Block a Calendar Slot for Team Members Taking Part in the Session

To ensure that the speakers in your Livestorm session are aware of the scheduled time and have the slot reserved in their calendars, preventing conflicts with other meetings, you may find yourself spending too much time manually adding these team members to a calendar invite. This tedious task, however, can be automated for you.

The use case#

By default, each registrant receives a confirmation email with their personal access link. But team members do not receive email when they take part to a session.

In this article, we will show you a way to automate the sending of a calendar invite to your team members participating to the session. This automation technique will add all the speakers of any new Livestorm session to a unique calendar invite and your Team Members will therefore receive an email invite and their calendar will be updated, saving you time for more important work.

To accomplish this, we will use automation tools like Zapier or Make.

Use Zapier to automate#

Zapier is an automation tool very popular on the web. Check out here how to connect Livestorm and Zapier.

Note: you need first to create a Zapier account (if you do not have one already) to use the steps mentioned in this article..

Google Calendar#

If you are using Google Calendar, you can easily automate a calendar invite for your team members. Let's see together how in few steps.

The worklow with Zapier is pretty straightfoward: for each new session created you shall use the trigger provided by Livestorm, search for the team members email addresses and then connect it to an action step to create a Google Calendar event.

To make your life easier we have created for you a prebuilt template ready-to-use. Just click on the card below to use it in one click (you need to be connected to your Zapier account):

Or you can also follow the detailed steps below:

1 Select Livestorm as app, choose the trigger "Session Created" in the list and connect your Livestorm account. You can filter on specific event if needed.

2 As a first action, use the Livestorm app and select "Find People" : this action will allow you to search for the team members of the session. And use the configuration below (the Event ID and Session ID are coming from the step 1):

3 As a second action, use the Google Calendar app and select "Create Detailed Event" : this action will allow you to create the Google Calendar invite using the data of step 1 & step 2. For the attendees, be sure to use the people email addressses you have retrieved from the step 2. And use the configuration below:

4 Test your Zap and save it. And voilà! When you create a new session, all the team members participating to the session will received a calendar invite from the Google Account you have connected.

Outlook Calendar#

If you are using Outlook Calendar, you can easily automate a calendar invite for your team members. Let's see together how in few steps.

The worklow with Zapier is pretty straightfoward: for each new session created you shall use the trigger provided by Livestorm, search for the team members email addresses and then connect it to an action step to create a Outlook Calendar event.

To make your life easier we have created for you a prebuilt template ready-to-use. Just click in the card below to use it in one click (you need to be connected to your Zapier account):

1 Select Livestorm as app, choose the trigger "Session created" in the list and connect your Livestorm account. You can filter on specific event if needed.

2 As first action, use the Livestorm app and select "Find People" : this action will allow you to search for the team members of the session. And use the configuration below (the Event ID and Session ID are coming from the step 1 - you should filter on the role team_member):

3 As second action, use the Outlook Calendar app and select "Create Event" : this action will allow you to create the Outlook Calendar invite using the data of step 1 & step 2. For the attendees, be sure to use the people email addressses you have retrieved from the step 2. And use the configuration below:

4 Test your Zap and save it. And voilà! When you create a new session, all the team members participating to the session will received a calendar invite from the Outlook Account you have connected.

FAQ#

Which organizer for the calendar event will be displayed in the calendar?

The team members will see the email address of the Google (or Outlook) account connected to Zapier as the organizer. Since it's for an internal use with team members of your Livestorm workspace, you can connect a personal Google or Outlook account.

Can the calendar invite be sent retroactively?

Unfortunately, no. Only sessions created after your automation is configured will generate a calendar invite for the team members. The previous will not. The same logic applies if you deactivate your automation: during the deactivation period, no calendar invites will be sent.

Can I customize the content of the calendar invite (description, title, ...)?

Yes, you can fully customize the content of the calendar invite. In Zapier, we have prefilled most of the fields in the provided Zap template to help you, but you can change any field as needed.

Can I add the event to a specific calendar (such as a shared company calendar)?

Yes, of course. By default, the event will be added to your primary calendar linked to your Google (or Outlook) account. However, you can choose which calendar to populate, including shared calendars. In Zapier, this is the first field you can edit in your action (see screenshot below)

If I add a team member after the session creation: will it work as well?

Unfortunately, no. The trigger is based on the creation of the session. If you add later team members to the session, you will need to add them manually to the exisiting calendar invite.

Can I add also the guest speakers with this technique?

Unfortunately, no. The guest speakers are added once the session is already created. Thus, for the same reason of the previous point, they won't be added to your calendar invite automatically. You will need to add them manually.