Why ScheduCal?

The Problem

When scheduling systems send appointment confirmations, they attach ICS files. When appointments change, they send new ICS files. But here's what actually happens: these create duplicate calendar entries instead of updating the existing ones. Your calendar ends up showing both the old time and the new time, and you have no idea which one is correct.[1]

This is how every major scheduling platform works today. SimplePractice, Mindbody, Vagaro, Square Appointments, Yelp Reservations - they all send ICS files. And when appointments change, they send another ICS file that creates another appointment out of your calendar.

Why I Decided to Build This

I first encountered this problem at scale while working at a company with a platform that hosted virtual conferences. Conference organizers would have four-day events with dozens of sessions each day. Attendees would register for multiple sessions, receiving an ICS file for each one.

The organizers would shuffle the schedule each morning. Sessions moved. Times shifted. The platform would send updated ICS files.

By day three, attendees' calendars were disasters. Multiple entries for the same event. No way to tell which time was current. Support tickets flooding in from confused attendees.

I asked our CTO why we didn't fix it. He told me to figure out what it would take.

After investigation, here's what we found: we'd need two developers for 3-4 months to build it. We'd need separate integrations for Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Exchange - each with their own quirks and maintenance requirements. When any of these platforms changed something, it would become an immediate crisis requiring a fix. We'd need dedicated engineers who understand the system deeply enough to fix it fast.

We looked at how scheduling platforms operated. None of them had solved this either. Not one scheduling platform had actual calendar integration that updated entries. That told us something important: if companies with far more resources than us hadn't built this, there must be good reasons.

We made the same decision everyone else made: it's not worth the cost and risk.

The Pattern I Couldn't Ignore

But I kept thinking about it. This same conversation must have happened at SimplePractice, at Mindbody, at Vagaro. Product managers had scoped the same project. Engineering teams had given similar estimates. Everyone reached the same conclusion.

Meanwhile, healthcare loses $150 billion annually to no-shows. Restaurants lose billions more. Salons, fitness studios, professional services - they all deal with the confusion and lost revenue from appointment mix-ups.

Will ScheduCal eliminate all no-shows? Of course not. People skip appointments for lots of reasons. But when your calendar accurately shows your appointment time - and only shows the correct time - you're more likely to show up. That's just common sense.

Why I Could Solve This

I had an unusual background for this problem. I was a program manager at Microsoft on the original Outlook team (calendar wasn't my feature, but I've been working with Exchange since 1995 and I've been thinking about calendars for a very long time.) I've also spent time working on scheduling platforms.

Most developers approaching this problem would start with email infrastructure and try to build calendar functionality on top. That's where I started at first, and that's the path that leads to the complexity everyone else discovered.

As I thought about the problem, I realized that Exchange and MS Graph were exceptionally flexible, and there was a fairly straightforward solution that only needed to expose four API calls: Create an appointment. Update an appointment. Cancel an appointment. Add someone to an appointment. That's it. (there's a little more, but not much more)

And because it uses Exchange's meeting request protocol - the same one that already works between Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Calendar - it works everywhere automatically.

How ScheduCal Works

Instead of sending ICS file attachments, ScheduCal sends actual meeting invitations. These appear in your inbox and on your calendar as real appointments.

When something changes, we send an update. Your calendar entry updates automatically. The old time disappears, the new time appears. No duplicates. No confusion.

When an appointment is cancelled, we send a cancellation. It's removed from your calendar. Clean and simple.

For scheduling platforms, integration is straightforward. Wherever you currently generate an ICS file, you make a ScheduCal API call instead. Days to integrate, not months.

What ScheduCal Extends

It's important to understand what ScheduCal is and isn't.

ScheduCal extends scheduling systems. We don't compete with Calendly, Cal.com, or other booking platforms. We're not a replacement for Square Appointments, Acuity, SimplePractice, Vagaro, or Yelp Reservations.

We make those systems better.

Scheduling systems are specialized calendars for businesses—they handle availability, booking logic, customer management, payments, reminders. They're sophisticated tools built for specific industries and use cases.

What they don't do well—what none of them do well—is put appointments seamlessly onto their customers' personal calendars.

That's where ScheduCal comes in. We're the layer between your scheduling system and your customers' calendars. We make the final connection that ensures your appointments actually show up where your customers look for them, and stay accurate when things change.

Who Needs This

Healthcare practices dealing with costly no-shows. Conference organizers managing complex multi-day schedules. Salons and spas with appointments that shift based on availability. Any business where customers showing up at the wrong time creates real problems.

For scheduling platforms, it's a competitive advantage none of your competitors can match - because they've all decided it's too hard to build.

Security and Privacy Done Right

ScheduCal doesn't store appointment details. We only store the identifiers that link your scheduling system's events to Exchange appointments. The actual appointment data—times, attendees, notes—lives in Exchange, where it's protected by decades of proven enterprise security.

For healthcare practices with HIPAA requirements or any business with stringent data privacy needs, ScheduCal works with on-premises Exchange servers. You maintain complete control of your data and infrastructure. The only question is whether you manage the Exchange server yourself or we manage it for you.

Other businesses can use Exchange Online or cloud-hosted Exchange, getting the same functionality with zero infrastructure management.

This flexibility means businesses of any size, in any industry, with any security requirement can use ScheduCal.

Why Now?

For five years, I waited for someone else to solve this. I watched the industry continue sending ICS files. I watched customers continue dealing with calendar confusion. I watched businesses lose money to missed appointments.

Finally, I realized that if I wanted this to exist, I had to build it myself. Not because I'm special, but because I happen to have the specific combination of Exchange expertise and scheduling industry knowledge to see the solution.

ScheduCal exists because this problem deserves a real fix. Your customers deserve calendars that work properly. And your business deserves customers who show up at the right time.

[1] ICS files DO SUPPORT updating existing calendar items, but I've only seen it work once. I am fairly certain most people who use ICS files don't know it's possible and that, because ICS file support is unevenly supported across calendar platforms, it might not work universally if they used it.