Setting Up Your Calendar Integration

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to configure calendar integration and interview scheduling to streamline interviews and time management.

Calendar Integration in SmartRecruiters

An active calendar integration with SmartRecruiters allows coordinators, interviewers, and hiring managers to streamline their scheduling.

Calendar integration helps automate the scheduling of interviews and ensures there are no scheduling conflicts, allowing the system users (recruiters, hiring managers and others) to focus on the task at hand.

Benefits of Connecting Calendars to your ATS

Automatic Scheduling: Your connected calendar automatically schedules interviews, preventing double-booking and ensuring availability is accurately reflected.
Efficient Time Management: With your calendar integrated, you can manage your interview schedule and personal appointments seamlessly, all in one place.
Streamlined Process: By connecting your calendar, scheduling becomes smoother, and you avoid manually updating the interviewers’ availability each time an interview is booked.
Candidate Experience: Candidates report a positive experience with less back-and-forth when scheduling.
Company-Level and User-Level Integration: Admins have the flexibility to configure calendar integration at both the company level and the individual user level:

Company-Level Integration: Admins can set up a default calendar integration for the entire organization. Users do not need to perform additional setup to integrate their calendar if this option is chosen.
User-Level Integration: Admins can allow individual users to choose which calendar provider they wish to integrate with SmartRecruiters (Google, Microsoft, or both). This option is ideal for users who may have a different calendar email address than their SmartRecruiters account email.

Hint

Best Practice - Consider how to roll out calendar accuracy and responsibility to all interviewers to ensure accurate information.

Calendar Integration Types

Calendar-Integrated User: A user whose SmartRecruiters account is linked to the same domain as the calendar integration. For example, if your organization’s calendar integration is set up with the domain @smartrecruiters.com, the calendar-integrated user’s SmartRecruiters account will also use this domain.

Example integrated user calendar - Week of May 5–11 calendar displaying availability, events, and blocked times with filters.

Non-Calendar-Integrated User: A user whose SmartRecruiters account is linked to a different domain than the one used for the calendar integration. For example, a user with an email address on @gmail.com or @example.com will be considered a non-calendar-integrated user if the calendar integration is set up for @smartrecruiters.com.

Example non-integrated calendar user Weekly hiring calendar in GMT+2 displays one interview; more team calendars are selectable.

Per-User Calendar Integration: Separate Email Identity for Calendar Integration

The calendar integration allows users to configure a separate email address for their calendar that does not have to match their SmartRecruiters account email. This enhancement ensures that users with different email addresses for their SmartRecruiters account and their calendar (for example, Google or Microsoft Calendar) can still benefit from seamless integration.

SmartRecruiters assigns the correct email address for calendar integration, preventing conflicts or errors. The integration reliably fetches free/busy information, creates or updates calendar events, and receives event updates via webhooks without issue, even when the user’s calendar email differs from their SmartRecruiters email.

Integrated Interview Scheduling Features

Interview Invitation Email:

If the organizer/coordinator is a calendar-integrated user (such as Google, Office 365, or Exchange), interviewers will receive an email invitation from the calendar integration provider, not SmartRecruiters. This invitation typically includes an ICS file that can be added directly to the interviewer's calendar.

Direct Booking: The time slot is booked directly in the organizer's integrated calendar. Interviewers can easily accept or decline the invitation via multiple channels:

From the UI: You can manage your interview status directly from your SmartRecruiters homepage, under Pending Interviews at the bottom right.
From the Calendar: Interviewers can accept or decline the interview directly from their integrated calendar.
From the Email: Interviewers can also accept or decline directly from the email notification they receive.

If the organizer/coordinator is a non-calendar-integrated user,interviewers will receive an email invitation from SmartRecruiters with the interview details and a link to accept or decline the interview. The interviewer's calendar won't automatically sync unless they accept the invitation.

Self-Scheduler:

With active calendar integration, both calendar-integrated and non-calendar-integrated users can access the self-scheduler. Here’s how it works:

For calendar-integrated users: These users can see the availability of other calendar-integrated users on the self-scheduler. Additionally, their calendar events are displayed, providing a seamless scheduling experience.
For non-calendar-integrated users: These users cannot see the availability of other users. However, an exception applies when the company uses Office 365 calendar integration with delegated permissions, allowing non-calendar-integrated users to view the availability of calendar-integrated users.

Bi-directional calendar sync:

Interview schedules often shift at the last minute, especially when the interviewer’s availability changes unexpectedly. In many cases, interview organizers make those changes directly in their calendar (Google, Office 365, or Exchange).

Bi-directional calendar sync gives companies the flexibility to handle these updates automatically. When enabled, changes made in the calendar, like adding or removing interviewers, can sync back into SmartRecruiters, reducing manual coordination and preventing miscommunication.

Configure Calendar Integration

Steps

Navigate to the Settings page.
Choose Apps & Integration.
Select Calendar Integration from the available integrations.
Review Available Integration Types
1. Select the calendar integration type. Ensure the appropriate option for your organization is selected.
2. Select the calendar provider from the available list provided. Only one type can be selected from the following options:
  - Microsoft 365, or Microsoft 365 (Delegated permissions)
  - Microsoft Exchange
  - Google
Select Continue.
Select from two available types of the integration and complete the configuration screen:
1. Company-wide: in this case, one type of integration will be applied to all users.
2. Per User integration: this allows users to individually connect their own calendar.
Complete the configuration screens, where you can enable the integration.
When you collapse the Settings area for Google or Microsoft 365 Calendars, select Enable for the calendar types you want to make available for your company users to connect individually.

Summary

Calendar integration in SmartRecruiters streamlines the interview scheduling process and prevents scheduling conflicts.
Admins can configure calendar integration at both the company level and the individual user level.
SmartRecruiters supports calendar-integrated and non-calendar-integrated users.
With active calendar integration, both types of users can access the self-scheduler.
Bi-directional calendar sync allows changes made in the calendar to sync back into SmartRecruiters automatically.

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