Calendar
The Calendar page is the primary operational view for photographers — it shows all upcoming shoots and appointments in a visual calendar.
Calendar Views
The calendar supports three views, switchable with the buttons in the top right:
| View | Best for |
|---|---|
| Month | High-level overview, planning availability |
| Week | Detailed weekly schedule with times |
| Day | Day-of detail for busy days |
Navigate between periods using the Previous / Next arrows, or click Today to jump to the current date.
Opening an entry shows its time with the studio's timezone named next to it (e.g. "14:30 CET"). If your own device is set to a different timezone, your local equivalent is shown underneath.
Who sees what
A member's calendar shows what that member may see in the rest of the app, wherever it appears: here, on the Shoots page, in Google Calendar and in the iCal feed.
- Owners, Admins and Crew see the whole studio's schedule.
- Crew with Only their projects on see their own shoots and events in full. Everything else in the studio shows as a grey Busy block with its start and end time (or All day) and nothing more: no title, no client, no place, and nothing to tap. They can see the team is booked without seeing who for. The Dashboard's Upcoming Shoots list leaves Busy entries out altogether.
Shoots vs Events
The calendar shows two types of entries:
Calendar entries have the following types:
| Type | Colour | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Shoot | Amber | A photo or video shoot, linked to a project |
| Meeting | Blue | An in-person or video meeting |
| Call | Cyan | A phone or video call |
| Appointment | Violet | A general appointment |
| Task | Slate | A task reminder on the calendar |
| Other | Grey | Anything else |
A Shoot entry automatically creates a matching shoot, with its crew and its shoot-day detail.
Creating a Shoot
Click any time slot on the calendar. A small card opens with an Add title field: type a title and Save for a quick event, or choose More options to open the full New Entry form. For a shoot, set Type to Shoot and fill in:
- Title, Type, Start and End
- Project — required for a shoot; it decides which project the shoot belongs to
- Location
- Lead / Responsible and Attendees
- Notes
Then Create. A matching entry appears on the Shoots page, where the shoot-day details — Lead photographer, 2nd photographer, Videographer, Guest count, Timeline, Client wishes, Style notes, Equipment and Internal notes — are filled in; see the shoot detail view.
Creating an Event
For an appointment that isn't a shoot, use the same card and form and pick another Type — Meeting, Call, Appointment, Task or Other. Events have a title, date/time, location, and an optional project link.
Calendar sync support
StudioFlow connects to outside calendars in two ways. Which one you can use depends on your calendar app:
| What you want | How changes flow | Supported with |
|---|---|---|
| Two-way sync — events you create, edit, or delete in StudioFlow appear in your calendar, and changes you make in that calendar flow back into StudioFlow | StudioFlow ↔ calendar | Google Calendar only |
| Read-only subscription — see your StudioFlow schedule inside your everyday calendar app | StudioFlow → your app (one way) | Any calendar app — Apple Calendar, Outlook, Google Calendar, Fastmail, and more |
Two-way sync is currently available only with Google Calendar. Apple Calendar, Outlook, and other apps are not supported for two-way sync yet. Instead, use the read-only subscription: your StudioFlow shoots and events show up automatically in your app, but edits you make there won't sync back to StudioFlow.
To subscribe read-only, open Settings → Email & calendar → Calendar, find Add this calendar to your phone or Outlook, click Copy and add the URL in your calendar app. Apple Calendar users get a one-click Add to Apple Calendar link. See iCal feed below.
Google Calendar Sync
Google Calendar sync is configured once per studio by the Owner (see Settings → Calendar). Once the studio account is connected, everyone who works the schedule — Owners, Admins and Crew — gets automatic read/write access to the studio calendar via Google's ACL sharing, whatever craft they are tagged with. They do not need to connect individual Google accounts. Two are left out. A Bookkeeper is left out for the same reason there's no Shoots page: the books don't need the shoot calendar. A Crew member with Only their projects on is left out because the shared Google calendar would show them every client's name. Turning that setting on removes their access to the studio calendar; turning it off gives it back.
How sync works — fully bidirectional
| Direction | What happens |
|---|---|
| StudioFlow → Google | New or edited shoots/events in StudioFlow push changes to Google Calendar within seconds. |
| Google → StudioFlow | Edits made directly in Google Calendar (title, time, description) are pulled back and reflected in StudioFlow roughly every 5 minutes. Deletions in Google Calendar are also detected and applied. |
If the same event is edited in both StudioFlow and Google Calendar between sync cycles, the StudioFlow version wins. A conflict is flagged in the sync-issues list (see below) so you can review it.
Sync now
Sync runs on its own — every few minutes, and at once when you create or edit an entry — so the Calendar page has no sync button. If something looks out of date, Settings → Email & calendar → Calendar has a small Sync now button next to the time of the last sync.
While no outside calendar is connected, a single line at the top of the Calendar page says so — your calendar works on its own, and Connect calendar takes you to the connection.
Sync issues
A sync issues badge appears on the calendar header when entries cannot be pushed or pulled cleanly (for example, a Google-side edit conflicts with a local change, or a Google Calendar event was deleted that StudioFlow still holds). Click the badge to open the list of sync issues, which shows each flagged entry with options to:
- Drop sync link — disconnect the StudioFlow entry from its Google Calendar counterpart (both are kept, no longer in sync).
- Delete from Google — delete the StudioFlow entry entirely (use when Google is the source of truth for that entry).
Double-Booking Awareness
The calendar visually highlights overlapping events on the same day. It is up to the team to verify photographer availability before confirming a booking — the system shows you the overlap but does not automatically block double-bookings.
If your public booking page is enabled, this calendar also drives what clients can request: busy times are hidden from the booking page automatically, and Time off blocks days or specific hours from being requested — see Booking Page → Availability.
iCal Feed
Each team member can subscribe to a personal, read-only feed in any calendar app — Apple Calendar, Outlook, Google Calendar and others. What the feed contains follows who sees what. Owners, Admins and Crew get the whole studio's schedule. Crew with Only their projects on, and Bookkeepers, get only the shoots and events they are assigned to. In Settings → Email & calendar → Calendar, under Add this calendar to your phone or Outlook, click Copy (or Add to Apple Calendar) and add it in your app.
This is the universal, read-only option — it works with every calendar app, but changes you make in that app do not flow back to StudioFlow (for that, use two-way Google Calendar sync). If you regenerate your feed token, the old URL stops working immediately.