Help Centre: how scheduling works

Getting started

Signing up takes about two minutes. There are two ways in.

With an email address

Enter your name, work email and a password of at least 8 characters. We email you a confirmation link straight away. You cannot use Meetrao until you click it. this stops anyone signing up with an address that is not theirs.

The link lasts 24 hours. If it does not arrive, check your spam folder, then use Resend the email on the waiting screen. Typed your address wrong? Use a different email takes you back to sign-up.

With Google

Continue with Google and you skip the confirmation step entirely. Google has already verified the address. You go straight to setup.

Forgot your password? Use Forgot? next to the password field. We send a reset link that expires in one hour.

Setting up: the five steps

After you confirm your email, Meetrao walks you through setup. The tracker at the top shows where you are. Everything here can be changed later, so do not agonise over it.

WelcomeA short summary of what is coming. Nothing to fill in.

Connect your calendarOne Google permission. Meetrao reads when you are busy, writes each booking to your calendar and invites your guest. It never reads what your other meetings are about; for the events it creates itself it also reads whether your guest accepted.

Create your first meetingA name, a description and a duration. This is what guests see and book. Most people start with one and add more later.

Set your hoursTick the days you work and the times within them. Your timezone is detected automatically.

You are readyYour booking link is shown with a copy button, plus a summary of what you set up. Send it to someone.

You can skip connecting your calendar, but then Meetrao cannot see when you are busy, guests may be offered times you already have something in. Connect it before you share your link.

Need to stop halfway? Use the account button at the top-right of the setup screen to log out. Your progress is saved and you can pick it up later.

Google Calendar: what the permission covers

Meetrao asks for one Google permission, at step two of setup. It is the part people hesitate over, so here is the whole of it: what is read, what is written, what is never touched, and how to take it back.

Why it is needed at all. A booking page that cannot see your calendar is a booking page that offers times you are already busy. Meetrao checks your existing events before it offers a slot, and writes each confirmed booking back so the meeting appears on both calendars with a Meet link, rather than leaving you to copy it across.

What is readBusy periods: times, not titles. And, for an event Meetrao created itself, whether your guest accepted or declined it.

What is writtenOne event per confirmed booking, with its Google Meet link and your guest as an attendee. Moved when a booking moves; removed when one is cancelled.

What is never readThe titles, descriptions, locations, attachments or guest lists of your other meetings. Meetrao never lists or searches your calendar.

How to stop itSettings → Calendar → Disconnect. That revokes the permission with Google, not only with Meetrao, so it disappears from your Google account's third-party access list too.

The three permissions, in Google’s own words

Google’s consent screen names scopes, not features. The middle one sounds broader than what Meetrao does with it. That is Google’s vocabulary, and there is no narrower scope that can put an event on your calendar and invite somebody to it.

See when you are busy or freecalendar.freebusyChecked every time somebody opens your booking page, so a slot you already have something in is never offered. It returns busy periods (start and end times) and nothing else.

See, edit and delete events on your calendarcalendar.eventsCreating one event per booking with its Meet link, inviting your guest so it reaches their calendar, moving that event when a booking is rescheduled, and removing it when one is cancelled. It is also what lets Meetrao read whether your guest accepted that particular invitation.

Your Google account’s email addressuserinfo.emailShown on the Calendar settings panel so you can tell which account is connected, a work one from a personal one.

Connecting it

At step two of setup, or any time afterwards from Settings → Calendar. You will be sent to Google, asked to choose an account, and shown the three permissions above. Approving returns you to Meetrao with the calendar connected; the panel then shows which Google account it is, so a personal one connected by mistake is obvious.

You can skip it during setup and your link still works, but until a calendar is connected, Meetrao cannot see conflicts, and your booking page says so.

Disconnecting it

Settings → Calendar → Disconnect. Meetrao revokes the token with Google rather than only forgetting it, so the entry disappears from your Google account’s third-party access list as well. Bookings already made stay where they are, on both calendars; new bookings stop being checked for conflicts and stop creating events.

When something goes wrong

“Connect” sends me back with an errorAlmost always a redirect URI that is not registered on the Google OAuth client for the address you are using. The sign-in callback and the calendar callback are two different URIs and both must be registered for every domain the app runs on.

It says my calendar needs reconnectingGoogle refused the refresh token. The usual cause is that access was revoked from the Google account's security page, the password changed, or the app is still in testing mode, where refresh tokens expire after seven days. Reconnecting fixes it; publishing the OAuth consent screen stops it recurring.

Guests were offered a time I was busyEither the calendar is disconnected (the booking page says so) or the conflicting event is on a calendar other than the one you connected. Meetrao checks the calendar belonging to the connected account only.

The booking is on my calendar but my guest never got itGoogle sends the invitation, not Meetrao. Check the guest's spam folder, and that the address on the booking is right. The confirmation email Meetrao sends separately carries the same Meet link and an .ics file.

I use Outlook or iCloudMeetrao cannot see those. Google Calendar is the only provider, which is listed as a limitation on the pricing page rather than discovered here.

Anything else, tell us what happened, including the address you were on and roughly when, which is usually enough to find it.

Dashboard

The first thing you see, designed to be read once in the morning and then closed. It greets you with today’s date, the current time, and when your next meeting starts.

Four cards summarise where things stand: how many meetings are Upcoming, when your Next meeting is and with whom, how many Active meetings can be booked from your link, and your average reply time, how long people take to book after opening your link.

Below that, Today lists what is happening now, each row with a Join button that opens Google Meet directly. Later this week follows. Details on any row opens the full booking, including any note your guest left.

If your calendar is not connected, an amber banner sits at the top until it is. It is worth clearing.

Copy link in the header copies your booking link. If more than one meeting is active it becomes a dropdown, so you can copy the link for a specific meeting instead of your general one.

Meetings: what people can book

A “meeting” is a type of appointment, not a single booking. Most people have two or three, a short intro call, a standard consultation, a longer deep dive. Each has its own link.

Creating one

Give it a name guests will recognise and a description, both appear on your booking page. Pick a duration (15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes). Location is Google Meet; it is the only option in this release, and every booking gets its own link.

Booking rules

Three settings protect your day:

Buffer between meetingsAdds a gap either side of a booking, so you are not on calls back to back. None, 5, 10 or 15 minutes.

Minimum noticeHow close to the start someone can book. Set to 1 hour and nobody can grab the next ten minutes.

Booking windowHow far ahead people can book: 7, 14, 30 or 60 days. Keeps your calendar from filling out to next quarter.

Turning one off

The Active switch controls whether a meeting can be booked. Switch it off and it stays in your list (with its settings and history intact) but nobody can book it from your link. Better than deleting something you might want back.

Preview shows you exactly what a guest sees. Worth a look before you send the link to anyone.

Availability: when you are free

One weekly schedule covers all your meetings. Tick the days you work and set the hours for each.

A day can have more than one range, Add hours lets you set 9:00–12:00 and 14:00–17:00 so nobody books over lunch. Unticking a day marks it Unavailable but keeps its hours, so switching it back on later takes one click.

Your timezone is detected from your browser and you can change it. Guests always see your hours converted into their own timezone, so you never have to do the arithmetic. Ninety-four timezones are supported and they stay correct through daylight saving.

These hours are the outer boundary. Within them, Meetrao still hides anything your Google Calendar says you are busy for, so a meeting already in your calendar at 10am will not be offered, even though Tuesday 9–5 is open.

Changes are not live until you press Save availability. The label beside the button tells you whether you have unsaved changes.

Bookings: who booked you

Every booking, split into Upcoming and Past. Each row shows the guest and their email, which meeting they booked, the date and time, and whether it is confirmed or cancelled. Search by guest name or email address.

Join appears on anything still to come. Details opens the full record, including the note your guest left, if any, and is where you cancel from.

Cancelling

Open Details, then Cancel meeting. Your guest is emailed, the calendar event is removed, and the slot opens for someone else to book. It cannot be undone, but the guest can book a new time from your link.

Guests can cancel too, from the confirmation email or their confirmation page. You are emailed when they do.

Emails and notifications

Meetrao emails both sides whenever a booking is made, changed or cancelled. The message carries everything needed: the meeting, both names, the date and time in the right timezone, the duration and the Google Meet link.

You control which of these reach you in Settings → Notifications:

New bookingSomeone books a time with you.On

Booking changedA booking is rescheduled or edited.On

Booking cancelledYou or your guest cancels.On

Meeting remindersA nudge the day before and an hour before. Your guest is reminded either way.On

Daily agendaOne email each morning listing the day’s meetings.Off

Product newsOccasional updates about new Meetrao features.Off

Turning these off only affects your inbox. Your guests still get their confirmations, and you will still receive password and security emails, which cannot be switched off.

What your guests see

Your guests never sign up, never download anything and never work out a timezone. They open your link and see your name, title, photo and the meeting description on the left, with a calendar on the right.

Days you do not work are dimmed. They pick a date, then a time from the slots that are genuinely open, then give a name, an email and (if they want) a short note. That is the whole flow: two taps and a form.

Because Meetrao invites them to the calendar event, the meeting appears on their calendar automatically with the Meet link attached. They do not have to add it themselves. The confirmation page shows the booking with a Join Google Meet button, an .ics download if they use something other than Google, and a way to cancel. The same details arrive by email.

If someone else takes the slot while they are choosing, Meetrao tells them plainly and refreshes the list. Nothing is scheduled unless it actually succeeded.

Your logo and your colours

A booking page is often the first thing somebody sees of your business, and by default it carries our mark and our green. On Pro you can replace both, under Settings → Branding.

Your logo

Upload a PNG, JPG or WEBP under 1 MB and it appears at the top of your booking page in place of the Meetrao mark. It is shown about a third larger than our own mark, ours is a wordmark drawn to sit quietly, and most logos are square or near-square, which reads as half the size at the same height. A wide logo still works better than a tall one, and the file you would put in an email signature is usually the right one. SVG is not accepted: an SVG can contain a script, and one served from our storage would run on our domain. Export a PNG at two or three times the size you need and it will stay crisp.

Your colours

You pick two: an accent and a page background. Everything else is worked out from them, the chosen date in the calendar, the confirm button, the highlights, the links, the focus rings, the panels and every border. You do not set those individually, and there is no way to end up with a page where five shades disagree.

The accent is the colour things are made of: buttons, the selected date, the badges.

The background is the page behind the booking card. Leave it alone and we use a pale wash of your accent, which is usually what you want. The point is that none of Meetrao’s own palette is left on the page either way. Our warm grey, our cream panels and our green are all replaced the moment you choose anything at all, including on the cookie notice.

Dark backgrounds work. The booking card itself stays white, because that is what a form is read on, and the few pieces of text that sit directly on the page, the legal links in the footer, the small label beside your logo, switch to a light colour to suit. You do not have to think about it.

The text on top is chosen for you, by measurement. A yellow button gets dark text and a navy one gets white, because a readable page matters more than a consistent one. The same colour used as text (a link, say) is darkened until it is readable on white, which is why a bright brand looks slightly deeper where it appears as words than where it appears as a button. That is deliberate, and it is what keeps the page legible for everyone.

Two kinds of colour are refused, each with a reason shown. A colour too close to white (#FFF9E6, a pale mint) makes a button nobody recognises as a button. A colour exactly midway between light and dark (around #7A7A7A) has no readable label at all, in either white or black. In both cases, pick a deeper or lighter shade of the same hue.

The preview on the Branding screen is built from the same code as the real page, so what it shows is what your guests get. You do not need to save to see it.

Where it shows

Your booking page, the page for each meeting, the confirmation, the reschedule and cancel screens, and the embed widget on your own site. Your logo is not repeated inside the embed, because your site already has it at the top of the page, and nor is your background, since the widget sits on whatever colour your own page already has. Your accent carries through it. Emails to guests stay in the plain format they are in today.

The “Powered by Meetrao” line comes off every one of those pages while you are on Pro. If a subscription lapses, your logo and colour stay saved but your pages go back to ours, and everything returns the moment Pro does. You do not upload anything again.

Your own domain

On Pro you can serve your booking page from a name you own, so the link you hand out is meeting.yourcompany.com/your-name/intro rather than ours. Set it up under Settings → Branding.

Three steps

One. Type the name you want to use, a subdomain such as meeting.yourcompany.com or book.yourcompany.com, and press Claim. A domain can belong to one Meetrao account, so claiming it holds it for you.

Two. Add the CNAME record we show you at whoever manages your DNS, your registrar, Cloudflare, your hosting provider. It points the subdomain at us.

Three. Press Check DNS. DNS usually takes a few minutes and occasionally an hour. Once it resolves, the certificate is issued automatically and the page is live. There is nothing to install and nothing to renew.

What the links look like

All of these work once the domain is live:

meeting.yourcompany.com/your-name/intro, one of your meetings on your own domain. This is the one to put in a signature.
Each person in the company gets their own name in the path, so meeting.yourcompany.com/sarah/review is Sarah’s.
The domain on its own is not a page. Every link names a specific meeting, so there is nothing at meeting.yourcompany.com to show.

Your meetrao.com meeting links keep working the whole time, so anything already shared or printed is safe. Search engines are told your domain is the real address, which is the point of having one. Confirmation links in emails to guests, and the legal pages, are served unchanged on your domain.

A custom domain serves your account only. A link on your domain that names somebody else is read as one of your meetings and shows nothing if you have no meeting by that name.

Taking it back

Remove releases the domain immediately and your meetrao.com link carries on. Remember to delete the CNAME record at your DNS provider afterwards, or the name will point at a page that no longer answers.

Settings and your account

Settings live behind your profile at the bottom of the sidebar. Click it and choose Settings, or Log out. Each panel has its own address, so you can link straight to one.

ProfileYour name, job title, email, photo and username. Your username is your booking link, so changing it changes the link you have already shared.

CalendarConnect or disconnect Google Calendar, and set your timezone. Disconnecting stops conflict checking straight away.

BookingDefaults applied to every new meeting you create, a starting duration and minimum notice, so you are not setting them each time.

BrandingYour logo, your colour and your own domain on the pages guests see. Part of Pro. The controls are there on Free, with a note saying so.

NotificationsThe five switches covering which emails Meetrao sends you.

AccountYour email address and whether it is verified, changing your password, logging out, and deleting your account.

Deleting your account is immediate and permanent. Your booking page stops working, every upcoming meeting is cancelled, your guests are notified, and your data is erased. We keep no copy. Export anything you need first.

Common questions

Can I have more than one type of meeting?Yes. Create as many as you like: each gets its own link, and your main link shows all the active ones.

Can guests reschedule?Not yet. They can cancel and book a new time from your link, which achieves the same thing in two steps.

Does Meetrao read my meeting titles or notes?Almost never. It sees only whether a period is busy or free, titles, descriptions and attachments are never read. It does write the bookings you accept and invite your guest to them, and for those events it reads one more thing: whether the guest accepted or declined, so it can tell you when somebody says no.

What if I disconnect my calendar?Your link keeps working, but Meetrao can no longer see conflicts, so guests may be offered times you are not free. A banner reminds you until you reconnect. Disconnecting also revokes Meetrao's access with Google, so the permission disappears from your Google account, not just from ours.

Can I use something other than Google Meet?Yes. A meeting can be a Google Meet, a phone call, an address, or anything else you describe, your own Zoom or Teams link, for instance. Meetrao creates Meet links itself; for the others it passes on exactly what you wrote.

Can two people book the same slot?No. The slot is checked again at the moment of booking. If someone got there first, the second person is told immediately and nothing is scheduled.

Do guests need an account?Never. They give a name, an email and optionally a note. That is all.

Why can I not sign in after signing up?Your email address is probably not confirmed yet. Check your inbox for the verification link, or ask for a new one from the waiting screen.

Does the meeting appear on my guest’s calendar too?Yes, by default. Meetrao creates one event and adds your guest as an attendee, so the meeting, description and Meet link appear on both calendars. If they do not use Google Calendar, the invitation still arrives by email and they can download an .ics file.

What does it cost?Nothing while Meetrao is in beta. If paid plans arrive we will email you first, and you would have to opt in, a free account is never billed automatically.

How do I get my data out?Email us and we will send you a copy. Do it before deleting your account, since deletion is immediate and we keep no copy.

Still stuck?Email us and a person will read it. Tell us what you were trying to do and what happened instead.

Contact support