Calendar connection emails

[#1]

I've got a couple of these emails now, suggesting I connect my calendar to UpWork so that it can see my availability. When I follow through on the suggested method for doing this, it requires the following permissions...

Seriously!!!! Is anyone actually giving UpWork this level of access? If so, get in touch, I've got a Nigerian friend who happens to be royalty and needs some help.

Paul

[#2]

Oh, and it seems that my consultation has been disabled unless I give UpWork these permissions, which is....cool?!?!?!

[#3]

Paul,

Are your referring to the Consultation calendar that stays on Upwork or the new calendar feature to schedule on Upwork?

I only use Consultations and never give out free calls to prospects so maybe I can't see what you are talking about.

[#4]

I have a consultation setup, and it was live. Then I got the email about my calendar being disconnected, which is weird, as I didn't connect it for the same reason of sanity mentioned above. I clicked the option to connect the calendar to check if UpWork had taken a more sane route, and found that it didn't so it refused to connect my calendar, claiming it needed more permissions. Then I got an email with the following...

[#5]

Hi Paul, 

I'm sorry to learn you feel this way. I checked this with the team, and they shared that if you do not wish to connect your calendar, you can set up your availability in the calendar settings in the project editor while setting up your project. After setting up your availability, click on save to continue providing consultations. 

[#6]

Hi Avery,

Thanks for that, I'll investigate if that's possible. It still doesn't answer the question of why UpWork would need permission to "edit, share and permanently delete all calendars you can access using Google Calendar", surely it would be ideally just read access to the one calendar I share, or if absolutely necessary, edit access to that same single calendar?

It would be great to understand why UpWork needs to be able to delete any calendar I have access to in order to provide this service.

Paul

[#7]

Hi Paul, 

Thank you for patiently waiting as I looked into this further. I can confirm that these permissions are needed by the calendaring API we use to offer this feature. The access is required to support the rescheduling and event-canceling features of the calendar. Unfortunately, we do not have control over these permissions. As I suggested previously, you can add your availability manually through the "available hours" section of the consultation editor.