Calendar Sync

Connect your Google or Outlook calendar and Runnit can see when you are already busy. You can also have your scheduled work appear in your own calendar, so your day is in one place.

Only confirmed work from projects that have left draft appears in your personal calendar. Tasks in Planning, and tentative or held bookings, stay in the project’s planning views. Assigning a person or setting dates does not activate a project. Review and activate the plan when it is ready.

If you return a project to draft, its calendar entries are removed after the next successful sync. The same rule applies to read-only calendar links, although your calendar app decides when to refresh a subscribed link.

A connection is yours, the settings are the workspace’s

This catches people out, so it is worth being clear.

The connection belongs to you. You connect your Google or Outlook account once and it works everywhere you use Runnit. Nobody else can see it or manage it, including administrators.

What each workspace does with it is set separately. If you work in two workspaces, one can read only when you are busy while the other reads your meeting names. Google connections can also use different calendar selections in each workspace; Microsoft connections use the main calendar. Turning something on in one workspace does not turn it on in another.

Connect a calendar

Choose your initials in the sidebar header, then Calendar connections (the page is also listed under Settings > Personal), or open Schedule and choose Connected calendars.
Choose Connect Google or Connect Outlook.
Sign in with the account you want to connect and approve the permissions. Signing in to Runnit with Google or Microsoft does not cover this: the calendar permissions are a separate approval, asked for once.
You come back to Runnit with the account listed. If you decline the permissions, you come back with a message saying so and nothing is connected.

For a Microsoft work or school account, your IT team may need to approve Runnit before you can connect. Ask them to approve the calendar permissions, then return here and try again. The account needs an Exchange Online or Outlook.com mailbox; on-premises Exchange mailboxes cannot connect.

Choose what this workspace reads

Open the connection and pick one:

Option	What Runnit sees
When I am busy	Keeps only the times you are unavailable for availability-only sync. Meeting names, attendees and locations are not shown.
Meeting names	The name of each meeting as well, so your schedule shows what the time is for.

Microsoft may send meeting details even when you choose availability only. Runnit discards those details for availability-only sync and keeps the times. Google can return busy times without sending meeting content.

Meeting names need a wider permission than availability does. If your account has not granted it, Runnit takes you back to the consent screen rather than saving a setting that would not work.

Under that, tick the calendars this workspace should read. The same calendar can be read in one workspace and ignored in another.

Add your Runnit work to your calendar

Tick Add my scheduled work to this calendar to send your scheduled work to your connected account. Google uses a separate calendar created by Runnit. Outlook and Microsoft 365 use your main calendar.

One entry per task per day, at the hours actually planned.
Never any attendees, so nobody is ever emailed when your work moves.
On Google, you can hide the separate Runnit calendar in one click.
On Outlook, Runnit changes only the entries it created. Your other meetings stay as they are.

When your schedule changes in Runnit, the entries move. When work is unscheduled, they disappear.

Let meetings reduce what Runnit will book

Off unless an administrator allows it and you turn it on.

With it on, a meeting takes hours out of that day, so Runnit stops booking work into time you have already committed. It works the same way as blocked-out time: a two-hour meeting on a four-hour day leaves two hours, and if a day fills up completely Runnit treats it as unavailable.

If Runnit stops being able to read a calendar, that calendar’s meetings stop reducing your hours after three days rather than going on subtracting time from a reading nobody can refresh. Reconnecting picks it up again.

Let calendar changes move your work

Two separate settings, both off by default, because they are different risks.

Moves. Drag a Runnit entry in your calendar and the task moves in Runnit. It goes through the same rules as moving a task in Runnit does, so a move onto your own leave, a closure, or a day you do not work is refused and reported rather than forced.

Deletions. Delete a Runnit entry and the task is unscheduled: it comes off the calendar and returns to the backlog. The task itself, its estimate and anything depending on it all survive. The project owner is notified, with the task and the dates it had occupied.

Both settings need Add my Runnit work to my calendar turned on first, since there is nothing to drag otherwise, and your workspace has to allow them. If your workspace turns the permission off, both settings are turned off with it.

A move only ever affects work that is still yours. If a task has been reassigned since Runnit put it in your calendar, dragging the leftover entry does nothing.

A change takes up to about fifteen minutes to reach Runnit. Give it a few minutes after moving or deleting a block, or choose Check now. If you leave an inbound setting off, Runnit restores that part of its own entries during sync. It does not use an unrelated meeting to move or unschedule your work.

Work that depends on the task you moved is rescheduled too, exactly as it would be if you had moved the task inside Runnit.

If you would rather not connect an account, Runnit can give you a read-only link to add to Apple Calendar or almost any other client.

On the calendar connections page, choose Create a busy-times link or Create a link with task names.
Copy the link. It is shown once, so copy it before you leave the page.
Add it in your calendar app as a subscribed or internet calendar.

The busy-times link says only “Busy (Runnit)”, so a forwarded link does not give away client or project names.

Check that it is working

If something looks out of date, choose Check now on the connection. Runnit checks on its own within about fifteen minutes anyway, and usually within a minute, so this is for when you are watching and do not want to wait.

The connection shows when it was last read, whether anything failed, and whether it has live change notifications. Outlook connections with availability-only read permission use regular checks; live notifications can become available when you approve meeting names or writing scheduled work. A connection can therefore work correctly without live notifications. A connection that has stopped looks the same as a calendar nobody has changed, so it is worth a glance if something seems out of date.

Administrators can see the same for everyone, along with anything that has drifted out of step.

Ask Ru

Ru can see your own connections as this workspace uses them. Ask it whether your calendar is connected, why nothing has been read yet, or what the last error was, and it answers from the connection itself and tells you the next step. It cannot connect a calendar for you, because the permission at Google or Microsoft is yours to give.

Disconnect

Choose Disconnect on the connection. Runnit removes the entries it created in your calendar, stops listening for changes, and deletes the meetings it had mirrored. It tells you how many of each.

What Runnit never does

It never adds attendees to anything it creates, so it can never email anyone on your behalf.
It changes only its own entries. Google uses a separate Runnit calendar; Outlook uses your main calendar.
It never stores meeting names for a workspace set to read availability only.

Next steps

For the days you are away, see Blocked-Out Dates. For the shape of your ordinary week, see Working Patterns.