Learn how to set up your event types in Cal.com

What are event types in Cal.com

In Cal.com, event types are the different categories of appointments, meetings, or sessions that you can set up and manage based on your specific needs. These event types allow you to tailor the scheduling experience for yourself, your team, or your entire organization, ensuring that each type of meeting is handled according to its own rules, availability, and structure.

The different types of event types

Cal.com offers a variety of event types that cater to different scheduling needs. Understanding these options is essential to creating a smooth and efficient scheduling process. Each event type provides unique features and functionalities to help you organize your calendar based on how you work, whether you're scheduling personal meetings or managing team-wide appointments. Let's take a closer look at the different types of event types you can choose from in Cal.com.

Personal scheduling event types

Personal event types in Cal.com are the most common type of event and are designed for one-on-one meetings. Whether it's for consultations, interviews, or private sessions, this event type makes it easy to schedule dedicated time with someone. You can set your availability and meeting duration (e.g., 30 minutes or an hour) and share the booking link, allowing the other person to choose a time that works for both of you.

While typically used for one-on-one meetings, personal event types can also be adjusted to include additional participants, making it flexible for small group meetings or team check-ins when needed.

Collective scheduling event types

Collective event types in Cal.com simplify the scheduling process when multiple hosts are involved. Rather than coordinating separate schedules for each person, a collective event allows you to bring together multiple team members or hosts to meet with an external participant or group at once. For example, a sales demo might involve a couple of account executives and a solutions engineer, or a hiring interview could bring together a recruiter and a department manager.

This type of event solves many scheduling challenges for teams. It eliminates endless email chains trying to find a time that works for everyone, reduces the risk of double-booking, and helps ensure all necessary participants are present at the meeting. Collective events streamline coordination and enhance transparency, making the scheduling process more efficient for everyone involved.

Round-robin scheduling event types

Round robin event types in Cal.com are the most commonly used team event type, helping teams distribute tasks or appointments evenly among multiple team members in a cyclic order. This ensures fairness and prevents any team member from being overloaded. When clients book appointments, the system rotates available time slots between team members, providing clients with more options while keeping the workload balanced. It’s particularly useful for sales, customer support, and healthcare teams that need to manage high volumes of tasks or appointments.

The benefits of round robin scheduling include fair workload distribution, increased efficiency, and improved client satisfaction. It automates task assignments, reducing manual effort and ensuring accountability. Whether you choose load balancing or maximize availability, round robin helps streamline scheduling, ensuring a smooth process for both your team and clients.

Managed scheduling event types

Managed event types in Cal.com are designed to give teams greater control and consistency over their event scheduling. With managed events, team admins can create event templates that maintain uniformity across the team, ensuring consistency in booking questions, duration, and reminders. This feature is particularly useful for teams that need to maintain a professional, standardized booking process while still allowing individual team members to personalize certain aspects of the event.

The main benefit of managed events is the ability to lock critical fields, preventing errors and maintaining uniformity across all team members using the event type. While admins control essential details, they can unlock non-critical fields (like the title or description) to allow personalization where necessary. This feature is perfect for teams that need both control and flexibility, ensuring a smooth and standardized scheduling process that reduces errors and improves onboarding for new team members.

How to create an event type in Cal.com

Creating an event type in Cal.com is simple and can be done in just a few steps. Here’s how you can set it up:

1. Log into Cal.com

Log into your Cal.com account or create a new Cal.com account.

2. Create a new event type

Once you’re logged in, go to the event types dashboard and click on the “+ New” button to start creating a new event type.

3. Select the type of event type

Select the type of event you want to create. Personal, managed, collective or round-robin. Then, fill out the basic details for your event, such as the event name, duration, and description.

4. Set up event participants (not needed for personal events)

For collective or round robin events, you’ll need to select which team members should be part of the event. You can pick each team member individually or select a whole (sub)team. For managed events, choose the team members that should use this template.

5. Configure availability

After setting up participants, click on the availability tab to select the time slots that work for everyone. For personal events, you can add your own availability to suit your individual schedule. For managed events, the admin can lock the availability settings, or team members can personalize their availability if it’s unlocked.

6. Finalize your setup

Customize any additional settings such as reminders, booking questions, and meeting links, depending on the type of event. Once you’ve made all the necessary adjustments, save your event type. If you need more detailed information on these features, continue reading the article for further insights into how to configure and optimize your event types.

Event type setup in further detail

Once you've created your event type in Cal.com, you'll have access to several tabs that allow you to configure every aspect of your event. Each tab offers a unique set of features that helps you fine-tune how your events will work. From setting the basics and availability to adding advanced features like recurring options and workflows, this section will guide you through each of the tabs and how they can be used to optimize your event setup.

Let's break them down one by one to help you get the most out of your Cal.com event setup!

1. Basics tab

The Basics tab is where you set up the foundational details for your event type. Here, you can customize key information like the title, description, and event duration to match your needs. Let’s break down the key settings in the Basics tab:

• Basic information:
  Start by adding the title and description for your event. You can also choose the interface language for the event. An exciting feature here is the ability to toggle on the option to translate the title and description to the visitor's browser language using AI. This helps create a more personalized experience for your international clients by automatically adjusting the language to match their preferences.

• Duration of the event:
  In this section, you can define the event duration in minutes. You can also enable the feature Allow booker to select from multiple durations. When activated, this allows the booker to choose from several duration options, such as 15 or 30 minutes. You can also set a default duration—so if a booker doesn’t select a duration, the default will be used (e.g., 15 minutes).

• Location:
  For location settings, you can select from three options:

  • Conferencing: Choose a conferencing tool that you’ve added in the apps marketplace or conferencing settings.

  • In-person: If the event is in person, select either the attendee’s or organizer’s address.

  • Other: For custom locations or link meetings, select this option. You can even allow multiple locations, giving the booker the flexibility to choose one that works best for them.

2. Availability tab

The Availability tab allows you to select time slots for your event. By default, it uses your general availability schedule, but you can customize it. For personal events, participants can add their own availability. For managed events, the admin can lock the settings or allow team members to adjust them. For round-robin and collective events, you can select per team member which availability schedule should be used, ensuring all participants are available before scheduling.

3. Assignment tab (only for collective, round-robin and managed events)

The Assignment tab is where you manage team member assignments for round-robin, collective, and managed events.

For managed and collective events, assigning team members is straightforward—you simply select the individuals who should be included in the event. You can also add future team members to these events, ensuring that new staff members are automatically included.

For round-robin events, there are more advanced assignment options. After selecting your team members, you can further customize the round-robin setup by choosing between two modes:

• Load balancing: Evenly distributes appointments or tasks among team members.

• Maximize availability: Rotates available time slots between team members to give bookers more options and increase booking chances.

Additionally, you can adjust team member priorities (e.g., high or low priority), enable weighted distribution (to allocate tasks based on percentage), and set fixed hosts (to ensure key individuals are always assigned). For more complex setups, you can also create round robin groups to organize team members by department or role, enhancing collaboration.

4. Limits tab

The Limits tab allows you to configure various restrictions for your event type, giving you more control over bookings. You can set limits for things like buffer times, booking frequency, minimum notice, and more to ensure that your schedule runs smoothly. It’s recommended to toggle all features on once to see how they work and adjust them according to your needs. This tab provides a flexible way to customize your event availability and manage bookings efficiently.

5. Advanced tab

The Advanced tab provides extensive customization options for your event types. It includes the ability to add booking questions, where you can request various types of information, including short text, long text, emails, and phone numbers. You can create email-based bookings (requiring only an email) or phone-based bookings (requiring only a phone number) to suit your needs.

Beyond booking questions, this tab allows you to configure additional settings such as calendar integration, booking confirmations, and rescheduling rules. You can enable or disable features like email verification, cancellation, and rescheduling, as well as set up redirects after booking and customize the appearance of your events.

It’s recommended to toggle all features on one by one to explore how each one works and find the best configuration for your booking process.

6. Recurring tab

The Recurring tab allows you to set up events that repeat on a regular basis, such as weekly classes or team meetings. You can choose the frequency (e.g., weekly, monthly) and set a maximum number of occurrences. If a booker unsubscribes, all future events are automatically cancelled. Rescheduling of recurring events isn’t possible, so it's important to adjust the schedule carefully.

7. Apps tab

The Apps tab in Cal.com allows you to extend the functionality of your events by integrating with various calendar providers, video conferencing software, and other platforms. Apps can also add extra features, such as the Wipe my Cal app for mass rescheduling your day. You can browse the Cal.com app store, find apps by category, and install them with just a click. Some apps may require authentication, like connecting your Google account.

Once installed, you can manage your apps, enable or disable integrations, and adjust settings directly from the Installed apps page.

8. Workflows tab

The Workflows tab in Cal.com allows you to automate actions based on specific triggers, such as when a booking is created, canceled, or about to start. This reduces manual effort, improves communication, and ensures that your scheduling process runs smoothly.

You can set up a workflow by selecting a trigger (e.g., booking created, event canceled) and defining an action (e.g., send an email, send an SMS, or send a WhatsApp message). You can further customize messages using dynamic text variables, such as event details, attendee information, and meeting URLs. This allows you to send personalized notifications, reminders, and follow-up messages automatically.

It's recommended to test all available triggers and actions to fully understand the capabilities of the workflows and optimize your scheduling process. For more detailed guidance, check out our full Workflows Help Article.

9. Webhooks tab

The Webhooks tab allows you to automate integrations with other apps by triggering actions when specific events happen in Cal.com, such as a booking being created, canceled, or rescheduled. You can set up webhooks to listen to these events and send data to a custom subscriber URL, or use integrations like Zapier to connect to other apps without requiring development work.

Webhooks can be set at different levels, including user-level, event-type level, and team-level, allowing for precise control over which events trigger actions. You can choose from a variety of triggers (e.g., booking created, meeting started, recording ready) and actions (e.g., sending emails, SMS, or updating external apps). Custom payloads can also be used, making it easy to tailor the data sent with each webhook.

It’s recommended to experiment with these features and test the webhooks to understand how they work in your setup. For more detailed guidance, check out our full Webhooks Help Article.

Are you ready to set up your event types?

Now that you’re familiar with the steps and features for creating and customizing event types in Cal.com, you have all the tools you need to optimize your scheduling process. Whether you’re managing personal, round-robin, collective, or recurring events, you can tailor each event type to fit your needs. Start experimenting with these settings and create a seamless, efficient booking experience for you and your team.

Ready to get started? Sign up for Cal.com now and streamline your scheduling today!