You can synchronize your FacileThings Calendar with your Outlook calendars. To do this you have to connect both applications using the “Calendars” connection box that you will see in the Integration section of your Account.

Note: If you work with different Google and Outlook accounts to manage your personal and professional calendars, you can bring all these data sources together in your FacileThings calendar. You can connect as many Google and Outlook calendars to your FacileThings account as you need.

Once you give FacileThings permissions to access your Outlook Calendar data, a dialog will appear where you can choose which Outlook calendar to synchronize:

The main (default) calendar is the connected calendar without a tag. You can have only one. All the items in the FacileThings calendar that lack a specific calendar tag will be synced to your Outlook default calendar.

When you connect an Outlook calendar, the initial synchronization may take some time if you have many items. After that, only changes will be synchronized.

You can add as many calendars as you need. After linking your default calendar, feel free to add as many others as you like.

For any additional calendar (i.e. non-default), you’ll need to assign a tag so the system can distinguish events from each calendar:

For example: if you have an Outlook calendar for running training and tag it running , events from that calendar will appear in FacileThings with the #running tag:

Similarly, if you create an event in FacileThings and tag it #running, it will go to your “Running” calendar in Outlook.

If you add a calendar tag to a Calendar item, the event will be moved to the corresponding Outlook calendar. If you later remove the tag, the event will be moved back to the default calendar.

Synchronization is automatic and bidirectional

Whenever you create, modify, or delete an event in Outlook, the change will appear in your FacileThings calendar within seconds.

Similarly, whenever you create, modify, or delete an event in FacileThings, the corresponding change will be reflected in Outlook almost immediately.

If you move an item out of the FacileThings Calendar into another list, the event will be removed from Outlook — and will reappear if you move it back to the Calendar.

If you move the item to the Done list, you can choose what happens to the event in Outlook. You have three options:

• Do nothing: leave the event unchanged in Outlook.
• Modify text: keep the event but prefix its title with “* [text]” to mark it done.
• Delete event: remove it from Outlook. Both calendars stay in sync.

Recurring Events

Outlook recurring events are handled specially so they align with the GTD methodology.

Every time a recurring event is created in Outlook, the occurrences of the next three months are synchronized with FacileThings. . The first occurrence becomes a live action — following GTD® — while the rest remain visible in special calendar views so you get a comprehensive view of your upcoming schedule.

In FacileThings, only the first occurrence can be edited. To modify a future occurrence, you’ll need to do so in Outlook; the update will sync back to FacileThings.

Just like with FacileThings’
Routines, when you mark the first occurrence as Done (or delete it), the next one automatically becomes active and Outlook’s occurrence list is updated — so you always keep a three-month planning window.

If you assign a Goal or Area of Focus to the current occurrence, the following ones will inherit the same Goal and Area of Focus.

Management of private events

You may not want certain events you have in FacileThings to be seen in the Outlook calendar, and vice versa. You can control this through a special tag:

If you prefer that certain events remain private, use the #private tag. Events tagged #private in FacileThings will not synchronize to Outlook — and similarly, Outlook events tagged #private will not sync to FacileThings.

Things to have in mind

• Before connecting any calendar, make sure it uses the same time zone as the one set in FacileThings (in the Account section). If the time zones differ, event times will shift in the destination calendar and your schedule may become inaccurate.
• If you update something in FacileThings while Outlook is open, the Outlook Calendar events will update within a few seconds. But if you update the Outlook Calendar while keeping the FacileThings Calendar open, you’ll need to refresh that page to see the changes. The page doesn’t refresh automatically.
• When you disconnect a calendar, nothing is deleted — but syncing stops. If you reconnect it later (after external changes), you may see inconsistencies that you’ll need to adjust manually.