Important: By enabling calendar sync between your SimplePractice calendar and an external calendar, you acknowledge and agree to follow HIPAA Compliance requirements and protect the calendar information, including the secure Telehealth video link.

With 2-way Google Calendar sync, you can view your non-client events and client appointments in one place. In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Syncing your SimplePractice calendar with Google Calendar
• Scheduling clients using Google Calendar
• Removing the 2-way sync
• Troubleshooting Google Calendar sync issues
• Making sure your calendar isn’t visible to the public

Note: This feature is only offered on the Plus plan. For more information on setting up a 1-way sync from your SimplePractice calendar to your Apple Calendar, see Getting started with 1-way calendar sync for Apple Calendar.

Syncing your SimplePractice calendar with Google Calendar

Important: If you have any existing SimplePractice Google Calendar 2-way syncs enabled, please delete them prior to following the steps below. For instructions, see Removing the 2-way sync.

To sync your SimplePractice calendar with Google Calendar:

• Navigate to Settings > Scheduling > Calendar
• Toggle Calendar sync on

• Select your preferred Name display format from the dropdown menu
• Click Save changes
• Scroll down to 2-way sync
• Click Connect for Google Calendar

After you’ve connected your Google calendar:

• Click Log Into Google
• On the next page, choose the Google account you’d like to connect your SimplePractice calendar with
  
  • Your account will appear if you're currently logged into Google

• • If you don't want to use the account listed, click Use another account

• • If you're not logged in, you'll see a Google login screen where you can type in your Google Account Email and Password to sign in
• After selecting or logging into your Google account, click Allow for SimplePractice to access your Google Calendar

Important: This step is necessary to make sure your connection is secure.

Once these steps are completed, your SimplePractice appointments should appear in your Google Calendar. If they don't appear right away, refresh the Google Calendar page.

On the Settings > Scheduling > Calendar page of your SimplePractice account, the Synced status next to Google Calendar confirms your SimplePractice account is now connected to your Google Calendar.

After syncing your SimplePractice calendar with Google Calendar, a new SimplePractice calendar will appear under My calendars.

All appointments that were entered in your SimplePractice calendar 30 days prior to the sync’s date and onwards will be published to your Google Calendar. You'll also see that all of your SimplePractice appointments now appear in Google with the same color.

Note: Out of office blocks added in SimplePractice won’t appear in your Google Calendar with 2-way calendar sync.

Scheduling clients using Google Calendar

Once synced, you can schedule an appointment through Google Calendar and it’ll appear in your SimplePractice calendar. To do this:

• Create an event in Google Calendar in the time slot you'd like to reserve for your client
  
  • The event’s title can reflect the purpose for the appointment, such as "Schedule client for therapy"
  • Make sure your SimplePractice calendar is selected for the event
    
    • You can do this by selecting the calendar name in the flyout

• Return to your SimplePractice calendar
  
  • You'll see that this event was created as a calendar event

Note: Any appointment you create on your SimplePractice calendar in Google will appear as a non-client calendar event in your SimplePractice account.

• Delete the calendar event and create a new client appointment with all of the necessary details in its place 
  
  • After the appointment is recreated, it’ll appear in your Google Calendar through the sync

Modifying appointments in Google

If your appointment isn't locked in SimplePractice, changes made to the appointment in the Google Calendar will reflect in your calendar within SimplePractice. A locked appointment will appear with a lock symbol on its Google Calendar event:

You'll be able to move an appointment around in Google by clicking and dragging the appointment in the calendar to update the date, start time, or duration. Because it can take a few minutes for changes to take effect, we recommend refreshing the page if changes aren’t appearing.

Important: Only changes you add to the SimplePractice Google Calendar will appear in SimplePractice. The other calendars listed under My calendars aren’t part of the 2-way sync.

Recurring series

When recurring appointment series are created on SimplePractice, the appointments in the series are considered individual appointments on Google Calendar. While individual appointments in the series can be updated on both your SimplePractice calendar and Google calendar, updates to the entire series can only be added through your SimplePractice calendar.

Note: If you create a recurring appointment series for your SimplePractice calendar through Google Calendar, it’ll automatically be deleted in Google Calendar and won’t appear in SimplePractice.

Telehealth appointments

Telehealth appointments that are scheduled through SimplePractice will be included in the sync along with their associated secure video links. With these links, you can join Telehealth appointments directly from your Google Calendar.

Removing the 2-way sync

You can remove the sync in SimplePractice or directly from your Google Calendar. To do this:

From SimplePractice

• Navigate to Settings > Scheduling > Calendar
• Next to Google Calendar, click Disconnect

From Google Calendar

• Hover over SimplePractice under your My calendars list
• Click the X icon

• Click Remove Calendar

After removing the sync, your connection will immediately end and SimplePractice appointments will no longer appear in Google.

Tip: If you've disabled your 2-way Google Calendar sync and are still seeing SimplePractice appointments on your Google calendar, you'll need to manually delete these appointments from your Google Calendar.

Troubleshooting Google Calendar sync issues

Our sync works by generating a calendar link that your personal calendar uses to subscribe to your SimplePractice calendar. Calendars like Google can be slow to update subscriptions, and they can take a moment to recognize updates made to your SimplePractice calendar. 

If updates don’t apply after a few minutes, you can refresh your browser page or Google Calendar app. If you've noticed that your calendar hasn't updated in over a day, we recommend disabling your Google Calendar sync, then re-enabling it.

Making sure your calendar isn’t visible to the public

In Google Calendar, you have the option to make any of your calendars available to the public. To make sure your SimplePractice calendar isn’t available to the public:

• Navigate to Google Calendar
• Click the gear icon > Settings

• Under Settings for my calendars, choose SimplePractice
• Deselect the box for Make available to public under Access permissions for events

Note: The settings on this page will save automatically.

When clients receive reminder emails, your SimplePractice calendar won’t appear as public information. This calendar will only be visible to you.