How to Keep a Team's Calendars in Sync Across Google and Microsoft 365

A designer on your team blocks Tuesday afternoon for a school pickup in their personal Google calendar. The project manager, who lives in Outlook, looks at the designer's Microsoft 365 free/busy, sees Tuesday afternoon wide open, and books the client review then. Nobody did anything wrong. The calendars just don't know about each other.

One person can fix this for themselves in ten minutes. A team needs something that doesn't depend on every person setting it up correctly and keeping it working. This guide covers the options, from the free built-in ones to team-managed sync, and when each makes sense.

Why team calendars drift apart

Each calendar system only checks its own events when it shows someone's availability. Microsoft 365 free/busy checks Microsoft calendars. Google Workspace checks Google calendars. So anything that lives elsewhere is invisible to coworkers:

• Personal calendars. Doctor's appointments, school runs, and family events usually live in a personal Gmail or iCloud calendar.
• Contractors and freelancers. They often keep their own Outlook or Google account and get a company account on top, so their real schedule is split across two.
• Mixed-provider companies. After an acquisition, or when one department runs Google and another runs Microsoft, the same person may have calendars in both.
• Client calendars. Consultants and agency staff are often invited onto a client's tenant and accept meetings there.

The result is the same in every case: the calendar coworkers can see shows someone as free when they aren't.

Four ways to fix it

1. Share calendars or free/busy

Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both let people share their calendar, or just their free/busy, with people outside the organization. It costs nothing and it's quick to set up for one pair of people.

The catch is that sharing adds a second calendar to the viewer's screen. It doesn't put Busy blocks on the person's own work calendar, so anything that checks that calendar, like Microsoft's Scheduling Assistant, room finders, and booking tools, still sees them as free. It also depends on each person sharing the right calendars with the right people, and it stops working the moment someone forgets.

2. Google Calendar Interop

If your company runs both Google Workspace and Exchange or Microsoft 365, Google's Calendar Interop lets people on one system look up free/busy on the other. An admin configures it on both sides.

It solves the mixed-provider company case well, but only for the company's own accounts. It doesn't see personal calendars, contractors' own accounts, or client tenants, and it doesn't create events on anyone's calendar.

3. Each person syncs their own calendars

A calendar sync tool copies events from one calendar to another, usually as Busy blocks. Once a person syncs their personal calendar to their work calendar, every tool that checks the work calendar sees the real schedule.

This is what most people do, and AllMyMeetings does it on the free plan with one one-way Free/Busy sync. The problem at team scale isn't the tool. It's that every person has to set it up, choose sensible privacy settings, and notice when it breaks. In a team of ten, a few people never get around to it, and those are the calendars people book over.

4. Team-managed sync

On an AllMyMeetings team plan, one admin sets up syncs for the whole team. Each member still connects their own calendar accounts, but the admin chooses which calendars to connect, the direction, and the privacy mode. Every sync that touches a member's calendar waits for that member's approval before it starts.

That gives you the coverage of method 3 without relying on everyone to do it themselves, and nobody gets syncs put on their calendar without saying yes.

How to set up team-managed sync

1. Create the team. Sign up at allmymeetings.com, and choose Create a Team in the sidebar. Choose Team Pro (up to 10 members) or Team Business (no member limit). Team plans start with a 14-day free trial; you add a card at checkout and aren't charged until the trial ends.
2. Invite your team. Send invitations by email. Each person accepts, then connects their own Google, Microsoft, or iCloud accounts. Nobody connects anyone else's account.
3. Create the team syncs. For most teams the first sync per person is their personal calendar to their work calendar, one-way, in Free/Busy mode. For contractors, sync their own account to their company account. Team syncs can be one-way or two-way.
4. Members approve. Each member gets an email for every team sync that uses one of their calendars, and the sync shows up on their Sync page under "Team syncs on your calendars". They approve it there, or decline it. A sync starts once everyone it affects has approved.
5. Adjust as you go. If you change a sync's direction or privacy mode, members approve the change before it takes effect. Members can pause a team sync on their calendar at any time.

Members can still create their own syncs too, which count toward the team's shared allowance.

Privacy: what members agree to

Calendar data is personal, so the team features are built around a few rules:

• Members own their accounts. Each person connects their own calendars and can disconnect them at any time. Disconnecting an account removes the copies it created.
• Free/Busy keeps details private. In Free/Busy mode, a synced copy is a Busy block with no title, location, notes, or attendees. Attendees are never copied in any mode, so synced copies never send invitations.
• Nothing starts without consent. A team sync stays paused until the member approves it, and any edit asks again.
• Leaving is clean. Removing someone from the team stops the team syncs on their calendars and takes their seat off the bill. Deleting the team cancels the team plan.

The security page explains how calendar data is stored and protected. If your company needs a data processing agreement, it's on the DPA page.

Team plan or individual plans?

A team plan isn't always the right answer.

• Under a handful of people, all willing to set it up themselves: individual plans are cheaper. The free Starter plan covers a one-way Free/Busy sync between two accounts, and Pro ($5/month) adds two-way sync, all privacy modes, and up to 6 syncs.
• One person with many calendars: the individual Business plan ($15/month) gives one person unlimited calendar accounts, syncs, and scheduling pages.
• A team where you need every calendar covered: a team plan, because the admin sets up the syncs, the owner pays one bill, and seats follow the member count as people join and leave.

Team pricing:

If a member already pays for a personal plan, the team plan covers them, and AllMyMeetings tells them they can cancel the personal one so they don't pay twice.

Getting started

Most teams start with one sync per person, personal calendar to work calendar in Free/Busy mode. That alone stops most of the "you were free on my screen" bookings. See calendar sync for remote teams for more examples, or compare the team plans and start a 14-day trial.

Frequently asked questions

Can Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 share free/busy with each other?

Partly. Each system can share free/busy with outside people, and Google's Calendar Interop lets an organization that runs both Google Workspace and Exchange or Microsoft 365 look up availability across the two. Both need an admin to set them up, and neither puts events from one calendar onto the other. If a person's personal calendar or a client's calendar isn't part of that setup, its events still don't count.

Does a team admin get to see members' calendar details?

No. In AllMyMeetings, members connect their own calendar accounts, and an admin only chooses which calendars a team sync connects, the direction, and the privacy mode. With Free/Busy mode, the copies are Busy blocks with no title, location, or notes. Each member approves any team sync that uses their calendar.

What happens to a team sync when someone leaves the team?

Removing a member stops every team sync on their calendars, and their seat comes off the team bill. Their calendar accounts stay theirs.

Do team members need their own paid plan?

No. On a team plan the owner pays one seat per member, and the team plan covers every member. Anyone who already pays for a personal plan gets a reminder that they can cancel it, so they don't pay twice.

Is there a team scheduling page or round-robin booking?

No. Each member can create their own scheduling pages, which check that person's connected calendars. AllMyMeetings doesn't offer team-wide, round-robin, or combined-availability booking pages.