When sync goes wrong, run through these in order — most issues are fixed in the first two steps.
Step 1: Confirm the connection is alive
Settings → Integrations → Google Calendar
- ✅ Green "Connected" badge → connection is healthy.
- 🟡 "Reconnect" button visible → token expired (Google forces re-auth every 6 months, or sooner if you change passwords). Click Reconnect and sign in again.
- 🔴 "Error" badge → permissions revoked on Google's side. Reconnect.
Step 2: Confirm the right calendar is selected
The same Google account can have many calendars. FrontDesk reads and writes to one per practice.
Settings → Integrations → Google Calendar → Calendar → pick the calendar you actually use for appointments. "Primary" is almost never the right choice for multi-provider practices — use the shared practice calendar instead.
Step 3: Check timezones match
Three places store a timezone. They all need to agree.
| Where | Setting |
|---|---|
| FrontDesk | Settings → Practice → Timezone |
| Google Calendar | Settings → General → Time zone |
| Google account | Google account → Preferences → Language & region |
If you operate across multiple timezones, set the practice timezone to where the office physically is. Patients booking from other timezones see the local-equivalent time in their confirmation.
Step 4: Mark non-blocking Google events as "Free"
By default, every event on a Google Calendar is marked "Busy" — and FrontDesk treats Busy as "don't book over this."
For events that shouldn't block bookings (your own lunch reminders, all-day birthdays, holidays you'll work through):
- Open the event in Google Calendar.
- Click ... → Show as: Free.
- Save.
It syncs to FrontDesk on the next refresh.
Symptom → likely cause
| Symptom | Most common cause |
|---|---|
| New appointment appears in FrontDesk but not Google | Wrong calendar selected (Step 2) or token expired (Step 1) |
| Event on Google but not in FrontDesk | Same as above; or the event has no clear time (all-day event in some other timezone) |
| AI is double-booking over my events | Events marked Busy aren't on the calendar FrontDesk reads — check Step 2; or events are marked Free (Step 4) |
| Wrong time on the patient's confirmation | Timezone mismatch (Step 3) |
| Sync stops after a Google password change | Token revoked — Reconnect (Step 1) |
| Sync stops after switching admin email | Re-grant permissions from the new admin email |
| Some events sync but not all | Calendar visibility set to "Private" hides details — set to at least "Free/busy only" |
Force a manual sync
If you've just made a change and want to verify it took:
Settings → Integrations → Google Calendar → Sync now
Runs a full pull-and-push within a few seconds.
Multi-provider practices
If each provider has their own Google Calendar:
- Use one shared calendar in FrontDesk and have providers copy/mirror events into it. Simplest.
- Or upgrade to Professional/Enterprise where each appointment type can be tied to a different provider's calendar. Contact support to enable.
When to contact support
If you've worked through Steps 1–4 and a sync issue persists, open a ticket with:
- The practice name
- The Google Calendar email
- An example appointment (date, time, patient initials — no PHI in the ticket subject)
- Whether the missing event is FrontDesk → Google or Google → FrontDesk
Most tickets resolve within a business day.