Due to the rise of freelancers and consultants doing individual client engagements, appointment scheduling in Google Calendar was first made available only to members of Google Workspace for Individuals. Then, in the previous year, it arrived for a wider audience of Google Workspace customers, streamlining their preparation for work hours and meetings. While this is a welcome addition to many people’s toolkits, some users have found that one single conflict point has really disguised numerous conflict points. Thankfully, Google has taken action to address the issue.

In addition to the calendar connected with your Google Workspace account, the scheduler will now be able to identify potential conflicts in any calendars to which you have subscribed or to which you have access.

If, for example, you have a dentist appointment scheduled on one of your accounts, and that appointment overlaps with any of the appointment availability periods you’ve set up through your Workspace account, Google Calendar will automatically remove that time from your availability, just as it would for a conflict with an appointment on the same account. It’s a convenient method to keep track of the many timetables we adhere to, because we’re constantly operating according to someone else’s timetable.

You may need to adjust certain settings to make sure Google is aware of which commitments to exclude from which calendars, and that you have enough time between each commitment and the next available appointment to avoid being left in limbo.

According to the Google Workspace Updates blog, multi-calendar conflict monitoring will be available today for Rapid Release domains and beginning February 7 for Scheduled Release domains. A portion of this will be made available to those who have subscribed to Google Workspace at the Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, or the Nonprofit level. People who use Essentials plans, older versions of G Suite, or who use a personal Google account alone will have to wait and see whether the service is eventually rolled out to them.