Configuring Google for Work Calendar Integration

Background

Together Platform is a web application for businesses to run internal mentoring programs for employees. By integrating with Google for Work, you give your users several user experience improvements when managing their participation in the mentoring program:

• Users can see free/busy slots of their pairing, so they can book mentoring sessions at the right times

• Users can see the RSVP of their pairing to mentorship sessions because the user is the organizer of their own event

• Users can add a hangouts link automatically to mentorship meetings

• Users can reschedule/cancel directly from Google Calendar

Booking time with a mentor or mentee

Installation

Installation is simple. Visit the GSuite marketplace listing for Together Software here and click "Domain-wide install".

Permissions

Together's Google for Work app requires:

• Read and Modify calendars

• View basic user profiles

Data Usage

Only metadata of calendar events tied to mentoring sessions booked in Together Platform, such as event ID and start/end time is used. Together never uses integrations for purposes unrelated to mentoring sessions.

Further Information on Calendar Integrations

• It improves the user experience when users can sign in and they are automatically integrated without having to fumble with accepting an integration. It also means the experience is consistent for all employees and they do not need two versions of documentation, should they want to read about booking time with a mentor or mentee.
• The app can be restricted to a dynamic group/list in admin.google.com if you want to decrease the scope.
• We have a SOC2 independent security audit and take credentials seriously, only ever using them for a signed in user booking a mentorship session.
• Without the integration, you will not be the organizer of your mentoring sessions, meaning you cannot see RSVPs or manage the invite in Google Calendar.

Further reading

Official documentation for the Google API endpoints Together uses is available here. In general, API calls are made in the following manner:

1. A user looking to book a mentorship session would call freebusy

2. A user books a time, calling Insert

3. If rescheduling, get the event, then update it

4. If canceling, they would delete

See an overview of Together calendar integrations here.