Using Calendly and Google Calendar with Zoho CRM Calendar (Double Meeting Invites and GMT Issues)

Using Calendly and Google Calendar with Zoho CRM Calendar (Double Meeting Invites and GMT Issues)

Can others please provide what works for their set-up between Google Calendar, Calendly, and Zoho CRM Calendar? Thank you in advance.   

(We don't use Zoho Calendar. Yes, their names are confusing! We use the calendar in Zoho CRM Calendar.) 

Our Current Set-up:
  1. Google Calendar is where we "house" all the meetings since Calendly can check Google Calendar, so double booked meeting are eliminated.
  2. We use Calendly so prospects can set their own meetings. We use Zapier to get those meetings into Zoho CRM Calendar.
  3. Zoho CRM Calendar has a one-way sync to Google Calendar.
  4. Sales reps also book meetings within the CRM; these are then synced to Google Calendar. 
Problems:
  1. We had this working correctly, then Zoho required a new connection via Marketplace>Google>Calendar. After we did this, the meetings would shift automatically by our GMT offset, which is -5GMT. (Full explanation below) So, XX minutes before a meeting, it would automatically get rescheduled by 5 hours. 
  2. Since the new connection caused the rescheduling errors, we changed to the above 1-4 and changed the sync from bi-directional to one-way from Zoho CRM Calendar to Google Calendar.
  3. Now, prospects are getting two meeting invites when a meeting is scheduled via Calendly and when scheduled via Zoho CRM.
  4. The final issue, when someone sends an email and a sales rep opens it in Gmail, and they accept the meeting shows up in Google Calendar, which no longer synchs to Zoho Calendar, so it can be missed. 
How are people overcoming these double email and GMT rescheduling issues? 

Do you keep bi-directional sync between Google Calendar and Zoho Calendar? How do you overcome meetings automatically rescheduling themselves?

Thank you.
Sam


Here is a summary of why we turned off bi-directional sync:

The original issue was caused by timezone mismatch during bidirectional sync between:

  • Google Calendar
  • Zoho CRM (calendar module)

What happened

  • One system stored the event in UTC
  • The other interpreted it as local time (Central)
  • During sync, it re-applied the timezone offset

Result

  • Meetings shifted by –5 hours (–5 GMT)

Why it only happen with bidirectional sync

  • Each system kept “correcting” the time on every sync pass
  • Created a loop → time kept getting offset incorrectly