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Use cases → Scheduling

Block time across multiple user calendars with a service account

Reserve meeting slots on behalf of several users using domain-wide delegation, with reliable tracking of which calendars were actually blocked.

Who it is forTeams automating resource booking or coordination across multiple users in the same domain.
APIsCalendar API
Typical scopescalendar

The problem

Manually coordinating availability across a group is slow and error-prone. Automating blocking on behalf of users avoids double-bookings and ensures everyone is reserved, but only if every calendar reflects the intended hold.

How it works

  1. Impersonate each target user via the service account using domain-wide delegation.
  2. Insert the event directly to each user's primary calendar, setting the organiser as the service account.
  3. Track the eventId returned for each insertion and log it with the corresponding user.
  4. Handle insert failures and partial success by clearly surfacing which calendars were not blocked.

What changes

All specified users have the time reliably held in their calendars, and failures or partial bookings are logged for follow-up.

The trap in this one. Calendar API event insertions are not atomic: if you insert for five users and one fails (e.g. due to a quota or a transient error), the others may still be blocked. Relying on a single eventId or assuming all inserts succeeded leads to ghost holds or silent gaps. Always log per-user eventIds and treat each insert as independently commit-or-fail.

Questions people ask

Can I use a single event for all users?

No, impersonation means you must insert separately into each user's calendar. There is no cross-calendar atomicity, and events do not automatically stay in sync.

What if a user's calendar is delegated to someone else?

Delegation does not affect domain-wide delegation: as long as your service account is configured, you can insert directly regardless of user-level delegates.

Want this built?

This is a pattern we run in production. We will set up the delegation and build this on top of it — $500 per hour, most of it working the same day.

Talk to us Or read the setup guide

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