A new user signs up, books a kickoff call or registers for an onboarding webinar, and then gets pulled back into their workday. Without a calendar entry, that session competes with everything else on their schedule, and a missed kickoff delays the moment your product starts delivering value. At CalendarLink, we often see SaaS teams put a lot of work into their onboarding flow, while the step that makes it stick, getting sessions and deadlines into the user's calendar, is left to chance. Our solution? Embed Add to Calendar in your SaaS onboarding flow by placing a CalendarLink button or link on the confirmation screen in your app and in your onboarding emails.
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Embedding a calendar option in your onboarding flow takes five steps. The first two are decisions about your onboarding itself, the last three are about the implementation.
You don't need to install a script or SDK for this. With CalendarLink, Add to Calendar is an HTML button or a link, which works in any app, web page or email builder that accepts HTML or URLs.
Not every onboarding step needs a calendar entry. Self-serve tasks, such as connecting an integration or inviting a teammate, work better as an in-app checklist. A calendar entry is meant for the moments in your onboarding flow that have a fixed date and time, or a deadline the user shouldn't miss:
These are also the moments that determine your time to value. When a user misses the kickoff call, the rest of the onboarding flow shifts with it.
The next decision is whether all users get the same event or each user gets their own. A shared event has the same date and time for everyone in your onboarding flow, such as a weekly onboarding webinar. You create it once in CalendarLink and reuse the same link in every screen and email. For sessions that repeat, subscription calendars are a good fit: users subscribe once and automatically see all upcoming sessions, including any changes, in their own calendar.
A personal event has a date that depends on the user. Think of a kickoff call at a time agreed with the customer, or a check-in call at a fixed moment after each user's own start date. Creating these events by hand doesn't scale once your user onboarding grows, so you generate them automatically with one of the methods in the next step.
CalendarLink offers several ways to add a calendar option to your onboarding flow. Which one fits depends on whether you use shared or personal events, and on how much your team wants to automate.
The simplest option is the HTML button that CalendarLink generates for every event. You copy the code and paste it on the confirmation screen in your app, on a welcome page or in an email template. When a user clicks the button, they choose their calendar and the event is saved with all details filled in. It is the same approach as our free add to calendar button for websites, and it requires no development work.
If you want users to choose their calendar inside your own interface, you can use the direct Add to Calendar links instead. CalendarLink then provides a separate link for each calendar, such as Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar, which you place side by side in your app or email. Users skip the event page and go straight to their own calendar.
For personal events in emails, Smart Links are usually the fastest route. You create a Smart Link once in CalendarLink and combine it with the personalization fields, or merge tags, of the tool that sends your onboarding emails, such as HubSpot or Mailchimp. When the email is sent, each user receives a link to an event with their own date, for example the date of their first check-in call. If you include the user's email address, CalendarLink even suggests the matching calendar based on the email domain. Learn more about how this works on our Smart Links and automation page.
If your signups land in a CRM, a form tool or a billing platform, you can let Zapier or Make create the event for you. A new signup triggers the workflow, the workflow creates a CalendarLink event with the right date, and a next step sends the link to the user or stores it on their record. This also works for RSVP events, for example when new users register for an onboarding webinar. You can find the supported tools in our overview of CalendarLink integrations.
Where you place the calendar button in your onboarding flow matters as much as how you build it. The best moment is right after the user commits to a session, when their intention is highest. In practice, that comes down to a few places in your onboarding flow:
Use one clear calendar button per screen or email, with a specific label such as "Add kickoff call to calendar", instead of several calendar buttons on the first day. In emails, a button tends to stand out more than a plain text link, and our article on the best way to use add to calendar links in emails covers the details for different email clients.
Before you roll out the updated onboarding flow, test the calendar button yourself in Google Calendar, Outlook on the web and on desktop, and Apple Calendar on an iPhone and a Mac. Also check time zones: CalendarLink shows the event in the time zone of the user's own device, so ask a colleague in another region to add a test event and confirm the start time. For more tips on this, see our article on preventing time zone confusion in webinar invites.
After launch, the analytics in CalendarLink's paid plans show how many users view and add each event. With UTM tagging, you can see which step in your onboarding flow drives the most calendar adds, for example the confirmation screen or the welcome email. Compare these numbers with the attendance of your kickoff calls and onboarding webinars to see where users still drop off.
"CalendarLink has revolutionized how we manage our sales demos. The ease of use and universal compatibility mean our prospects actually show up, and our sales team spends less time chasing and more time selling. It's a game-changer for our conversion rates." - Sarah J., Head of Sales Operations.
Our commitment to providing a truly effective solution is reflected in the enthusiastic feedback we receive from event organizers and sales professionals worldwide. We pride ourselves on delivering a product that not only meets but exceeds expectations, consistently helping our users achieve their attendance goals. The trust placed in us by thousands of users underscores our position as a leader in event scheduling and calendar integration.
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Yes. You copy the HTML button code or the event link from CalendarLink and paste it into your app, website or email builder. Only when every user needs a personal event do you need automation, through Smart Links, Zapier, Make or the API.
Use Smart Links with the merge tags of your email or CRM tool, let Zapier or Make create an event when a new user signs up, or create the event through the CalendarLink API. Each method generates an event with the user's own date and time.
Yes. The CalendarLink API lets you create events and returns a shareable event URL that you can show in your product. API access is included in the Startup and Business plans, and the documentation is available in the CalendarLink help center.
Embedding Add to Calendar in your SaaS onboarding flow comes down to picking the right moments, choosing between shared and personal events, and placing a CalendarLink button or link on the confirmation screen in your app and in your onboarding emails. Shared sessions need nothing more than one link, while Smart Links, Zapier, Make and the API take care of personal events for every new user. The result is an onboarding flow where kickoff calls, webinars and check-ins end up in the place your users check every day.
Yes. A CalendarLink event works in Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Yahoo and other calendars, and users see the event in their own time zone.
Once the event is in their calendar, the user's calendar app shows a notification before the session starts, without any extra step in your onboarding flow. If you want to remind users earlier, for example a day before, send a reminder email from your own onboarding or email tool.
With CalendarLink you can automate your event creation right inside the tools you already use and instantly improve attendance rates.
Create events on-the-fly with our smart calendar links or create one-time events right inside our app.
Boost your attendance and other opportunity rates with calendar reminders. Grow attendance and boost sales.
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✔ Unlimited events ✔ Adds-to-Calendar ✔ RSVP ✔ Subscribe-to-Calendar ✔ Notifications
