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Checking Availability

note

PrimeCal does not have a dedicated "availability checker" panel or a free/busy status screen in v1.3.4. Availability is something you see directly in the calendar views, not in a separate tool. This page explains how to read your schedule — and someone else's — to understand who is free and when.

Your Own Availability​

The fastest way to see your own availability is to open Week view and look at what is empty. Every event block you see represents committed time. Blank space is free time.

If you have multiple calendars, make sure all of them are enabled in the sidebar (colored dots are on). It is easy to think you are free on Thursday afternoon because you only checked your work calendar — but your personal calendar might have a dentist appointment hiding there.

A Quick Personal Availability Check​

  1. Open Week view.
  2. In the sidebar, enable all your calendars.
  3. Scan the week. Gaps between event blocks are genuinely free.
  4. If you are also syncing an external calendar (Google Calendar or Outlook), those events appear too. See External Sync to set that up.

Checking Someone Else's Availability​

If a colleague or family member has shared their PrimeCal calendar with you, their events appear in your week view alongside yours. This makes it easy to compare schedules.

  1. Ask the other person to share their calendar with you (see Sharing Calendars).
  2. Once shared, their calendar appears under Other Calendars in your sidebar.
  3. Enable it by clicking the colored dot.
  4. Open Week view. Their events now show in their calendar's color. Gaps where neither of you has events are your shared free times.

Example: May Coordinates Family Schedules​

May (may_blate) manages the Blate family calendar. She has visibility into Will's work calendar (shared with her), Sue's school calendar, and her own personal calendar. When she needs to plan a family dinner, she opens week view with all calendars enabled and looks for an evening where Will has no late standups and Sue has no after-school activities. The visual overlap makes it immediately obvious: Tuesday evenings are consistently clear for everyone.

Calendar Sync Brings External Availability In​

If you or someone on your team keeps their schedule in Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook, those external events can be synced into PrimeCal. Once synced, they appear in the week view just like any other event, giving you a complete picture of availability across all platforms.

This is a subscription feature — see External Sync for setup details.

What PrimeCal Does Not Have Yet​

PrimeCal does not currently have:

  • A free/busy overlay that shows multiple people's availability in a dedicated comparison grid
  • An availability poll or "find a time that works" wizard (similar to Doodle or the Outlook Scheduling Assistant)
  • A public availability link that lets contacts see your free slots and book directly

These are on the product roadmap. For now, the week view with shared calendars is the recommended approach for coordinating schedules.