2-Way Calendar Sync — Your Calendar and Your Billing, Finally Connected

Sync Apple Calendar with TimeNet Law bidirectionally. Events appear in Launchpad. Time entries create calendar blocks. Conflicts are detected automatically. Never double-book again.

8 min Intermediate

Your calendar and your billing system should be best friends. In TimeNet Law 6, they finally are.

2-Way Calendar Sync connects Apple Calendar with TimeNet so your events appear in Launchpad views and your time entries can block off calendar time. No more checking two apps to know your schedule. No more manually entering calendar events as time entries. They're synced, automatically.

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DEMO VIDEO: "Calendar Meets Billing" — Apple Calendar with events → open TimeNet Launchpad → same events appear in Day View → create a time entry in TimeNet → it appears as a block in Apple Calendar. Two-way, real-time, seamless.

Short looping video — record this weekend

Setting It Up

Getting calendar sync running takes about two minutes. Here's the setup:

1

Open Settings → Calendar Integration

Head to Settings → Calendar Integration in TimeNet Law. This is where all your sync configuration lives.

2

Grant Calendar Access

TimeNet requests read/write access to Apple Calendar. This is a standard macOS permission — you'll see the familiar system dialog. Click Allow and you're set.

3

Select Calendars

Choose which calendars to sync. Work, personal, court dates, shared calendars — pick as many as you need. Each one can have its own sync rules.

4

Choose Sync Direction

Three options: Apple → TimeNet only, TimeNet → Apple only, or 2-Way (recommended). 2-Way means changes in either app flow to the other automatically.

5

Set Sync Frequency

Choose how often sync runs: Real-time, every 5 minutes, every 15 minutes, or manual. Real-time is the default and works great for most setups.

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Screenshot: Calendar Integration settings panel showing calendar selection and sync direction options

Pro Tip

Start with 2-Way sync and all your work calendars. You can always adjust later. Most users never change from the default because it just works.

Apple Calendar → TimeNet

Your Apple Calendar events appear automatically in Launchpad. No copy-pasting, no manual entry. They just show up.

How Events Appear in Launchpad

  • Day View — Events shown as blue blocks on the timeline alongside your time entries
  • Week View — Events appear in daily cards with blue event styling
  • Month View — Events appear as dots and labels on calendar cells

Visual Distinction Between Event Types

Launchpad makes it easy to tell synced events apart at a glance:

  • Rich Blue (solid) — Events already linked to a TimeNet matter. These are tracked and accounted for.
  • Pale Blue (dotted border) — Unsynced events not yet associated with a matter. These are opportunities waiting to be captured.

Click any unsynced event to link it to a matter. Once linked, you can convert it to a time entry with one click — client, matter, date, and duration all pre-filled from the calendar event.

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Screenshot: Launchpad Day View showing synced (solid blue) and unsynced (pale blue dotted) calendar events alongside time entries

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DEMO VIDEO: "Event to Time Entry" — Click unsynced calendar event → select matter from dropdown → click "Convert to Entry" → time entry created with all fields pre-filled. Your meeting just became a billable entry.

Short looping video — record this weekend

TimeNet → Apple Calendar

The sync runs both ways. Your TimeNet entries flow back into Apple Calendar so your schedule is always complete, everywhere.

  • Time entries create calendar blocks showing what you're working on
  • Deadlines from matters appear as all-day events in Apple Calendar
  • Reminders created in TimeNet sync to Apple Calendar reminders

This means your Apple Calendar — and anything that reads it, like your iPhone, Apple Watch, or shared calendar views — always shows your complete picture. Colleagues looking at your calendar see when you're in billing mode.

Calendar events created by TimeNet are tagged with a [TimeNet] prefix and use a distinct calendar color so they're easy to identify.

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Screenshot: Apple Calendar showing TimeNet-created blocks (with [TimeNet] prefix) alongside regular events

Conflict Detection

The sync engine is smart about conflicts. It doesn't just move data — it understands your schedule.

  • Double-booking detection — If a calendar event overlaps with a time entry, Launchpad highlights the conflict so you can fix it
  • Gap detection — Spots gaps between calendar events where you might have unbilled time. These show up as amber "potential unbilled" bars in Launchpad
  • Duplicate prevention — Won't create duplicate entries if you manually enter something that already synced
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Screenshot: Launchpad showing a conflict highlight where a meeting overlaps with a time entry, plus an amber gap indicator between events

Pro Tip

The gap detection feature alone can recover significant billable time. Those 30-minute gaps between meetings? You probably did something billable in them. Launchpad makes them visible so you can capture that time.

Court Dates & Deadlines

For litigators, calendar sync is especially powerful. Your most critical dates live in one unified view.

  • Court dates entered in Apple Calendar appear in TimeNet's Launchpad with red deadline styling
  • Statute of limitations and filing deadlines from TimeNet matters appear in Apple Calendar
  • The Needs Attention system (see Launchpad tutorial) factors in these deadlines for priority scoring
  • Never miss a filing date because you were looking at the wrong calendar
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Screenshot: A court date appearing in both Apple Calendar and TimeNet Launchpad with red deadline styling

Multiple Calendar Support

Sync as many calendars as you need. Each one gets its own sync rules and visual treatment in Launchpad.

  • Work calendar — Meetings, depositions, court dates. Full 2-way sync.
  • Personal calendar — Shows as gray (non-billable) blocks to indicate unavailability without exposing details
  • Shared calendars — Firm-wide events, conference room bookings
  • Holiday calendars — Automatically marks holidays in Launchpad

Each calendar can have its own sync rules. Maybe your personal calendar syncs one-way (Apple → TimeNet only) while your work calendar is full 2-way. You set it once and forget about it.

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Screenshot: Settings showing multiple calendars with individual sync direction toggles for each

iOS Calendar Sync

On iPhone and iPad, calendar sync extends to mobile seamlessly.

  • Events from your synced calendars appear in the iOS app's views
  • Same visual distinction — synced (solid blue) vs. unsynced (pale blue dotted) events
  • Convert events to entries on mobile with the same one-tap flow
  • iCloud Calendar changes sync to TimeNet through Apple's calendar infrastructure

Because Apple Calendar already syncs across your devices via iCloud, TimeNet on your Mac effectively keeps your iPhone's calendar in sync too. No additional setup needed on iOS — it just works through Apple's ecosystem.

Your Calendar Is Now Your Billing Tool

Stop living in two worlds. Your calendar events and your billing entries belong together. 2-Way Calendar Sync makes them one unified view in Launchpad, converts events to entries with one click, and makes sure you never miss a billable moment hiding in the gaps between meetings.

Your calendar is now your billing tool.

Related Tutorials

  • Launchpad — Where synced events appear and come to life
  • iOS App — Calendar sync on your iPhone and iPad
  • Cloud Sync — Syncing your TimeNet data across all your devices

Calendar Sync Not Behaving? Perry Can Help.

Calendar permissions on macOS can be tricky. If sync isn't working, Perry will walk you through it personally.

Get Help →