Connect Microsoft Calendar for your church team

Who can connect Microsoft Calendar?

Connecting a calendar is a guarded action. The account owner can do it, and so can an admin who has been granted the permission to manage calendar connections. Whoever connects must also have completed multi-factor authentication. No other role can start the connection, and the same gate applies again when Microsoft sends you back, so a connection cannot be finished by someone who should not have started it.

The connection lives in Settings, under Integrations. If you don't see a Microsoft Calendar card in Settings, under My Calendar, the connection isn't available to your church yet; contact support and we will help you sort it out.

• The account owner, or an admin with the calendar connections permission, connects Microsoft Calendar from Settings, under Integrations, with multi-factor authentication completed.
• FlockConnect asks for access as you: basic profile information plus create, update, and delete on calendars you can edit, including shared ones. It does not request organization-wide calendar access, though your organization may still require an administrator to approve the narrow request.
• Destinations are picked from a list of your Microsoft calendars. Only calendars your account can edit appear, and your default calendar is marked Default. There is no manual calendar ID entry for Microsoft.
• Every destination is verified with a tiny test event that is created and immediately deleted before the destination is used.
• FlockConnect writes only reminders a person has approved, with generic text and a secure link back to FlockConnect. Pastoral details never appear in the calendar copy. From your own calendar FlockConnect keeps only busy times; where Microsoft's availability reply also carries an event's subject or location, those fields are ignored and never stored.
• Disconnecting stops FlockConnect from using the connection. Removing the grant on the Microsoft side is a separate step you take from your Microsoft account's app permissions.

What happens when I connect?

Connecting runs through Microsoft's own sign-in. You sign in on Microsoft's site, Microsoft shows you what FlockConnect is asking for, and you approve or decline, unless your organization requires an administrator's approval, in which case Microsoft tells you so instead. Either way you land back on the Integrations page with a plain banner telling you what happened: connected successfully, not connected because the request was declined or your organization did not allow it, blocked by your organization's Microsoft settings, or something went wrong and you can try again. The blocked banner means Microsoft wants an administrator in your organization to approve FlockConnect, so the answer has to come from whoever administers Microsoft for your church rather than from trying again.

FlockConnect asks for access as you, not as your whole organization. The request covers basic sign-in and profile information, ongoing access so the connection keeps working between visits, and permission to create, update, and delete events on your calendars, including shared calendars you can edit. FlockConnect never asks for organization-wide calendar access that would reach every calendar in your church. That is about how much access is requested, not about who is allowed to approve it: a Microsoft 365 organization may still require an administrator to approve FlockConnect, even for this narrow request.

FlockConnect uses that access for four things only: writing, updating, and clearing its own reminder events; re-reading those same reminders so it can tell when one has been moved or deleted; listing your calendars so you can pick destinations; and reading whether the calendar you connected shows you as busy, so your own availability can be checked for follow-ups and bookings. It keeps busy blocks only, stretches of time marked busy. One caveat worth stating plainly: when FlockConnect asks Microsoft for your availability, Microsoft's reply about your own calendar can also carry an event's subject or location. FlockConnect ignores those fields, never stores them, and never shows them to anyone. The credential FlockConnect keeps so the connection stays alive is protected before it is stored, and how integration credentials are protected at rest is covered on our Trust and Security page.

How do I pick which calendars FlockConnect writes to?

Connecting on its own does not write anything anywhere. After the connection is made, you add one or more destinations: the specific calendars FlockConnect is allowed to write to. Add destination opens a picker that lists the calendars from your Microsoft account. Only calendars your account can edit appear in the list, and your default calendar is marked Default.

For each destination you pick a calendar and give it a display name you will recognize. Every destination is a personal calendar: FlockConnect puts only your own reminders and bookings there, and it does not write to shared church or team calendars. Choose a calendar only you use, because anyone who can see it sees the reminder titles too. The calendar writeback guide linked below explains who sees what and what the events actually say.

How does FlockConnect verify write access?

When you save a destination, FlockConnect proves it can actually write there before keeping it. It creates a tiny test event on the calendar and immediately deletes it. The test event is marked private and as free time, is dated back in the year 2000 so it never appears in anyone's upcoming week, and its subject says plainly that it is verifying write access and can be ignored.

If the test fails, the destination is switched off rather than used, so FlockConnect never writes to a calendar it could not prove it can write to.

How is Microsoft different from Google?

Inside FlockConnect the two providers work the same way: the same people can connect them, destinations are added and verified the same way, and the events carry the same generic text with a secure link back to FlockConnect. The visible differences are small. The Google card offers a manual fallback where you can type a calendar ID by hand if your list of calendars cannot be loaded; the Microsoft card has no manual entry, so a calendar must show up in the picker, which means your Microsoft account must be able to edit it. And where Google calls your main calendar Primary, Microsoft calls it Default.

The bigger difference shows up when access is removed. Google gives apps a way to cancel their own grant, and FlockConnect uses it when a church's account is deleted. Microsoft offers no equivalent for this kind of connection. So once FlockConnect clears the stored credential it can no longer use the connection, but FlockConnect may still appear in your Microsoft account's list of apps with access until you remove it yourself, from Microsoft's My Apps page or with the help of your organization's Microsoft admin.

How do I disconnect or reconnect?

Disconnecting sits behind the same gate as connecting: the owner, or an admin with the calendar connections permission, with multi-factor authentication completed. Disconnecting clears the stored credential, so FlockConnect stops writing, and the card says so and offers Reconnect whenever you are ready to start again. Your destinations are kept but paused, so reconnecting restores them without rebuilding. Reminder events already on the calendar stay where they are; remove any leftovers by hand if you want them gone.

Disconnecting in FlockConnect and removing the grant in Microsoft are two separate steps. Disconnecting stops FlockConnect from using the connection. If you also want FlockConnect gone from your Microsoft account's list of apps with access, remove it there as well, as described above.