Emails and Replies
Bookings sends email confirmations and updates to you and your invitees while it manages a booking. Once BusyCal finishes adding the meeting and any call link, later changes are handled through your calendar account. This guide explains which emails to expect and where replies go.
Who Sends the Emails
All booking emails come from bookings@busybook.me:
- Emails to invitees show your name as the sender, followed by "via BusyCal", for example "Jane Appleseed via BusyCal".
- Emails to you show BusyCal Bookings as the sender.
The bookings@busybook.me mailbox isn't monitored. Email replies are directed to you or the invitee, as described in Where Replies Go.
What Invitees Receive
Invitee emails include the meeting time, page title, your name, the invitee's name and the location. Added guests receive separate emails with the meeting details and any calendar attachment. They don't receive the main invitee's booking links, phone number or answers.
Pending requests don't include a calendar attachment. Confirmed meetings do, except for some Microsoft 365 calendars (see The Invitation from Your Calendar). Invitees can open the attachment to add the meeting to their calendar. If your calendar account doesn't send invitations, this is their only invitation. Updates from Bookings include an updated attachment.
| What happened | The invitee's email |
|---|---|
| They booked on a booking page that confirms automatically, or you approved their request | "Your meeting is confirmed", with the calendar file |
| They sent a request | "Request sent to" you, with the time until which their time is held, and no calendar file |
| You declined their request | "Your request was declined", with any reason you added |
| Their request expired | "Your request has expired" |
| They withdrew their request | "Your request is withdrawn" |
| You moved the meeting | "Your meeting has a new time", with an updated calendar file |
| You cancelled the meeting | "Your meeting is cancelled", with any reason you added, and a calendar file that removes it from their calendar |
| BusyCal created the call, or you added a call link | "Your call link is ready", with an updated calendar file |
After BusyCal finishes saving the meeting and any call link, further updates come through your calendar account. See The Invitation from Your Calendar.
Emails use the invitee's booking language, time zone and choice of 12-hour or 24-hour times. Rescheduling a pending request sends them the new time but doesn't confirm the request.
Links in the Invitee's Emails
Confirmation emails include View Booking. Neither this page nor the booking confirmation offers reschedule or cancel controls. Invitees can respond to their calendar invitation or contact you to request a change.
Pending-request emails include View or Withdraw Request, which lets the invitee withdraw before you answer. Cancellation, decline and expiry emails offer Book a New Time instead.
Once a booking leaves the dashboard, View Booking explains that it is no longer managed by Bookings. It shows no meeting details and directs the invitee to their calendar invitation or to you. Links to ended requests or past meetings explain that the link no longer works and give the same advice.
The Invitation from Your Calendar
BusyCal adds each confirmed booking to your calendar as a meeting that you organize, with the invitee and their guests as attendees. Your calendar account can then send them its own invitation. See The Event in Your Calendar for the calendars that do.
Invitees may therefore receive two invitations: the attachment from Bookings and the invitation from your calendar account. Either can add the meeting to their calendar. After Bookings finishes with the meeting, changes and cancellations you make in your calendar reach invitees through the calendar account's invitation.
If the calendar's account has no email address that BusyCal can use for you as the organizer, the meeting in your calendar has no attendees. The calendar file in the Bookings email is then the invitee's only invitation, and changes that you make in your calendar don't reach them. Let them know yourself.
Two kinds of calendar can work differently:
When the invitee uses Google Calendar
By default, Google Calendar's Add invitations to my calendar setting is Only if the sender is known. Google then adds invitations on its own only from people in the invitee's contacts, or from people they've been in touch with before.
For other senders, your calendar's invitation waits in the invitee's email until they click I know the sender or answer it. They can also add the meeting from the calendar file in the Bookings email.
When your calendar is a Microsoft 365 calendar
This applies to Office 365 accounts that BusyCal syncs with Microsoft Graph.
For these calendars, the calendar account sends the only invitation if BusyCal had already shared the calendar and its organizer email address when the booking was made. In that case:
- The Bookings emails for that booking have no calendar file.
- The confirmation tells the invitee that the invitation comes from your calendar, in a separate email.
- Your calendar sends that invitation after BusyCal adds the meeting. So keep BusyCal running on a device that has that calendar.
- Updates and cancellations also come from your calendar.
Otherwise, Bookings includes its usual calendar attachment. This choice is fixed when the booking is made; sharing the organizer address later doesn't change existing bookings.
What You Receive
Your account email receives notices for new bookings, requests and changes made through Bookings, including your own dashboard changes. The subject identifies the update:
- New booking request
- Booking confirmed
- Booking rescheduled
- Booking cancelled
- Request withdrawn by the invitee
- Booking request declined
- Booking request expired
- This booking couldn't be completed: BusyCal didn't finish adding the meeting to your calendar by a week after its start. The email asks you to check your calendar. See A Booking Doesn't Appear in BusyCal.
Once a booking leaves the dashboard, editing the meeting in your calendar doesn't generate a Bookings email.
The email includes the meeting details, the invitee's contact details, answers, guests and message, plus any reason given for a change. If your time zone differs from the page's, Your time shows the conversion. Pending-request emails also show the deadline for your answer.
The email ends with links:
- Open in BusyCal appears first for confirmed bookings. It opens the calendar event if it exists, or the dashboard booking if it hasn't been added yet.
- View Booking opens the dashboard entry while it's available. After it leaves Bookings, the link explains why it's no longer there.
- Approve Request and Decline Request answer a request. See Answering Requests.
- Booking Page opens the booking page that was booked.
Host emails are in English. You don't receive a separate email when a call link is ready; it appears in your calendar event.
BusyCal also lists each change to your bookings and requests in its Inbox on your Mac, iPhone and iPad. On your Mac, it shows each new booking and request in Notification Center unless you turn off Show bookings in Notification Center in BusyCal > Settings > Alarms. See Bookings in BusyCal's Inbox.
Where Replies Go
- When an invitee replies to an email about their booking, the reply goes to the address set in the booking page's Replies go to. That's your account email, unless you choose another address for the booking page.
- When you reply to an email about a booking, your reply goes to the invitee.
Host emails show the reply address beside Invitee replies go to.
When an invitee accepts or declines the invitation in their calendar app, their answer shows on the meeting in your calendar, as for any meeting that you organize. Their answer doesn't change or remove the meeting. See When the Invitee Answers.
Adding a Reply Address
To send replies to another address, such as a shared team mailbox, first verify that you have access to it:
- In your dashboard, choose Settings > Email replies.
- Under Add an address, enter the address, then click Send Code.
- Open the email at that address. Enter the six-digit code under Verify an address, then click Verify Address.
- Open the booking page's editor. Under Basics, choose the address in Replies go to, then click Save.
You can also click Add Address… next to Replies go to in the booking page editor. It verifies the address in the same way, without leaving the editor.
The code expires after 10 minutes, five incorrect attempts, or a request for a new code. If the email doesn't arrive, check that mailbox's junk folder, then click Send New Code.
Email replies lists your account email and each verified address, with the booking pages that use it. To remove an address, click Remove… next to it, then click Remove Address. Replies for the booking pages that used it then go to your account email.