Skip to content

Scheduling Calls

Anychat agents can book a call between a person and a representative from your company — the representative phones the person at an agreed time. Scheduling is a first-class feature: it has its own settings page, works reliably with no external integrations, and keeps you informed of every booking. This page explains how it works and what each setting does.

The model in one line. The agent proposes times from your availability, the person picks one, and Anychat books it — handing the person an add-to-calendar file, emailing your team, and (optionally) reminding the person before the call and mirroring it into Google Calendar.

The pieces

Scheduling draws on two settings pages under your agent:

  • Representatives (Settings · Representatives) — the people who actually take the calls. Each has a name, optional title, phone, and email. The assigned representative is snapshotted onto every booking and is always emailed when a booking changes.
  • Scheduling (Settings · Scheduling) — when calls can be booked, how long they are, who gets notified, reminder behaviour, and the optional Google Calendar to record calls into.

Everything below is configured on the Scheduling page.

Availability

Anychat only proposes times you've made bookable.

  • Timezone — the timezone the agent proposes and holds slots in, chosen from a picker. New agents start in the timezone you created them from; pick "Use the person's timezone" to follow whoever the agent is talking to instead.
  • Default call length — minutes per call when nothing more specific is requested.
  • Available hours — the weekly windows calls can be booked into (e.g. Mon–Fri, 09:00–17:00). Leave this empty to let the agent propose any reasonable time; it still defaults to sensible business hours so it never offers a 3 a.m. slot.
  • Blackout dates — specific dates with no availability (holidays, closures).

The agent never double-books: a slot already held by an active appointment is removed from what it offers.

What the person gets

When a call is booked, the person receives a confirmation in the conversation along with an Add to calendar action. Tapping it downloads a standard calendar file (.ics) they can add to Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook — anywhere. No account or integration is required on your side for this to work.

If reminders are on (see below), they also get a reminder before the call, optionally with the representative's contact card (.vcf) so they can save the rep to their phone.

Notifications

Whenever an appointment is scheduled, rescheduled, or cancelled, Anychat emails your team.

  • The assigned representative is always emailed.
  • Notification recipients (on the Scheduling page) let you add others — an operations alias, a manager.

The agent's public contact email is never used for these — that's the address your customers see, not an ops inbox. If no representative has an email and the recipients list is empty, nobody is notified, so configure at least one of the two.

The email names the person, the time (in their timezone), the rep, and any notes the agent captured — so whoever reads it has everything they need to prepare for the call.

Reminders

Optionally, Anychat sends the person a reminder on their channel shortly before the call.

  • Send a pre-call reminder — the on/off switch.
  • Lead time (minutes) — how long before the call to send it.
  • Attach the representative's contact card — includes a link to the rep's .vcf so the person can add-to-contacts before the call.

Reminders are sent once per appointment and are timezone-correct.

Google Calendar (optional)

You can mirror every scheduled call into a Google Calendar, so your team sees bookings on a calendar they already watch. Reschedules and cancellations stay in sync automatically.

To enable it, everything happens on the Scheduling page:

  1. Under Google Calendar, click Connect Google Calendar and authorize a Google account (a one-time OAuth authorization). The page shows which account is connected and warns when the connection needs attention.
  2. Turn on Record scheduled calls in Google Calendar and set the Calendar ID (primary is the account's default calendar).

Calendar recording is best-effort: if Google is unreachable or the connection lapses, the booking, the add-to-calendar file, and the team email still go through — the appointment itself is never blocked. Anychat treats its own records as the source of truth; the Google Calendar entry is a mirror.

Booking calls over Google Meet or other video platforms is not yet supported — scheduling is focused on getting a representative on a phone call with the person.

Reliability

Scheduling is designed so that every booking behaves the same way, every time, regardless of how it was triggered:

  1. The representative is resolved and recorded on the appointment.
  2. The appointment is saved with a full audit history.
  3. The person's record is updated with their upcoming call.
  4. The Google Calendar event is written (if connected).
  5. Your team is emailed.
  6. The reminder is scheduled.

Steps 4–6 are best-effort and never block a booking. The result is a feature you can rely on, and a clear, consistent picture of which calls are coming up.