The CoachAccountable Blog

Thanks to Brian Icenhower’s team for inspiring this new development for our online coaching tool!

You already had the ability to share a file with multiple people at once, but now you can share multiple files with multiple people at once, as well as share multiple files with a single person at once.

This can come in handy if, say, as part of onboarding a client you want to share all your files at the same time with her. Another use case might be if you have a Group that needs to be updated with your entire Library, and you want to skip the step of adding them to a Course that delivers all your documents (which would also require adding any new files to the Course).

Here’s how.

-Create a Group and add the appropriate members.

-From the Group Stream, click “+ File.”

-Select “Actually I want to share multiple files from my Library.”

-Use Shift and/or Ctrl keys to select as necessary.

To keep the Group up to date, you’ll just need to do the following:

1. When you add new clients, add them as members of the Group.
2. When you add new Library files, share them with all members of the Group.

And that’s it!

Sound like a good solution for managing your files and your people? Try CoachAccountable for free with a 30-day trial.

Here’s a feature you may not know already exists! Coaches (and clients) often ask whether CA’s online coaching platform has a downloadable app (from the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and so on).

The answer is YES! But also no.

To clarify: CoachAccountable is a web-based app, meaning….

It’s Optimized to be a Mobile Coaching Tool

Version 3 is specifically designed to look great on any mobile device. CoachAccountable automatically resizes, consolidates menus, and just plain looks nice (and more importantly plays nice) on mobile devices.

No App Download Necessary

Your coachees don’t need to download anything. This also means no troubleshooting with things like “Do I have the most updated OS installed on my phone?” or “Did I install another app that’s breaking CoachAccountable, or vice-versa?” These simply aren’t issues.

BUT – Put it on Your Client’s Home Screen

You’ll want to have CoachAccountable installed on their home screens as soon as you invite them to the system, so that they can quickly log in.

Send clients HERE for simple instructions.

CoachAccountable will look like a regular app – clicking the app icon will magically go directly to the online coaching platform.

Fun fact: If you have White-Label Branding set up (and you should, because it’s now FREE), the app tile is YOUR logo and brand name, like this.

CouchReclinable teaches coachees how to really relax.

If you like the look of our coaching platform and think it’s cool, but you haven’t signed up for CoachAccountable yet, come on in and try it free for 30 days! We’re happy to help you get set up and answer any questions you have along the way.

CoachAccountable is a web-based app. That means you don’t need to download anything. However, it’s super helpful to have an app tile for it on your home screen, with one-touch access to your coach portal.

Here’s how to do it for Apple devices:

♦ Click the login link in the invitation email from your coach. It’ll automatically open in Safari*.
♦ Log in, and if it’s appropriate for your device, check the box next to “Keep me logged in.”
♦ Tap the Share button on the browser’s toolbar.
(This is the rectangle with an arrow pointing upward; it’s on the bar at the top of the screen on an iPad, and on the bar at the bottom of the screen on an iPhone or iPod Touch)
♦ Tap the “Add to Home Screen” icon in the Share menu.
♦ Enter a name for the shortcut and click Add.
♦ When you click the app tile, bam! You’re put right into your account.

*Note: This doesn’t work for Chrome, Firefox, or other browsers, so just make sure you’re in Safari when you Add to Home Screen. 

And for Android devices:

♦ Click the login link in the invitation email from your coach. It’ll automatically open in your default browser, such as Chrome.
♦ Log in, and if it’s appropriate for your device, check the box next to “Keep me logged in.”
♦ Tap the menu button and choose “Add to home screen“.
♦ Enter a name for the shortcut and your browser will add CoachAccountable to your home screen.
♦ When you click the app tile, bam! You’re put right into your account.

h/t GearBest’s steps for saving web-based apps to home screens

If you’re a coach in the European Union, you’ve probably already heard of the GDPR.

If you’re not, you’ve probably seen numerous relics of the GDPR over the last few weeks, namely in the form of emails from websites you use announcing a change in their Privacy Policies.

What’s it all about?  It’s the EU’s very-soon-to-be-in-effect General Data Protection Regulation.

It’s a good bit of law, I think!  Oh sure, it’s caused it’s share of grousing and griping among businesses for how much work it’s entailed as everyone wades through legalese and policy in order to get compliant (myself included!).  But I view it as a step in the right direction for end users to have greater control over their data and privacy.

Basically, it demands of companies that they don’t do terrible things with individual’s data, and that all usage of such data must be documented and above board.  Companies must get explicit consent to use someone’s data for a given purpose, and that consent can’t be buried in a huge pile of indecipherable legalese.  End users must have some real control over their data, including the ability to delete it.

As individual, this sounds good to me.

As a company, CoachAccountable has never had any business trafficking in user data in unexpected or vaguely nefarious ways.  And our in-app “Delete” buttons really do delete data (much to the chagrin of the occasional coach who accidentally deleted an entire client record!).  So our compliance is largely a matter of paperwork: basically to document and agree to be legally bound to the very practices we’ve always adhered to.

What this means for CoachAccountable customers

First off, our privacy policy has been updated, much like the policies of everyone else.  I encourage you to check it out: like most privacy policies, it’s largely boring, BUT I’ve been happy to lay out clearly what data we collect and what exactly we use it for (and why).  Part of this updated policy is that CoachAccountable is registered and listed with Privacy Shield, which is basically a fancy way of saying “we actually mean everything we say in this policy, AND we’re in legal trouble if we don’t hold true to it”.

Yep, we attest that we really mean what we say in our privacy policy.

In other words, the privacy policy isn’t just flowery language. :)

Second, for our customers who work with anyone in the EU: by setting those clients up within your CoachAccountable account, the GDPR applies to you.  Part of that applying to you is that you need to verify that any partner involved in processing your data is ALSO above board when it comes to the GDPR regulations.

In this case, that’s CoachAccountable!  You need to verify that CA is handling your EU citizen personal data in accordance with the law, so that your handling of that data [by way CoachAccountable] is in compliance with the law.

To allow you to do this, we’ve got a Data Processor Agreement (DPA) available for you to agree to.  The DPA essentially states that you (as controller of your client data) and CoachAccountable (as processor of that data) mutually agree to handle that data appropriately and in compliance with the GDPR; that we’ve each got our part to play for the lawful handling of data; and that we each take responsibility to do so.

If the GDPR applies to you (i.e. if you work with and/or collect personal data on any citizen of the EU), you’ll want to enter into the CoachAccountable Data Processor Agreement right away.  You’ll find the place to do so when logged in (provided you’re a coach and owner of the account) under My Account >> Data Processor Agreement.

Give it a read, and click the button–good to go!

And that’s about it: an updated privacy policy and a DPA for you to agree to if you need it.

What if I’m not in the European Union?

If you coach anyone in the EU (or ever will) this still applies to you.  But if you don’t, then this very well might not mean anything to you.  One caveat to that, though: the GDPR mandates certain rights for citizens in the EU, as laid out in the privacy policy.  I’m happy to say that when it comes to CoachAccountable, these rights apply to everyone worldwide, and not just EU citizens.

GDPR looks to be a great way to better balance the rights of individuals against the companies they do business with.  There’s some work for those of us who handle the data of those individuals in order to reach compliance, but it’s reasonable and worthwhile.  We’ve done our best to make it easy as possible for coaches to be compliant in their handling of data with CoachAccountable!

Hey everyone–if you read my introduction just prior y’all know how I feel about Morgan, and how I’m excited for you to get to know her.  Now to get you guys more properly acquainted here she is to officially say hello. :)

–John

Hi, I’m Morgan! Nice to meet you, for those whom I haven’t already interacted with in the CoachAccountable coaching management system.

My story: Over a decade ago, one fateful swing dancing evening at Casa Loma Ballroom in St. Louis, Missouri, I met an incredible human on the dance floor.

In the first couple years of our friendship, he introduced me to transformational coaching programs. After giving myself a bunch of excuses, I signed up. As a coaching program participant I got back in touch with my parents (we hadn’t communicated in nearly two years) and created extremely close relationships with them, moved across the country to Los Angeles by myself, found the courage to leave a toxic relationship, and much more. Then, I moved into coaching the programs, where I cleaned up and expanded even more areas of my life. From that first night, this person has been there in the background through all these incredible changes, cheering me on.

Of course I’m talking about John, the founder of CoachAccountable. As he’s seen me grow and change, I’ve been fortunate enough to watch his coaching software do the same over the years, and I’m honored to now be a part of the team. I feel so fortunate to be part of a team that, underneath everything, is committed to changing humanity and being coachable, of course utilizing the great online coaching system we have! Oh, and getting to talk with one of my closest friends every day to keep each other moving forward – what else could I really ask for?

I suppose I should say a bit more about myself. I’m passionate about destigmatizing mental health, and to that end I write frequently about it – I currently have an ongoing column called Living a Blissful Life. Restoring antiques brings me lots of joy in my spare time, as do drawing, music festivals, and of course dancing. Oh, and if there’s any event with a costume involved, sign me up.

Professionally, I began as an art educator and artist before transitioning into non-profit management (first directing an educational program, then running operations for a trade association). I then pivoted into an entirely new way of helping people: tech support at an app startup. Interestingly enough, John coached me through some of these changes and decisions.

The career fit couldn’t be more perfect at CoachAccountable: I’ve been the only employee before, I’ve worked for several startups, I’ve worked remotely (and prefer it), I’ve specifically worked in tech support for a web-based app, and, most importantly for me, I’ve constantly sought positions where I can grow, learn, and make a difference. I can’t believe we didn’t think of this match sooner!

I’m looking forward to getting to know you all and supporting you in any way I can. Please reach out if you need anything, or just to say hi!

Morgan and I go way back.  We met over 10 years ago at a swing dance at the Casa Loma Ballroom in St. Louis, MO.  We clicked well on the dance floor and clicked well off, and swiftly came to refer to one another as our IBFF: Insta-Best Friend Forever.

Morgan and I have roughly the same background and experience with transformational coaching: we both got our chops coaching the same programs and from the same body of distinctions.  She’s a keen and cool-headed listener, ridiculously personable and wicked smart.  For it she’s been able to give great and difference-making coaching even to know-it-all me over the years.

I reached out to Morgan for a little coaching early in January when I was in a bit of a funk.  She texted me right back: “Yeah, I want to save my minutes so how about we talk over some app, like Skype or WhatsApp?”

Um, sure?  Who needs to manage their minutes these days, I wondered, but whatever–let’s call it Zoom.

We connected for a video call, me lit poorly by the festive glory of my still-up living room Christmas tree lights, and her in–“Wait, are those palm trees in the background?  Where are you?”

“I’m in India!  Doing a yoga teacher training here… my boyfriend and I are on world tour!”

Wow, Morgan’s on a world tour!¹  It had been over a year since we last talked, so clearly we needed catching up.  Turns out since last talking my dear friend had left her position working with a non-profit and went to, of all things, doing customer support for an app company before leaving to go travel some 4 months prior.

“But enough about me, what’s on your mind?  What do you need coaching around?”  Honestly, I was in a funk about having to let an employee go.  Morgan patiently heard the whole brain dump, and when I was finished she masterfully reassembled the bits with clarity, kindness, wisdom and insight:

“Well John, for as long as I’ve known you you’ve been one to create and play at games, right?  You find something worth doing, and you make a game out of it, and play.  Well, this game you’ve been playing called having an employee, it didn’t work this time!  Doesn’t mean you can’t win at that game, it’s just THAT person didn’t work out.  So okay, play on!  You’ve learned a ton about what worked and what didn’t.  You can take that and go forth playing that game.”

Clarity, when reflected back by someone committed to you winning and done with a dose of perspective that an outsider is uniquely privileged with, is so uplifting.  Man I love coaching.

The conversation with Morgan was just what I needed to go forth with a clear head.  More than that, though, I was delighted to see in my inbox the next day a thoughtful note from Morgan, part of which went thus:

… And secondly, it looks like you’ll be going through a period of change while you sort out moving on and deciding what to take on yourself and what to re-delegate with a potential new employee. Since the writing career is still in its infancy, and since I can rock the shit out of a helpdesk ticket via phone, email, or chat, making customers laugh while solving their problems, I’d be happy to step in and do those couple of hours of customer service as you need them. …

Huh.  The chance to work with a dear friend, of similar coaching chops and reverence for the practice, and one who self-professes ability to rock the shit out of a helpdesk ticket?

What a delightful idea.

And the rest is history.  Straddling the 10ish hour timezone difference, we started in on training Morgan: on the ways of how CA best works to serve coaching (she was a quick study on that because of her coaching background), how to love on CA customers the way I insist on doing so (she was a quick study on that because of the aforementioned being ridiculously personable), how to do pixel perfect screenshots for updating evergreen blog posts to V3 (she was a quick study on that because she’s got an MFA and really brings her art to whatever she does).

That’s her. Yeah man, I’m a fan.

So, yeah, you get it.  She’s super talented.

Morgan wrapped up her world tour and settled back in her house in LA at the end of March, and has since come on full time with CoachAccountable.  She continues to impress with creative initiative and I couldn’t ask for a better #2 with whom to co-create CoachAccountable culture, long-term vision, and the projects and initiatives to focus on by which to get there.

I’ve been delighted by her presence and so have many of you during this past month of her rising up as CoachAccountable’s Director of Customer Love and Hand Holding.  If you’ve not yet had a chance to interact with her, I’ll just say you’re in for a treat whenever you do have your next support issue–she’s way more charismatic than I. :)

Please help me to welcome her properly to the CoachAccountable community!

Note:

Recently, Henk from Business Doctors in South Africa asked about printing from CoachAccountable. While this wasn’t possible in most of CA, John realized that the option to print would be useful for all, especially those with executive coaching clients who potentially have a “higher-up” to report to in a meeting where paper is required.

Now, you have a couple ways to print from the app.

Print a Report of Past Appointments With Coaching Clients

In Past Appointments, you can now click the Print button (next to “Download as CSV” to generate a nice tidy report of past appointments and print to PDF or through your printer.

Printing Sections of the CoachAccountable App

Just hit Alt+Shift+P on your keyboard, and the system will smartly load up for printing whichever section you’ve currently got open.

When you have one or more pop-up windows open, the system will print the topmost one. When you’re looking at a given section on, say, a client page, the system will print the visible one out.

It won’t work for all sections (for example, one that has a card listing of items isn’t really fitting for a print job), but should work in areas you expect it to.

Thank you, Henk, for the great suggestion! We’d love to hear how people are using it and how you’re liking it.

Henk, pictured middle, photo courtesy of Steve Sutton

If you like the look of CoachAccountable and want to check out the system (and printing abilities), but you haven’t started your free 30-day trial yet, come on in! The water’s fine :)

The other day I got to do one of the most satisfying things of my job: go hang out and collaborate with a bunch of CoachAccountable users, specifically ones who are keen to use our online coaching platform to support a sizeable undertaking.

I first made the acquaintance of Patrick Howe in the fall of 2016, when he reached out to explore if CoachAccountable would be a good fit for his Spotlight Coaching Academy, a program to support and train the sales teams of one of Comcast’s internal divisions.  Five months later, after a bevy of calls and due diligence measures, they were all signed up and off to the races (them’s corporate sales, amiright? :).

Patrick and his team for this year are putting together a new business coaching program for training Account Executives in the Comcast way of doing things.  They’ve designed a year-long program to onboard and get up to speed their incoming Associate Account Executives, and a 3 month program for more seasoned professionals coming into the company.

It launches in June.

Patrick and his team came this week to Denver for a team summit.  When Anna realized that that’s where I am she invited me to join the gang for a little powwow session on how to best leverage CA for their programs.

I was all too happy to oblige.  I can do this sort of thing virtually in webinar style, but man, it’s so much more fun in person!

So on Thursday we hung out.  In the conference room, lots’a whiteboards, CoachAccountable projected on to the big screen from Anna’s laptop.

They acquainted me with a 20-point rubric of competencies that were important for program participants to work on and be measured for, and a Session Template within CA that Anna had created within our coaching software to support this.  It was a good starting point an made clear the gist of what they were going for.

“Here’s what I see to do: I think it’ll work best to boil down these 20 to something more like 5 key things, because otherwise your coaching calls are going to be just one big survey with no time for address the more human aspects.  Then when you’re clear about the essentials I can cook up a streamlined Session Template that will be the quick yet informative (and visually easy to read) thing you fill out as part of each call, and I’ll design an online coaching course that will have these key measurements pipe right into Metric graphs that will allow you all to easily see the trends over time, making it easy to spot cases that need more attention.”

General discussion around the table went more or less to “That sounds great, let’s put this as an action item for us to do and get these things back to John so he can do this.”  A very reasonable and sensible tack to get things going.

At this point I had delightful spark of dissent: “Actually, we got like 21 minutes before we break for lunch… how about–Anna, can I borrow your laptop and drive for a little?  I’ll get cracking on this right now, designing that Session Template, and you guys talk amongst yourselves to suss out whatever you think would be the best 5 things to focus on measuring.  Just shout ’em out to me as you figure ’em out.”

I hedged with “And don’t worry about getting this wrong: we’re not going to get this right anyway.  Chances are you guys will coach for one or two weeks with whatever structure we lay down now, and then AND ONLY THEN will it become crystal clear whatever little tweaks we need to make, based on your actual experience with it.  So rest assured, we’ll finesse as we need to if we need to.”

At this point we were cooking with gas.  I tossed off this Session Template:

A simple, standard, 5 point scale with a clear description of what each number means.

The key criteria are a bit terse but packed with meaning within the context of their program and methodology.  It’s deliberately visually tidy, specifically laid out so that one could eyeball this filled out and know instantly whether things were going well or there were issues.  This should help when reviewing past sessions as well as to allow quick filling out with minimal distraction from the actual coaching.

Then I put together a suitable Starter Kit Course, one that would set in motion Metrics for these 5 key measurements AND have them automatically filled in by virtue of filling in the Session Template:

Five metrics in total, but you get the gist. Note that a “3” is the dividing line between good and not so good, consistent with the standard set in the Session Template.

This was about 18 minutes well spent: with it they had a nice structure by which to assess and record key things swiftly during their calls and in a way that will be uniform across the coaching team, giving data that will be readily reported and exported for their use in assessments.

To wrap up I mocked for them the work flow a coach would do over the course of a typical call:

• Pop into the coaching dashboard and review where the person you’re about to talk to is at: check on the Actions they said they would do, review the notes from the last session or two, eyeball the Metrics.  Your whole prep done in 2-5 minutes.
• Call them when it’s time and load up that session template for note taking during the call.
• Check in on outstanding Actions from last time, mark done what’s done, cancel or reschedule incomplete items as fitting.
• Add in any new Action items they’re committing to between now and the next time you talk.
• After the call add in any other observations to the Session Notes and mark ’em complete.
• Done, on to the next person!

And with this the gang had a clear set of structures that would be easy to manage, keep everyone up to date, and track actionable insights over the course of the coaching program.  I knew I had done my job when Josh leaned back and said “This is great, we got more out of this than I thought we would.”

From there we went to lunch.  We enjoyed talk of travel and business, good food, and the good show that our hibachi chef put on at the Japanese steakhouse.

My thanks to the Comcast Spotlight team for inviting me out for both the powwow and to lunch, that was super fun!

Holy moly Josh and I are tall! Thanks Patrick for taking the picture, but I think we could’ve used you for more normalizing height balance. :)

Would you love to have a visit from CoachAccountable or visit us? Drop us a line! And, if you’d like to check out the product that makes these relationships so special, start with your free 30-day trial.

I’ve surveyed the audience and one thing is clear: when it comes to running a coaching business, it’s REALLY nice (some would say downright essential), to have a clear separation between getting paid for coaching work and doing said coaching work.

One invariable muddles the other: blessed is the coach who outright won’t tolerate clients who would make them chase checks, and it’s really nice if the client doesn’t get distracted with logistics of paying for business, life, or health coaching when they’re heads down getting the most out of a coaching experience.

CoachAccountable makes this possible.  All you really need to do is set up your coach portal to process client invoice payments on your behalf, by connecting it to your Stripe or Authorize.net merchant account.

If you don’t have one yet, CA makes it super easy to grab a Stripe account in about 5 minutes.

Once ready, you or your client can enter a credit card up front, have it stored for future charges, and CA will automatically process invoices on whatever schedule you like.

Let’s see how this works!

Creating a Sequence of Invoices

CoachAccountable coaching client invoices are super simple to create.  Just add a date (or default to today), enter one or more line items (with associated prices), add taxes if needed, and you’re done.  Check a box if you want CA’s coaching management platform to email it off to your client, either immediately or as scheduled (when entering in a future invoice).

Be MOAR awesome? Oh yeah, sign me up!

The magic of a subscription is in the ability to create a sequence, by clicking the little “I would like to make a series of invoices just like this one” link towards the bottom:

12 invoices, one every 1 month… sounds about right for a year long engagement!

As you’d expect, this creates a series of invoices, one scheduled to go out each month:

A whole bunch of ostensibly pending revenue… nice!

These invoices will be sent off via email to your coaching client, right on schedule throughout the coming year.

What happens when an invoice’s date comes up?  That depends!

If your client doesn’t have any credit card on file, the invoice email he/she gets will contain a magic link.  Clicking that will take them right to a page they can enter their credit card in order to pay the invoice.

If your client DOES have a credit card on file, our coaching system will automatically process the payment for the invoice, no fuss.  If the charge goes through okay, the email they’ll get will be an invoice marked paid, essentially a receipt.  And you, as coach, will get an email notification telling you of that’s on its way to your bank account. :)

Entering Credit Card Details for your Coaching Clients

In our scenario so far, your client is apt to get sent that first invoice as unpaid, and they’ll need to enter their payment info the first time and then (hopefully) opt to save their payment info on file for seamless processing of future invoices.

But perhaps instead you’d like to set them up from the get-go.  You as coach can do that for them, provided you have their credit card information (perhaps from some form they filled out, or perhaps when they handed it to you during an initial in-person meeting and you’ve got your swanky tablet there and ready to set things up).

Once you’ve created an invoice for your client, simply click the dollar icon next to it to bring up payment options.  You can make and record a payment made outside of the CA coach portal (say for example if they’re handing you a check), and you can process a payment right then and there:

Holy moly this invoice is overdue.  Let’s click that first option and get this all handled!

Clicking the first option brings up a place to process a payment by entering credit card details:

Remember this card for future use? Yes please!

Simple as that.  By remembering the card for future use it will be handy for automatically processing future invoices.

By either you or your client entering that credit card once when you’re first getting started, everything else takes care of itself with the subscription billing you set up to cover the term of your coaching engagement or program.  Nice!

Is this secure for my coaching clients’ sensitive payment info?

Yes!  Like everything else on CA, this all happens over an encrypted connection.  Moreover, CA uses the token-based approach to keeping cards on file–the actual credit card number is never stored or even seen by the CA server.  If anyone were to get a hold of what CoachAccountable stores, they’d only be able to process payments into your account–hardly useful for nefarious purposes. :)

Sounds pretty good, any fees for this?

Nope!  You’ll almost certainly need to pay the usual fees endemic to ANY credit card processing, but CA doesn’t take any cut whatsoever.

Having to play the role of accounts payable is seldom pleasant, and most certainly distracts from doing the real difference-making work of coaching.  Use this setup to get coaching client payments handled without hassle from the get-go, and automate away the drudgery of chasing down (and even processing!) payments later.  Enjoy!

Ready to finally have your invoicing sort itself out in a way that you can easily share with your accounting team? Try CoachAccountable. It’s free for 30 days.

CoachAccountable has long supported syncing our online coaching software with your Google (and iCal, and Outlook) Calendar by way of 2-way subscribing to calendar data feeds.  This works according to a simple, two-part mechanism:

1. CoachAccountable publishes a data feed of your appointments which your calendar can subscribe to, allowing those appointments to appear alongside your regular calendar events.
2. CoachAccountable can subscribe to a data feed of your calendar events for the sake of knowing when you’re busy to prevent double bookings.

It’s a good system, but suffers from two drawbacks:

1. Calendar systems can be lax about pulling coaching appointment data from CoachAccountable.  Though the data as offered by CA is always up to date, there can be a lag in how long it takes your calendar to pull over whatever’s new.  Google Calendar in particular is a bit notorious for updating from such data feeds only once every 24 hours.
2. Having your CoachAccountable appointments present as a separate calendar collection of events is often not nearly as nice as having those events posted directly into your primary calendar collection of events.  Other scheduling systems might know when you’re busy based on your primary calendar, but that might not include a separate calendar collection without subscribing to THAT one, too (if even possible).

To overcome these drawbacks I’m happy to report that our online coaching tool now supports a direct integration for syncing with your Google Calendar.

Let’s see how it works!

You’ll find the place to set this up under Settings >> Appointment Config >> Calendar Sync.

Note that this is only available for accounts that are on Version 3.  If you don’t see the Calendar Sync item that means your account is still on Version 2.  If you own the account, you can switch it over to 3 from the top right user menu >> My Account >> Version.

This green button is very chipper, but when you see how painless the process is you’ll understand why.

Clicking the button to go sync with Google brings you to a simple process to authorize CA to manage your calendar, assuming you’re already logged in to your Google account:

The question is: do you trust CoachAccountable? Promise there’s nothing shady about CA having access–strictly professional, yo.

Assuming you click “Allow”, you’ll be whisked back to your CoachAccountable coach portal and given the options by which to configure this synchronization:

Just a few choices here and you’re done, where to publish to (if at all), and where to read from.

If you want (and you probably do!), CA will publish your appointments to the calendar of your choice.  Pick one and they’ll magically appear there within seconds.

Choosing which calendars CA should read from tells CA where to look in order to accurately determine when you’re available and when you’re busy.  You might want to skip certain calendars.  For example my wife and I share a calendar of events, but I don’t need to have my availability blocked when she puts on there, say, a day visit with the kids to Grandma’s house (on the contrary, I generally have more free time then! :).

And that’s it!  Once set, CA will post new appointments (and updates made to them, including cancellations performed by your clients) to your calendar as they arise, with lag time measured in seconds rather than hours.  Similarly, when CA has direct read access to your calendars the process of keeping up to date in order to provide accurate availability options is nearly instantaneous, rather than taking up to 5-10 seconds to pull all the data over with the data feed approach.

Speaking of which, once you’ve set up CA to sync directly with your Google Calendar, you should delete any calendar feeds that you’ve set CA to pull from that are now redundant (as found under your Availability Exceptions):

Yep, we’re sure. We’ve got a better way now to keep abreast of calendar availability.

How about for my clients?

Your clients can similarly set up a direct sync with THEIR Google Calendar.  They won’t have to pick which calendars CA should read of theirs (because that’s not relevant on their side of the equation), BUT they too can have their appointments with you set via CoachAccountable appear right in their calendar.  Nice!

Let them know they can set this up from within the coaching portal.  They’ll find the place to do this under their My Account page:

Every bit as easy for them as it was for you. More so, even.

What if I don’t use Google Calendar?

The old system of subscribing to calendar data feeds remains intact, and is, as it has been for years, a fine 80% solution.  If you use Apple iCal or Microsoft Outlook, I may in the future build more direct API-based integrations with those, too.

For what it’s worth though, syncing between those systems and Google Calendar is a well-worn path.  So you might set up a Google Calendar account, sync your other calendar with that, and THEN sync CoachAccountable with that Google Calendar to more or less have Google serve as an intermediary to sync with your calendar system of choice.  Yay, technology!

And that’s it!  If you’ve had troubles with appointment scheduling in CA because the data feed approach didn’t play nicely with other scheduling systems, the direct calendar sync approach should be the perfect fix for you and your coaching practice.  Enjoy!

Get rid of your clunky extra calendar integrations while elevating the level of service you provide your coaching clients. Try out CoachAccountable free for 30 days.