Google Workspace
This article explains how to connect Ashby with Google Workspace, covering the available integration options, how to configure a shared interview calendar, and how Google Meet settings interact with Ashby's scheduling features.
Google Workspace Admin required: If you're not a Google Workspace Admin, share this guide with your team's Google Workspace Admin. They do not need access to Ashby, but you should input their email address on the Google Workspace tile in the Integrations Marketplace.
Google Workspace integration overview
Ashby integrates with Google Workspace to enable key features like displaying your conversations with candidates in the candidate profile feed and scheduling interviews directly in Ashby.
The integration supports the following:
Users | Sync Google Workspace users to automatically provision/de-provision them as Ashby users |
|---|---|
Sync emails between candidates and users (based on inspecting to/from headers) Send emails and email sequences from within Ashby | |
Scheduling | Sync employee calendars Send event invites Sync meeting rooms |
None of these options are required, but all are recommended for the best user experience with Ashby.
User provisioning
Users can be synced to Ashby via the following routes:
- If you have user sync enabled as part of your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 integration settings.
- If you migrate data via the Greenhouse, Workday, or Lever API migration options, user accounts are pulled over as part of the migration.
- If you configure a user sync via System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM).
- If a user signs in for the first time using the native `Sign in with Google` button, Ashby can create their user account even when Google Workspace user sync is disabled. The user must sign in with an email address that matches an organization domain configured for the corresponding sign-in method. New accounts created this way start as Limited Access users. Once Directory Sync (SCIM) is enabled, Ashby does not create users through native Google sign-in. Users must be provisioned through Directory Sync (SCIM).
If you've enabled user sync as part of your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 integration (and do not have SCIM configured), users are automatically provisioned and deactivated based on their status in your workspace or tenant.
If you have users synced via an API migration or by enabling user sync as part of the Google Workspace/Microsoft 365 integration and then set up SCIM, the SCIM sync deactivates any user accounts that were initially added but are not in your SCIM directory.
To reactivate any users that were deactivated when they shouldn't have been, add them back to your SCIM directory.
If users have been added via an API migration from Greenhouse, Workday, or Lever, you can manually deactivate any users who do not need access if you are not planning to configure SCIM.
You can read more about deactivating users at How do I provision new users in my Ashby account manually?How do I provision new users in my Ashby account manually?.
Synced users do not receive a welcome email. Once added, they can sign in at https://app.ashbyhq.com/signin.
Email sync
Ashby syncs email communication between your candidates and your users so long as the following conditions are met:
Condition | Details |
|---|---|
User access level | The Ashby user involved in the email thread must have Elevated Access or Organization Admin access. Emails where the candidate is cc'd or bcc'd on a qualifying thread are also synced. |
Sent after integration | Only emails sent and received from the point of integration onwards are synced. Historical email communication is not synced. |
Candidate email domain | If the candidate's email domain matches your organization's auth domain, their emails are not synced. If the candidate has two email addresses, one matching your auth domain and one not, emails sent to or from the non-auth-domain address are still synced. |
Emails sent from Ashby | Emails sent directly from Ashby are always synced and appear in the candidate feed, regardless of the above conditions. |
Emails sent via Ashby also appear in the sender's Sent folder in Gmail.
Email attachments
Attachments included in an email also appear on the synced email on the candidate's feed in Ashby.
To save an email attachment from an inbound email to the Other Files section of the candidate's profile, click the file icon on the attachment.
The option to save an email attachment as a file on the candidate profile is not available for outbound emails.
A popover opens with the following options:
- Description
- File category (more on this at Candidate Files and File Categories). Ashby prefills this with 'From email on X date', but you can amend it.
- Privacy (if you have permission to view private fields)
Once you save the file, the privacy set is separate from the email privacy settings. Changing the email privacy later does not impact who can access the file saved to the candidate profile. Deleting the email from the candidate's feed does not remove the saved file from the candidate profile automatically.
Users can individually disable email sync in the Email Settings section of their personal settings at https://app.ashbyhq.com/settings/email.
If email sync is enabled, users can also opt to include personal email aliases in the sync — so if they respond to a candidate using one of their personal aliases in their email client, that reply is still synced to Ashby.
All aliases listed under Aliases to include in email sync are set to not sync by default. Each user needs to opt in to enable syncing for a given alias. For more on email syncing, check out Integration options for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365Integration options for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365
Setting up the Google Workspace integration
When it comes to integrating with Google Workspace, you have a number of different routes you can take. The guides below walk you through each route.
- Google Workspace: Domain-wide DelegationGoogle Workspace: Domain-wide Delegation (recommended): This route allows you to grant Open Authorization (OAuth) access on behalf of all your employees.
- Google Workspace: Individual OAuthGoogle Workspace: Individual OAuth: This route requires each user to go through the OAuth process in order for Ashby to have access to their calendars and emails.
- Google Workspace: Hybrid AccessGoogle Workspace: Hybrid Access: This route allows you to use domain-wide delegation for some scopes and individual OAuth for others.
The scopes across domain-wide delegation and individual OAuth are listed below.
Scope Name | Description | Domain-Wide | OAuth | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sync users | Sync Google Workspace users to automatically provision/de-provision them as Ashby users | 🟢 | 🔴 | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user.readonly |
Sync meeting rooms | Sync meeting rooms | 🟢 | 🔴 | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.resource.calendar.readonly |
Sync calendars | Read/write calendars | 🟢 | 🟢 | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar |
Sync emails | Sync emails between candidates and users* | 🟢 | 🟢 | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly |
Send emails | Send emails and email sequences from within Ashby | 🟢 | 🟢 | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.send |
Create Google Meet events | Create Google Meet meeting links for interview scheduling and people workflows scheduling when Google Meet is selected | 🟢 | 🟢 | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/meetings.space.created |
Read Google Meet spaces | Reading existing meeting links that Ashby creates through the Google Calendar API. | 🟢 | 🟢 | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/meetings.space.readonly |
🟢 indicates the scope is supported for the delegation type 🔴 indicates the scope is not supported for the delegation type
For more information on the permissions requested by Ashby as part of the integration, review Integration options for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365Integration options for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
Configuring a shared interview calendar
This is a core part of the integration setup. A shared calendar prevents scheduling issues when hiring team members are unavailable. The person setting up the Google Workspace integration and the person adding the shared calendar must both belong to the same primary domain that is authorized in Ashby.
We recommend configuring a Google shared calendar that everyone on your team who schedules interviews can use.
With a shared calendar, your team is able to reschedule other users' interviews if needed. This also keeps their personal calendars clear of interviews they aren't a part of.
You can set a default calendar that all interview calendar events are created on. You can change this at the time of scheduling.
For more information on connecting creating and connecting a shared calendar in Google, check out What is a shared calendar?
How Ashby discovers shared calendars and meeting rooms
Learn more about meeting rooms in Google Workspace: Meeting RoomsGoogle Workspace: Meeting Rooms.
When Ashby populates the shared calendar and meeting room dropdowns in the integration settings, it uses the Primary Google Workspace Admin configured on the integration page. This user must have the correct Google scope and Admin Console permissions for each resource type:
What is being listed | Required Google scope | Required Google Admin permission |
|---|---|---|
Meeting rooms (resource calendars) | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.resource.calendar.readonly | Admin Console > Directory > Buildings and resources (read) |
Shared calendars | https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar | Standard Google Calendar access |
If the Primary Google Workspace Admin loses one of these scopes, the corresponding list stops updating in Ashby.
How shared calendar and meeting room events are synced
Listing a calendar and reading the events on it are two separate operations that use different authorization paths.
For reading events, Ashby identifies an Ashby user with access to that specific calendar and uses their OAuth token. The default is the Primary Google Workspace Admin. If that user does not have access to a particular calendar, Ashby falls back to other Ashby users who do.
To designate a single specific user to authorize all shared calendar and meeting room syncing, contact Ashby Support.
Recurring calendar events that include the "RSCALE" property in their recurrence rules (RRULES) are not supported and are not synced to Ashby. The "RSCALE" property is used to specify non-Gregorian calendars. All events without the "RSCALE" property sync as normal.
A note on domain-wide delegation (DWD)
Domain-Wide Delegation (DWD) does not change which user's OAuth token is used for reading calendar event details. Ashby still uses an individual user's OAuth token for calendar reads. DWD covers other parts of the integration, such as user and organization-level operations.
Adding personal calendars
You can connect additional personal Google calendars to Ashby so that events on those calendars are reflected in your availability when scheduling interviews.
You need to have OAuth enabled in your account before you can import a personal calendar.
Personal calendars require the Google Workspace calendar sharing settings to be set to See all event details in order to be pulled into availability when scheduling.
To add a personal calendar:
- Navigate to Personal Settings, then to Google Workspace Settings.
- Click + Import in the Secondary Calendars section. A list of your personal Google calendars appears.
- Select the calendar you want to import and click Submit.
Only personal Google calendars should be imported here — do not select shared calendars.
The calendar is added to the Secondary Calendars list and begins syncing with Ashby. Events on that calendar are taken into account when other users manually schedule you for an interview.
If you click on the calendar in the Secondary Calendars list, you can also:
- Disable the calendar: click the calendar and toggle it off. Events on that calendar are no longer reflected in your availability.
- Remove the calendar entirely: click the calendar and select Delete Calendar and Events.
Events from personal calendars on the secondary list follow any KeywordsKeywords settings you have configured and are taken into account when auto-scheduling.
Working locations
Your working location syncs directly into the scheduling experience in Ashby, so you don't have to jump between Ashby and Google Calendar to check where someone is working.
Working location is displayed beneath the user's name on the calendar interface when manually scheduling an interview.
Google Meet settings
When Google Workspace is integrated with Ashby, Google Meet can be set as a location for your interviews to generate meeting links.
While the integration facilitates the creation of Google Meet meetings and meeting links, the Google Meet settings you have configured within your Google Admin console apply.
These settings include:
- Who can join meetings created by your organization
- Which meetings or calls users in the organization can join or receive
- Joining settings (e.g., whether the host must join before anyone else and who must ask to join the meeting)
- Who can send in-call chat messages
- Who can share their screens in calls
- Host Management (restricting what non-host participants are able to do in the call)
If any of these settings need to be amended, reach out to an admin for your Google Workspace. The settings can be accessed within the Admin console under Google Workspace > Google Meet.
In particular, if interviewers are unable to admit candidates into a Google Meet meeting, this is likely due to Host Management being turned on. To resolve this, navigate to Google Workspace > Google Meet > Host Management in the Admin console and ensure the Start video call with host management turned on checkbox is unchecked.
FAQs
Google Workspace integration
Domain-wide delegation is in place and I've checked the "Sync Google Workspace Users" checkbox. Why aren't users syncing over?
Ensure that the email address listed in the Primary Google Workspace Admin field of your Google Workspace integration settings belongs to a Google Workspace admin. Once the email address of an admin in your workspace has been added, users should start to sync over.
Can I use a service account as the Primary Google Workspace Admin? What privileges are required?
Yes. For more on this, check out Google Workspace: Setting a Service Account as Primary Admin in AshbyGoogle Workspace: Setting a Service Account as Primary Admin in Ashby.
Can I set up both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 integrations in my Ashby account?
Ashby currently supports deep integration with either Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 but not both simultaneously. For more information, check out Does Ashby support integrating with both Google and Microsoft at the same time?Does Ashby support integrating with both Google and Microsoft at the same time?.
Shared interview calendar
Why did my shared calendar or meeting room stop syncing?
If a shared calendar or meeting room stops syncing in Ashby, work through the following checks:
- Confirm the Primary Google Workspace Admin on the integration page still exists and has valid OAuth.
- Confirm that admin still has the required scope:
- calendar scope for shared calendars
- admin.directory.resource.calendar.readonly scope for meeting rooms
- If you are using individual OAuth rather than Domain-Wide Delegation (DWD), confirm that at least one other active Ashby user who has access to the calendar in Google has completed Google OAuth in Ashby with the calendar scope.
- For meeting rooms specifically: confirm the Primary Google Workspace Admin still has the admin.directory scope.
If you have worked through these steps and the calendar is still not syncing, contact [email protected].
What should I do before deactivating a user who has access to a shared calendar?
Before deactivating a user in Ashby who currently has access to a shared calendar, make sure another active Ashby user is granted access to that same calendar in Google. This ensures the calendar continues to sync after the original user is deactivated.
To hand off calendar access:
- In Google Calendar, open the settings for the shared calendar.
- Under Share with specific people, add the replacement user and give them at least Make changes to events permission.
- Deactivate the original user in Ashby whenever you are ready.
No changes are needed in Ashby itself. The shared calendar continues to sync using the new user's access on the next sync.
Do not manually move interview events between calendars in Google Calendar. Doing so:
- Clears RSVPs from all attendees
- Causes Ashby to recreate the original event
- Leaves duplicate events and invites that show as unsent
If events were already moved manually, the affected interviews need to be canceled and rebooked in Ashby to restore the correct invite and RSVP state.
Emails
I send a large volume of no-reply emails each day. Can I still use a branded email address?
This is possible if an email domain is configured within Ashby. If you are sending more than 1,000 no-reply or automated emails a day and would prefer to use a branded email address, check out our Email Domain Setup guide.
Why isn't my email alias showing up in the Aliases to include in email sync section?
Aliases in the Aliases to include in email sync section of Email Settings are pulled from your Google Workspace profile. If your alias isn't appearing, confirm that the address is configured as an alternate email address in your Google Account. Once it's added there, the alias appears in Email Settings for you to opt in and enable syncing.