Google Calendar

Groundbase syncs two ways with your Google Calendar. Connect once and:

• Tasks, events, and meetings you create in Groundbase show up on your Google Calendar within seconds (web/mobile/AI writes) or 1-2 minutes (desktop writes).
• Events you add in Google Calendar come into Groundbase within a minute or two — an interview you typed in, a dentist appointment, an invite you accepted. Timed events come in as events; all-day events, and events you've set to Free in Google, come in as tasks on that date.
• Changes you make in Google Calendar sync back to Groundbase within a minute or two — reschedule a meeting, edit the title, update the location, and Groundbase picks it up.
• Colours match. Groundbase uses Google Calendar's own event colours, so a colour picked on either side shows on the other.
• Sign in once from any device. The connection is account-wide.

How connecting works

The OAuth flow opens your default browser on a short Groundbase confirm page, then Google's sign-in (see the steps below). After you pick an account, review the requested scopes (calendar.events for create/read/update + calendar.readonly for the inbound sync), and click Allow, you're redirected back to the Settings page with a "Connected" banner.

We never see your Google password. The OAuth flow gives us a refresh token that's stored encrypted in Groundbase's cloud database — same encryption as your email IMAP password.

Connecting

Settings → Google Calendar → Connect Google Calendar.

1. Your default browser opens a Groundbase page asking Connect Google Calendar to the Groundbase account …?, showing part of your account's email address. Check it's yours and press Connect Google Calendar; Google's sign-in opens next. Each connect link works once, so if you didn't finish, start again from Settings.
2. Pick your account → review what we're asking for (calendar.events for create/read/update, calendar.readonly for the inbound sync)
3. Click Allow
4. You're redirected back to the Settings page with a "Connected" banner

We never see your Google password. The OAuth flow gives us a refresh token that's stored encrypted in Groundbase's cloud database — same encryption as your email IMAP password.

What syncs

The contact name, deal name, and any notes you put on the task come through in the event description.

Task vs Event vs Meeting — what's the difference?

When you create something on the Groundbase calendar, you pick a kind. The differences:

In the calendar view, each kind has its own color so you can read your day at a glance:

• Red = task
• Green = event
• Blue = meeting

Your own colours

Give any task, event or meeting a colour of its own. Pick one under Colour when you create it, or open it and click a swatch. The palette is Google Calendar's eleven event colours: Tomato, Flamingo, Tangerine, Banana, Sage, Basil, Peacock, Blueberry, Lavender, Grape and Graphite. Default puts it back to its kind's colour.

With Google Calendar connected, colours sync both ways. A colour you pick in Groundbase is the event's colour in Google, and one you change in Google comes back to Groundbase within a minute or two. On a repeating series, editing with This and all future recolours the rest of the series. Your AI assistant can set colours too: "make Friday's site visit Tomato".

Where it is: web, desktop and Android.

Events you add in Google Calendar

Upcoming events you create or accept in Google Calendar come into Groundbase on their own, usually within a minute or two, and show up on your Calendar page. A timed event comes in as an event. An all-day event, or one you've set to Free in Google, comes in as a task on that date. When you first connect, everything already coming up on your calendar is brought in the same way.

• Linked to a contact when it's clear. If exactly one person on the invite is already a contact, the event is filed on that contact. Otherwise it comes in unlinked, and you can link it yourself.
• Two-way from then on. Move it or rename it in either place and the other follows. Delete it in Google and it's removed from Groundbase; delete it in Groundbase and it stays in your Google Calendar unless you tick the box (see Deleting a task below).
• Invites someone else organises. Google doesn't let you change the time of someone else's meeting, so if you edit one of those in Groundbase, the change stays in Groundbase only.

Not brought in: events that have already happened, repeating events (a weekly meeting would become dozens of tasks), invites you declined, and Google's special entries — birthdays, out of office, focus time, working location and events Gmail adds for you (flights, reservations). Those can still appear on the calendar as a small "+N from Google Cal" badge, so your day looks complete.

Deleting a task

Deleting a task, event or meeting in Groundbase never removes it from your Google Calendar on its own. When the item is on your Google Calendar, the delete dialog shows a box, unticked: Also remove it from your Google Calendar. Tick it and it goes from your calendar too. Leave it and only Groundbase changes: the event stays on your calendar and does not come back into Groundbase as a new task.

• A meeting you organised with guests. Removing it from Google cancels it for them too, and the dialog says so under the box: This cancels the meeting for your 3 guests.
• An invite someone else organised. Removing it takes it off your calendar only. The meeting goes ahead for everyone else.
• A repeating series. Deleting the whole series, one date of it, or (in the desktop app) a date and everything after it asks the same question. Leave the box unticked and those dates disappear from Groundbase only: your Google series keeps them, including after you edit the series later. Tick it and they go from Google too. Deleting just the first date of a series moves the series to start on its next date (one on the 31st of the month still lands on the 31st after a shorter month). Ticked, Google's copy starts on that date too; unticked, Google keeps the first date. In the desktop app, use the Tasks list for this: its delete asks which dates. The desktop and Android apps get this with their next builds.
• Clearing a task's date. Its event stays in your Google Calendar and stops syncing with the task: changing either one no longer changes the other. Give the task a date again and that same event moves to the new date and syncs again (a new one is made only if you deleted the old one in Google).
• Deleting several tasks at once (select them, then Delete) never touches your Google Calendar.
• Reset to empty database and a Replace restore never touch your Google Calendar. After a reset, upcoming events you created in Google come back into Groundbase within a few hours, the way they did when you first connected.
• Your AI assistant leaves the calendar alone when it deletes a task, unless you ask it to remove the event too.
• When someone cancels a booking on your booking page, the meeting is removed from your Google Calendar: it really is cancelled.

The box is in the web, desktop and Android apps.

What DOESN'T sync (yet)

• Other calendars in your Google account. We sync to your primary calendar only.
• Moving or editing one date of a repeating series in Google. A repeating task goes to Google as a repeating series. If you move or edit a single occurrence of it in Google Calendar, that change stays in Google and doesn't come back to Groundbase.

What does come back from a repeating series: deleting one date of it in Google removes that date in Groundbase too; ending the series on a date sets its end date; and changing it to repeat daily, weekly, every weekday, monthly or yearly changes it in Groundbase. A pattern Groundbase can't show, such as every two weeks or on several days of the week, stays exactly as you set it in Google, and editing the task in Groundbase won't undo it. Groundbase's own calendar shows the nearest pattern it has (weekly for every two weeks), so check Google for the exact dates.

Sync timing

The desktop-app latency is because the desktop writes directly to our database for speed (no API round-trip), so a server-side background process catches the change instead. For most calendar use this is unnoticeable.

Disconnecting

Settings → Google Calendar → Disconnect.

We immediately stop syncing and revoke our access token at Google. Events we previously created in your Google Calendar stay there — Google doesn't let us bulk-delete them via the OAuth flow. Delete them manually in Google Cal if you want a clean break.

Troubleshooting

"Last sync had an issue" banner. Click Sync now. If it persists, disconnect and reconnect — your Google session token may have expired (rare; happens if you revoked Groundbase from your Google account settings, or if Google rotated the refresh token).

Event isn't showing up in Google Cal. Possible causes:

1. The task has no due_at or end_at — we can't anchor it to a date
2. You're connected to one Google account but viewing another in Google Cal — check the account picker top-right of Google Cal
3. You created the task on desktop within the last 2 minutes — wait for the next cron tick or hit Sync now

Event from Google isn't showing up. Events you add in Google Calendar come in within a minute or two, except the kinds listed under Not brought in above: events that have already happened, repeating events, invites you declined, and Google's special entries.