How to connect Contour to Google Calendar

Plenty of two- and three-truck shops run the whole business out of Google Calendar, and that works fine with Contour. Contour reads your busy blocks, only offers windows that are open, and creates an event with the caller's name, number, address, and problem. If you want, it keeps a separate calendar for each tech or truck.

This guide covers the setup in the order we do it on the onboarding call.

Decide how you want the calendar organized

Do this first. It is the one decision that is annoying to change later.

Option 1: One shared calendar. Every job goes on one calendar. Simple. Good for a one-truck shop, or a shop where the owner assigns jobs each morning anyway.

Option 2: One calendar per tech or truck. Contour checks each calendar's availability and books onto whichever one is open, or onto the one you designate for a given kind of call. Good when techs run independent routes and you want Contour to fill the holes.

Option 3: One shared calendar plus an on-call calendar. Daytime jobs go on the shared calendar. Emergencies after hours go on a separate on-call calendar that the on-call tech subscribes to. This is the most common setup we see for shops with an after-hours rotation.

Setup	Best for	Trade-off
One shared calendar	1 truck, owner dispatches	Contour cannot tell which tech is free
One per tech	2 to 4 trucks, independent routes	Techs must keep their own calendars accurate
Shared plus on-call	Any size with a night rotation	One more calendar to maintain

Whatever you pick, Contour only books on the calendars you tell it to, and it treats every existing event on those calendars as a busy block.

Create the calendar or calendars

Use a Google account the business controls (a Workspace account on your shop domain is best; plain Gmail works). Do not use a tech's personal account; you lose access when they leave.

1. Sign in to Google Calendar on the web with the business account.
2. Create a new calendar. Name it clearly: "Northside Plumbing Jobs," or "Truck 1 - Mike," or "On-Call."
3. Repeat for each tech or truck if you chose Option 2 or 3.
4. Share each calendar with the people who need it. Techs need "see all event details" so they can read the job notes. The office needs "make changes to events."
5. Make sure the calendar's time zone matches your shop's time zone.
6. If techs keep personal calendars, Contour can read those as busy blocks too, but only if they are shared with the business account.

Connect the Google account to Contour

We do this together on the onboarding call.

1. Book your onboarding call at /demo.
2. Have the business Google account login handy. Whoever owns that account needs to be on the call, because Google will ask them to approve access.
3. We walk you through granting Contour access to the calendars you chose. Google shows a standard permission screen. Contour asks for permission to read and write events on the calendars you select, nothing else in the account.
4. In your Contour settings, we pick which calendars Contour reads for availability and which one it writes new jobs to. For a per-tech setup, we mark each calendar with the tech or truck name.
5. We run a quick read test and confirm Contour sees your existing events as busy blocks.

You can revoke access any time from the Google account's security settings.

Set working hours, arrival windows, and buffers

Google Calendar does not know your shop is closed Sunday or that you need 30 minutes to get across town. You tell Contour.

1. Working hours. Give us the hours Contour may book regular jobs, per day of the week. For example Monday through Friday 8 am to 5 pm, Saturday 8 am to noon, closed Sunday.
2. Emergency hours. Give us the hours Contour may book Urgent calls, if you take emergencies. Many shops say until 10 pm, then 7 am next day. Outside those hours, Contour takes the call and texts the on-call tech, but does not book a slot.
3. Arrival windows. Decide how Contour presents time to callers. Two-hour windows (8 to 10, 10 to 12, and so on) are the norm. Contour creates the event for the full window so the time stays blocked.
4. Job length. Tell us how long a typical job takes for each kind of call so Contour knows how much calendar to reserve. A diagnostic might be 90 minutes, a water heater swap three hours.
5. Buffers. Set drive time between jobs. If you tell us 30 minutes, Contour will not book a 10 am window if there is a job ending at 9:50 on the same calendar.
6. Daily cap. Optionally, cap how many jobs Contour may book per calendar per day. Some owners want the last slot held open.
7. Booking horizon. How far out can Contour book? Two weeks is typical.
8. Service area. Contour confirms the address is inside your counties or zips before it books. Give us the list.

Decide what goes in the event

Your tech reads the event on their phone in the truck. Make it useful.

1. Title. Pick a format. Most shops use: [Tier] Problem - Customer last name - City. Example: URGENT Burst pipe - Alvarez - Framingham.
2. Location field. Contour writes the full service address so the tech can tap it for directions.
3. Description. Contour writes the caller's name and callback number, the problem in the caller's words, the answers to triage questions, any shutoffs the caller already turned, whether they are an existing customer, and a link to the recording and transcript.
4. Color. If you want Urgent jobs in red and routine jobs in blue, tell us. Google Calendar supports event colors and Contour can set them.
5. Guests. Contour can add the tech's email as a guest so the event hits their phone with a notification. Optional, but handy for the on-call calendar.

Contour never puts pricing in the event unless it is a price you approved Contour to say (for example a diagnostic fee).

Test it, then see how changes show up

Run one test call before you rely on it.

1. Forward your line or call your Contour number directly. Play a customer with a real address in your area. Pick a Same-day scenario.
2. Let Contour offer windows. Notice that it skips anything you already have blocked.
3. Book a window. Open Google Calendar. Confirm the event is on the right calendar, in the right window, with the title format, address, and description you wanted.
4. Check your phone for the summary text. It should arrive within about a minute of hang-up.
5. Delete the test event.

Reschedules and cancellations happen on the calendar, not in Contour.

• If a customer calls back and Contour reschedules, Contour moves the existing event to the new window and adds a note at the top of the description with the old time and the reason.
• If a customer cancels through Contour, Contour either marks the title CANCELED and leaves it as a record or deletes it, whichever you prefer.
• If your office moves or deletes an event directly in Google Calendar, Contour sees the change the next time it reads availability and books around it. No sync step needed.
• If a tech adds a personal block, Contour honors it on the next call.

Tips for a two-truck shop

Two trucks is where Google Calendar starts to need a little structure. What works:

1. One calendar per truck, named for the truck, not the tech. Techs change. Trucks and routes change less. "Truck 1" and "Truck 2" survive turnover.
2. Assign call types to trucks when it matters. If one tech does water heaters and the other does drains, tell us. Contour books the heater call on Truck 1 even if Truck 2 is wide open.
3. Default to "first available" otherwise. For general calls, let Contour book onto whichever truck has the open window closest to the caller's preference.
4. Use the on-call calendar for nights. Rotate who subscribes to it each week. Contour books Urgent after-hours jobs there and texts the on-call number.
5. Put route blocks on the calendar. If Truck 1 is on the north side all Tuesday morning, add an all-morning event titled "North side only." Contour will not book over it, and your tech will not drive across the county between jobs.
6. Review Friday afternoon. Look at next week on both calendars and move anything that does not make sense. Contour reads the moves and adjusts.

If you outgrow Google Calendar, see how to connect Contour to ServiceTitan. Those are the two scheduling integrations Contour supports today; more detail is on the Google Calendar integration page.