meeting holds in Google Workspace

fuge
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  • fuge Active Member / Beta Tester
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my company wants to block off some hours in the week for everyone to not hold meetings and focus on their work, not email or other distractions. It seems like using a shared calendar to send out the appointment is the easiest way to get this done (can be done by the people heading up the initiative). Is there a better way? I know that we could use GAM to do this but I dont understand what the benefits of using GAM would be over the other method.

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I’m torn about this concept.


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fuge
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got it thank you


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dominik
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yes:


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dominik
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oh same day vs multiple days. no, you can't


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fuge
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@dominik can you set different blocks of working hours for the same day, I cant seem to figure that out


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brian.kim
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i had a customer who had it. but there were still users who were booking meetings when they were not supposed to. you can use GAM to report on those users

https://github.com/hjkimbrian/Google-Workspace/blob/master/MakerHourViolator.sh


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dominik
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However those specific meeting types do not seem to be exposed via API at the moment.


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dominik
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😂 book another meeting with me in the afternoon ... But for real 😉


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dominik
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Out of office would be another meeting type. It also works when free/busy is not shared as it would allow for automatically deniing a meeting request.


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vrklgn
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Ah ok so it works for company domains but not regular Gmail <screams internally>


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dominik
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Try booking a meeting with me at 11:00


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vrklgn
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🤔 Are you sure @dominik it never appears for me?


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fuge
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thats not my call but is being debated


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dominik
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Work hours are reflected to outsiders the same way free/busy is.


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fuge
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like will we actually mark these times as busy or free so that they can hold client calls


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fuge
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yeah free/busy is a point yet to be defined


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vrklgn
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Point for using the calendar approach instead of work hours is that the calendar invite will be reflected with external google users as a “busy” slot while work hours only is reflected internally


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fuge
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is that something I can control via GAM or BC for everyone, or is that an individual setting?


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fuge
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tuesdays and thursdays during a 2 hour block each day


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dominik
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So you'll see the moon next to my name when trying to book a meeting with me outside them.


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fuge
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yeah the company wants everyone to do this at certain times during the week


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dominik
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I reduced my work hours in calendar to my afternoons.


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vrklgn
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Wouldn’t this time be highly individual? 😂


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