The ultimate guide to using Cal.com during the festive season
Cal.com is an appointment booking platform built around communication. This means that all of our tools are designed to help people connect, collaborate, and move things forward. It's normal for people to use calendar scheduling as part of their day-to-day workflow, but there are other areas where it can also make a difference.
Here's the thing about calendar scheduling: the more you use it, the more you benefit from it. When used outside of the office environment, calendar scheduling can:
protect your work-life balance,
help carve out time for hobbies,
and make it easier to navigate the holiday season.
In this article, we are going to share five tips for Cal users that can help them manage the chaos and joy that come with end-of-year celebrations. So, without further ado, let's get started.
Tip 1: unlock Cal.com's potential by exploring the app store
The app store is your friend. Cal.com has an expansive, constantly growing catalog. It's filled with all sorts of different tools that you can integrate as part of your calendar scheduling environment. It’s normal for people to stick with what they know, but if you don’t check out the app store to see what we've added to it every now and then, you might miss out on something great.
So, our first tip for calendar scheduling this holiday season is to take a quick look at the app store and see if there's something new that you might need. You might even stumble upon one of our older editions and see it in a potentially new light.
You might feel like installing our big red "cancel everything" button. After all, Wipe My Cal is sometimes exactly what the doctor ordered, especially if you're exhausted after attending six holiday parties in three days.
Tip 2: revolutionize your bookings with Cal.com's QR code feature
How about a QR code? You can find an app for generating them within the assortment of curiosities that is the "Other" category. Cal.com's QR code app will help you generate a scannable booking code for any and all of your event types. These codes are generated on a per-event type basis. Once you’ve installed the app, it still needs to be enabled on a per-event basis from within each event's Apps tab. This is easy to do via your event-level settings.
After the QR code has been generated, it can be used in a myriad of ways. The QR code can be added to printed media like invitations. It can also be made part of both physical and virtual homemade gifts. For example, if you decide to gift someone your time, you can add the QR code to your vouchers. Booking QR codes can also be emailed to friends and family halfway around the world so that they can join you for dinner virtually and watch presents being opened.
Tip 3: monetize your time by leveraging Cal.com's payment integration for holiday services
Cal.com is one of the only calendar scheduling platforms to offer advanced monetization options to all users, regardless of subscription type. This means that even Cal.com's free users can integrate payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, and Alby. Once a payment gateway has been set up and connected to the relevant event type, you'll be able to charge for bookings and implement no-show fees. These are essential tools that will help to protect your time, especially during the holidays.
Let's imagine what it might be like running a caroling service. You go door-to-door bringing neighborhood cheer, sharing stories, and highlighting local attractions and establishments. The caroling service might be raising money for a veterans' charity, or maybe it could be a seasonal side hustle.
Either way, being able to collect fees at the time of booking will help simplify things by reducing awkwardness and saving time during one of the busiest periods of the year.
Tip 4: master holiday scheduling by customizing your availability
Customize your availability schedules. Cal.com doesn't put any limit on the number of availability schedules that users can create. This is incredibly useful during what is often the busiest time of the year.
Think about it: your holiday schedule involves a lot of commitments, both professionally and personally. This means it's really worth taking a couple of minutes to create one or more availability schedules that you can connect to your essential seasonal appointments.
You don't have to worry about double bookings when you use multiple availability schedules because adding a new availability schedule won’t change the calendar that your events reference.
Tip 5: protect your peace by using Cal.com's booking limits during this busy season
Booking limits are your friends. Cal.com's booking limits are essential this time of year. You don’t want to end up overbooked. This is why it makes sense to do a quick refresher and verify everything's as it should be.
After all, booking limits include essential tools like buffer times, meeting frequency, and so much more. Once you've made sure that you have your booking limits dialed in, you'll be able to rest a little bit easier knowing there's at least one less thing that you'll have to take care of.
I hope that these tips have been useful and will make a difference for you during this wonderful and occasionally overwhelming season. Please feel free to reach out to us on X/Twitter if you have any calendar scheduling tips that you'd like to share.
We're always happy to hear about how our users are leveraging our product to save time. Thanks for reading, and as always, happy scheduling.
