Office 365/Exchange Calendar Sync (Beta)

What is Calendar Sync

The 2-way calendar sync allows you to set up a Service level Calendar integration to synchronize your Instructor's calendars with Administrate, so you can have full visibility of your team’s availability, and ensure your instructors remain up-to-date with their booking changes and updates.

Configuring Office 365/Exchange Calendar Sync

The steps below can be completed in the Microsoft Azure Control Panel to retrieve the necessary credentials:

1. Log in to Microsoft Azure and go to the Active Directory » Registered Apps blade
2. Click on “New Registration” fill in the details and choose Single Tenant as your account type, with no redirect URI.
3. Click on Certificates & Secrets for your newly created App and create a new Client Secret(Make sure to take note of your secret key).
4. From API Permissions -> Microsoft Graph -> Application Permissions: Add the following:
   1. Calendar.ReadWrite type Application
   2. User.Read.All type Application
5. Take note of the Client ID, User ID, and Tenant ID for the app

The User ID, Client ID, Client Secret, and Tenant ID are what is needed to complete the setup.

The next step is to configure the setup in your Administrate instance. This will probably be required to be set up once for your instance. 

1. Go to Settings → Calendar Integration

2. Click on ‘New Calendar Integration’ to set up a new integration

3. Enter the required fields that you have obtained in the initial setup (User ID, Tenant ID, Client ID, and Secret

4. Click on 'Create Integration
5. You should see the integration has been created successfully and set as Active

6. Go to the Instructors Tab and verify your instructors are listed there. Instructors are matched and synced based on the Email address

7. That's it

Settings Tab

General Overview

When you first land on the Settings Tab you will need to create a New Integration as outlined above in the 'Configuring a Calendar Sync'.

The Integrations table displays the list of Calendar Integrations you have set up. Now, while this currently only supports Microsoft Office 365/Exchange integration, in the future, this will include additional integrations such as Google, External Individual Integrations, etc… Where you have a consolidated view of all of the Calendar Syncs you have set up.

The table includes the Name of the Integration, which you can specify when setting up an integration, the Type, which can be ‘Microsoft Exchange’, ‘Google’, etc… and the Status, which can be Active, Inactive.

Deleting an Integration

You can delete an Integration by clicking on the ‘three-dotted’ menu icon on the right and clicking on ‘Delete Integration’

This will clear and delete all instructor calendar mappings, External Synced Events, and your integration setup.

Instructors Tab

The Instructors tab lists all Instructors who matched successfully between the Integration and Administrate. The matching is based on the Instructor's email address in Administrate and the one defined in Microsoft Exchange. They must be exactly the same.

The table includes the following information:

Sync Frequency

Once you set up a calendar integration an initial sync is kicked off mapping Instructors defined in Administrate with their Microsoft Exchange emails (ie outlook). These will be listed in the Instructor’s Tab. If you find there are missing instructors there you need to ensure their Email address matches their Microsoft Exchange email address.

Real-time

When you create or update an Event, the Calendar Integration will push the schedule to any of the instructors assigned in real-time to their Calendars

Scheduled Sync

The sync runs every 5 min to push and pull Events between Administrate and their Outlook Calendars

Availability Calendar

Note: Reach out to your Account Manager if you don't have access to the Administrate Instructor & Resources Availability calendar.

Admins will be able to view Instructor’s External Events conflicts when scheduling and planning Events. External Events (ie: pulled from outlook calendars) are indicated with a dark gray color.

Frequently Asked Questions

I don't see all of my instructors listed in the Instructors Tab

The Instructors tab only lists instructors who were matched and mapped to your integration or Microsoft Account. Ensure the missing instructors exist in your Microsoft Account Directory and their email address matches the one in Administrate.

How can I run an on-demand sync

This is not currently available in Beta. The sync kicks off every 5 min to pull in and push out Events, and in real-time when creating and assigning Instructors to Events.

Events are not getting synced to Outlook Calendars

Ensure that you have waited enough time for the sync to kick off. The sync runs every 5 mins. If sync issues persist beyond the 1-hour mark, there are multiple options you can do depending on the problem

1. If the problem begins with the Kick of sync, (after setting up), and is not syncing Events from or to your Instructor's outlook calendars, then the problem is most likely to be related to the credentials you have used to set up the integration

2. Ensure the USER ID has read/write access to all user's calendars (ie: through assigning them to a role that has this access or individually)

3. If the Initial sync kicked off successfully, and sync is failing at other intervals

   1. Ensure the Integration and Sync Status is showing as Active

   2. If the problem persists, reach out to support.

Events are not getting synced to Administrate

Ensure that you have waited enough time for the sync to kick off. The sync runs every 5 mins. If sync issues persist beyond the 1-hour mark, there are multiple options you can do depending on the problem

1. If the problem begins with the kick-off sync, (after setting up), and is not syncing Events from or to your Instructor's outlook calendars, then the problem is most likely to be related to the credentials you have used to set up the integration

2. Ensure the USER ID has read/write access to all user's calendars (ie: through assigning them to a role that has this access or individually)

3. If the Initial sync kicked off successfully, and sync is failing at other intervals

   1. Ensure the Integration and Sync Status is showing as Active

   2. If the problem persists, reach out to support.