Calendar Views, Events & Quick Add

ShootCal is a photography-focused calendar that owns your schedule. Events you create or edit in ShootCal are ShootCal appointments stored in your account, enriched with session type, client, deposit, and scheduling details. In the web app, ordinary new events use the business calendar saved in Booking Setup and sync automatically when calendar sync is enabled. After a deliberate provider disconnect, new web events save in ShootCal only.

Choose calendars, Month view, and Agenda

Use the Calendars control to show or hide calendars you can access. Month view gives the studio overview; Agenda lists upcoming work; Tasks keeps follow-ups separate from events. On phones, ShootCal combines a compact month with the selected month’s agenda so the calendar remains useful on a tall screen. Search finds sessions across the loaded calendar range.

In the web Calendar sidebar, Show on my calendar is separate from Booking availability. Use the latter to select other connected calendars whose busy events should block booking times. They are off by default; your Primary Business Calendar remains the baseline. A subscribed calendar can be visible for awareness without making you unavailable. See Online booking and availability.

The Calendars sidebar names your Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook calendars and shows Sync on or Sync off for their current connection status. When you have saved provider calendars, there is no separate ShootCal calendar in the list, including while sync is off; appointments saved before a calendar name applied remain visible. Without a calendar connection, your ShootCal calendar is listed under the Studio / business name saved in Booking Setup, or My calendar if none is set, with Sync off. Showing or hiding a calendar is a display choice; change the new-event destination in Booking Setup.

Web events always show their saved locations, and the event editor displays start and end times with AM/PM.

Create a session

In the web app:

1. Choose New Event or select a day.
2. Pick a session type. Its duration, timing mode, reminders, booking rules, and invite default fill automatically. On the web, its default location also fills until you enter or clear the location yourself.
3. Choose the client and location, then review the calculated start and end time.
4. Review the destination from Booking Setup. With sync enabled and the connection available, ShootCal uses that calendar automatically. After a deliberate disconnect, the event saves in ShootCal and is listed under that same calendar name with Sync off. It is not copied to Google or Microsoft until you choose to sync it.
5. On the web, review any suggested Follow-up tasks from the session type. Include, change, or remove them for this appointment.
6. Save. ShootCal stores the appointment and its selected follow-up tasks together. The connected calendar copy syncs separately; review any pending or attention-needed status.

Calendar invitations are available for one-off appointments on an exact connected, writable Google or Microsoft calendar. A ShootCal-only appointment can still receive ordinary business confirmations and add-to-calendar attachments; those do not request an attendee response.

To create a session type while entering an event, choose + Add Session Type at the bottom of the type list. A guided setup opens, then returns you to your event draft. The event is saved only when you choose Create event.

A session you schedule yourself counts toward that day’s public booking capacity once its deposit is marked received, just like an online booking, so the booking page never offers more slots than the day really has left.

Use Start date and End date for trips or appointments spanning several days. All-day sessions display an inclusive end date in ShootCal: a one-day wedding shows the same start and end day, and a trip covers every day you picked.

New Personal Events allow website bookings by default. Turn on Block booking availability to make their dates and times unavailable, including all-day trips. Your private title and details stay private. Paid and accepted bookings remain reserved. Older Personal Events keep their saved behavior until you choose Allow bookings or Block bookings; Existing booking rules leaves that behavior unchanged. Imported recurring schedules keep this setting read-only.

Appointment details

Open a session to review its client, time, location, and calendar status. Edit stays at the top of the web detail sheet while you scroll. Use Deposit received to change the saved deposit marker; the switch changes only after ShootCal confirms the saved appointment. It records a scheduling marker, not a payment amount.

Invoice and deposit controls sit together. Invoiced means an invoice is already linked to this exact appointment; it is a status, not a manual checkbox. Otherwise, eligible sessions offer Send invoice. The calendar invitation row shows the saved response or delivery state with its available send or resend action. Outlook invitations that already include the client direct you to Outlook to resend.

Calendar sync warnings and recovery controls remain below the appointment details when review is needed. To create a photo gallery, open Galleries and select the client there. Existing gallery links remain available in the scheduling client view.

Sync an event created while disconnected

Reconnecting a provider does not automatically copy locally created events to it. Open the saved event on the web. Only eligible events created while disconnected show Sync this event to Google Calendar or Sync this event to Microsoft Outlook. Review the named destination and choose the action to sync that event to your current Booking Setup calendar. Normal synced events do not show a review button unless their sync status needs attention.

In the iPhone, iPad, and Android apps, an eligible event created while disconnected shows Review event on ShootCal. It opens the same event on the website, where you choose the sync action; the app does not copy the event to Google or Microsoft by itself. For native app compatibility and update availability, see app update guidance.

Quick Add from plain English

Quick Add can turn a line such as “Family session for the Smiths Saturday at sunset at Folly Beach jane@example.com” into a filled event for review. The Apple apps parse locally on the device. The web app sends the entered line, current time, your time zone, and your configured session-type names through ShootCal’s backend to OpenAI to prepare a draft. Review the suggested fields; nothing becomes an appointment until you approve and save it. See AI data handling for provider storage and data-use details.

Sunrise, sunset, weather, and tides

Sunrise and sunset power ShootCal’s scheduling on the web and in the native apps. In the web calendar, select a day to see the full day details for your saved Sun Location: forecast high and low, weather icon and description, precipitation chance, wind, sunrise and sunset, and all available high and low tide times. Weather, sunrise, sunset, and tides have icons alongside their text. U.S. weather forecasts come from the National Weather Service and cover about seven days. Wind shows the forecast maximum; forecasts for today may cover only the remaining part of the day.

Tides come from the nearest supported NOAA station, with times shown in that station’s local time. Inland locations may have no nearby station. Weather and tides can be unavailable outside coverage or during a service interruption. The Apple apps continue to use WeatherKit for weather forecasts.

Edit, delete, and recover safely

Edits and cancellations save to your ShootCal appointment first. A linked calendar copy may be pending, synced, or need review; a successful local save is not confirmation that the provider accepted the change. Open the appointment's sync review when it needs attention.

Create, edit, move, cancel, and send invitations for recurring schedules in Google Calendar or Outlook. ShootCal continues to show imported recurring appointments and include their busy times in availability. Saved history and recovery checks remain available; ShootCal does not author recurring schedule changes in this release. On owned imported appointments, the web editor can still save client, session-type, and deposit details; the recurring date, time, location, and calendar description remain read-only.

If a create request is interrupted after the server may have accepted it, ShootCal retains that exact attempt for recovery. Recover the original request before creating another appointment. Review saved follow-up tasks separately when moving an existing session; their due dates are not automatically rewritten.

For storage and sync details, see Calendar sync: connecting Google or Microsoft.