Help & Documentation

Everything you need to set up TravelSync, understand how it works, and get the most out of it.

What is TravelSync?

TravelSync watches your calendar for meetings with a physical address, works out how long the drive will take using Google Maps, and automatically blocks that travel time before the meeting starts. It works with Google Calendar and Microsoft 365 / Outlook.

It runs in the background every hour. You set it up once and forget about it. Your calendar stays honest about when you're actually available.

It also records every journey — distance, duration, and origin — so you can export a mileage report at any time with HMRC rates already applied.

Prerequisites

Before you start, you'll need:

  • A Google account (Gmail or Google Workspace) or a Microsoft account (Outlook, Hotmail, or Microsoft 365)
  • Your meetings must have a physical address in the Location field — postcodes, street addresses, venue names with an address all work

Signing in

Sign in with either Google or Microsoft — whichever account holds your work calendar. TravelSync will ask for permission to read your calendars and create events in your travel calendar. It only requests the minimum permissions needed.

Use the right account. Sign in with the Google or Microsoft account that your work calendar is on. If you signed up for beta access, the email you used must match the account you sign in with — otherwise access won't be granted.
Sessions last 60 minutes. After 60 minutes of inactivity you'll be signed out automatically. This is a security measure — your calendar account access remains until you explicitly revoke it.

Your first run

When you save your settings for the first time (with at least one source calendar and a travel calendar selected), TravelSync automatically kicks off a two-year backfill. This builds up your full travel history and mileage records covering the current and previous tax year.

The backfill runs in the background — you'll get an email when it's done. The dashboard shows live progress while it's running. After that, TravelSync runs every hour automatically.

What happens on the backfill? TravelSync scans two years of your calendar, creates travel blocks for every physical meeting it finds, and records the distance for each journey. Normal hourly runs only look 30 days back and up to your configured horizon ahead.

Apple Calendar & iCloud

TravelSync connects to Google Calendar and Microsoft 365 / Outlook. Native Apple Calendar support is on the roadmap, but it isn't here yet.

There's a workaround that works well for some Apple users in the meantime, as long as you're happy to keep your meetings in a Google calendar and view them through the Apple Calendar app:

  1. Create a Google account if you don't already have one.
  2. On your iPhone, iPad or Mac, go to Settings, then Calendar, then Accounts, and add your Google account.
  3. Make sure calendar syncing is switched on for it.
  4. Connect that same Google account to TravelSync.

Your Google calendar now appears inside the normal Apple Calendar app, and the travel blocks TravelSync creates sync straight back down to your devices. As far as you're concerned you're still using Apple Calendar. The events just happen to live in Google behind the scenes.

The catch worth knowing. This only works for meetings stored in your Google calendar. Apple doesn't share iCloud calendar data with Google, so anything kept in your default iCloud calendar stays invisible to TravelSync. The Apple Calendar app shows your iCloud and Google calendars together in one tidy view, which makes it easy to assume they're talking to each other. They aren't. So create your meetings against the Google calendar, not iCloud. If you'd rather keep everything in iCloud, it's worth waiting for proper Apple Calendar support instead.

If Apple Calendar support would make the difference for you, let us know. The more people who ask, the sooner it moves up the list.

Home & office addresses

Office address

The address TravelSync routes from when your meeting is during business hours (9am–5pm, Monday to Friday). Use a full postal address for the most accurate drive time.

Home address

The address TravelSync routes from for early morning, evening, and weekend meetings — before 9am or after 5pm.

The time-based routing is automatic. If you have a 7:30am client visit, TravelSync routes from home. If the same client is at 11am, it routes from the office. You don't configure anything — it uses the meeting start time.

Calendars

Source calendars

The calendars TravelSync scans for physical meetings. Select all calendars that contain meetings you drive to — typically your main calendar and any shared work calendars.

Travel calendar

The calendar where TravelSync creates travel blocks. When you first set up, TravelSync creates a dedicated "Travel Blocks" calendar for you automatically, or you can pick one of your own here. Do not point this at your main calendar.

Block source calendars

An optional filter. If set, TravelSync only creates travel blocks for meetings from these specific calendars. Leave empty to include all source calendars.

Timing & horizon

Look-ahead (days)

Default: 14 days

How many days ahead TravelSync looks when scanning for upcoming meetings. Increase it if you regularly book client visits far in advance.

Buffer minutes

Default: 10 min

Extra time added on top of the calculated drive time — for parking, walking to reception, and traffic buffer.

Maximum travel time (minutes)

Default: 120 min

Meetings beyond this drive time are skipped. Useful if you occasionally travel far by train — you wouldn't want a 4-hour driving block for a London trip by rail.

Advanced options

Out-of-office trigger

An optional keyword. If any meeting's description contains this text, TravelSync appends it to the travel block description — useful for flagging meetings that include overnight stays.

Vehicle type

Set to Car or Electric. This controls which HMRC mileage rates are applied in your export — standard AMAP rates for cars, Advisory Electric Rate (AER) for EVs. See Electric vehicles for details.

HMRC mileage rates

The rates used when calculating HMRC-approved mileage allowance in your export.

  • Standard rate — first 10,000 miles (default: 55p/mile from 6 April 2026)
  • Reduced rate — above 10,000 miles (default: 25p/mile)
  • Threshold — where the rate switches (default: 10,000 miles)

What gets a travel block

TravelSync creates a travel block when a meeting has a physical address in the Location field, a specific start time (not all-day), and a drive time under your configured maximum.

Up to two blocks are created per meeting:

  • Outbound — travel time from your home or office to the meeting venue, placed before the meeting starts
  • Return — travel time back from the venue, placed immediately after the meeting ends
If you have back-to-back physical meetings, TravelSync chains them — the return from one becomes the origin for the next, and only one block is created between them.

What gets skipped

Event type Block created? Why
Zoom / Teams / Google Meet No Virtual meeting — no drive needed
All-day events No No specific start time to route from
Multi-day events No No start time
Meeting link in Location field No Location is a URL, not a physical address
No location set No No address to route to
Drive over max travel time No Likely travelling by another method
Physical meeting, business hours Yes Routed from office address
Physical meeting, before 9am or after 5pm Yes Routed from home address

Home vs office routing

TravelSync uses the meeting's start time to decide which address to route from:

  • 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Friday → routes from your office address
  • Before 9:00am, after 5:00pm, or weekends → routes from your home address
Smart chaining: For back-to-back meetings, TravelSync works out that you're coming from the first venue — not from the office — and routes accordingly.

Trips away from home

When you are away for a few days, you do not drive home each night and back up the next morning. TravelSync works that out for itself when your meetings make it obvious: several days of meetings in the same part of the country, far enough from home that staying over is the only sensible reading. It then books one journey out, travel between your meetings, and one journey home at the end.

Sometimes there is nothing to work it out from. A first visit to a city, addresses with no postcode on them, a train up rather than a drive. In that case, tell it where you will be:

  • Add an all-day event covering the days you are away, on one of the calendars TravelSync is watching (the same calendars your meetings are on)
  • Put the address you are staying at in its location field, ideally with a postcode. Your hotel booking already does this if it lands in your calendar automatically

Every meeting inside those dates is then measured from that address instead of from home, so you get the short hop across town rather than a six-hour drive from your front door.

No journey to get there: when you tell TravelSync where you will be, it does not add a block for getting there or coming home. You may be on a train, a coach or a plane, and it will not guess. If you are driving and want that journey counted, leave the all-day event off and let TravelSync work the trip out from your meetings.

How blocks are named

Travel blocks follow a consistent pattern:

  • Outbound: [Travel] → Meeting Title
  • Return: [Travel] ← Meeting Title
  • Between two meetings: [Travel] Meeting A → Meeting B

Blocks are set as private so they don't expose meeting details when your calendar is shared.

How mileage tracking works

Every travel block TravelSync creates is recorded internally with the journey date, origin, destination, drive duration, and distance (km and miles). This happens automatically — there's nothing to configure.

Your mileage history goes back to when you first set up TravelSync, and grows with every run.

One thing to know: the record follows your calendar. A nightly check removes recent journeys (roughly the last three months) whose travel block no longer exists, so if you delete a past travel block from your calendar, that journey drops out of your mileage report too. Keep the block if you want the journey on the record. Deleting an upcoming block loses nothing; it's simply rebuilt on the next run.

Exporting your mileage

Go to the Mileage page to generate and download a CSV export.

  1. 1

    Choose your date range

    Select the start and end dates — typically a tax year, quarter, or month.

  2. 2

    Filter by calendar (optional)

    Select a specific source calendar to limit the export to meetings from that calendar only.

  3. 3

    Generate the report

    Click Generate. The report runs in the background and the page refreshes when it's ready.

  4. 4

    Download the CSV

    Click Download. Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, or any spreadsheet app.

The CSV includes a running mileage total and HMRC-approved allowance (in pounds) for each journey — ready to hand to your accountant.

HMRC rates

The mileage export calculates your HMRC-approved mileage allowance automatically:

  • First 10,000 miles — 55p per mile (standard rate, from 6 April 2026)
  • Above 10,000 miles — 25p per mile (reduced rate)

The running total is tracked across your full mileage history, so each export correctly picks up from where the previous one left off.

Always verify rates with your accountant. HMRC advisory rates can change. The defaults reflect current rates at time of writing.

Electric vehicles

If you drive an electric vehicle, set your vehicle type to Electric in the Mileage & Tax tab in Settings. TravelSync will then use HMRC's Advisory Electric Rate (AER) in all mileage exports instead of the standard AMAP rates.

Advisory Electric Rate (AER)

A flat rate per mile with no 10,000-mile threshold; the same rate applies to every mile you drive. HMRC publishes two figures, 7p/mile for home charging and 15p/mile for public charging, and TravelSync uses the home rate by default. Override it in the Mileage & Tax tab in Settings if you mostly use public chargers or your company uses a different figure.

EV range

Optionally enter your vehicle's range in miles. This is used for future charging stop detection features — TravelSync will be able to flag journeys that may require a charge en route.

Always check the current AER with HMRC. The Advisory Electric Rate is reviewed every quarter. The default in TravelSync reflects the home-charging rate at the time of writing.

Preview (dry run)

The Preview button on the dashboard shows you exactly what TravelSync would create in the next run — without actually touching your calendar. It's useful before a Reset & Rebuild, or any time you want to check what the engine is going to do.

Preview looks back 7 days and forward to your configured horizon. It lists each planned block with the meeting title, travel direction, calculated duration, and from/to locations.

Nothing is created or deleted during a preview run. It reads your calendar and calculates travel times, but does not write any events.

Departure Alerts

Departure Alerts give you a nudge before you need to leave for each meeting. Turn them on in the Alerts & Briefings tab in Settings and choose how much warning you'd like — 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes before departure.

There are two independent channels — switch on either or both:

Calendar reminder

A native reminder is added to every travel block, so your phone or calendar app pings you automatically before departure. This is the most reliable nudge. For it to reach your phone, make sure your Travel Blocks calendar is switched on (visible) in your phone's calendar app.

"Leave now" email

An optional email sent as each journey nears its departure time, with the destination, drive time and distance, plus one-tap Open in Google Maps and Open in Waze buttons so you can start navigating straight away.

Changes apply automatically. When you turn alerts on or change your lead time, TravelSync updates the reminders on your upcoming travel blocks for you — there's nothing else to do. The "Leave now" email covers every upcoming journey from the moment you enable it.

Daily Briefing

The daily briefing is an optional email that lands each morning with a quick summary of the day's travel. Turn it on in the Alerts & Briefings tab in Settings and choose a send time (between 05:00 and 09:00).

Each briefing shows:

  • Visits — how many meetings you're travelling to
  • First departure — when you need to set off first
  • Driving — total drive time for the day
  • Distance — total miles or kilometres, in your chosen unit
  • A list of the day's journeys with departure times
Only on days you have travel. If your calendar has no physical meetings that day, TravelSync skips the briefing rather than sending an empty one.

Traffic Delay Warnings

Traffic Delay Warnings keep an eye on live traffic so a bad day doesn't make you late. Turn them on in the Alerts & Briefings tab in Settings and set how much slower than usual you're willing to tolerate before you want to know (5 to 30 minutes).

In the run-up to each journey, TravelSync checks the predicted drive time with current traffic against your usual drive. If it's slower by more than your threshold, you get an email with an updated "leave by" time and one-tap Google Maps / Waze links. On normal days you hear nothing.

Works with Outlook too. Traffic always comes from Google Maps, regardless of whether your calendar is Google or Microsoft.
Checked close to departure. To keep things accurate (and costs sensible), TravelSync only checks traffic in roughly the 90 minutes before you're due to leave.

Out-of-Office: Setting up rules

The OOO auto-responder sends email replies on your behalf when you're away. Go to Out of Office in the navigation to manage your rules.

Creating a rule

Click + Add Rule and enter a trigger keyword (e.g. holiday — the # is added automatically), a label, a subject line, and your reply message in the HTML editor. A plain text version is generated automatically.

Enabling a rule

Toggle the slider on any rule to activate it. You can have up to 5 rules active at once. Use Disable All to turn everything off in one click.

Per-rule calendar selection

Each rule can monitor specific calendars. Expand a rule and tick the calendars it should watch. Leave all unchecked to monitor all your source calendars.

Email signature

Set your signature in the Signature section at the bottom of the OOO page. It's appended to every auto-reply. Write it in the HTML editor — a plain text version is generated for you.

Testing a rule

Expand any rule and click Send test reply. TravelSync emails you a rendered sample of that rule's auto-reply, sent from your own mailbox, so you can check the wording and signature before you're actually away.

Start & finish notifications

TravelSync emails you when an OOO period begins (your auto-replies are now active) and again when it ends, with the number of replies it sent while you were away. These notices are on by default — untick Email me when my auto-replies start or finish under Notifications on the OOO page to stop them. Your dashboard also shows a banner while a period is active.

First-time setup: The auto-responder needs permission to read and send email on your behalf. The first time you open the Out of Office page you'll see a Connect email access button (Google), or a prompt to sign out and back in once (Microsoft). Until you connect it, the OOO settings stay unavailable. Your travel blocks and mileage don't need this, which is why it isn't requested when you first sign in.

Out-of-Office: Trigger keywords

A trigger keyword is a hashtag you add to a calendar event to tell TravelSync which OOO rule to use.

Where to put it: Add the keyword to either the event title or the event description — both are checked. For example, set the title to "Annual Leave #holiday" or just type #holiday anywhere in the description field.

Examples:

  • Event title: Annual Leave #holiday
  • Event title: Training Day — Advanced Excel #training
  • Event description containing: #sick

TravelSync scans your calendars every 5 minutes. When it finds an event matching one of your trigger keywords, it activates the corresponding rule for the duration of that event. When the event ends, the rule deactivates automatically.

Keywords are matched case-insensitively. #Holiday, #holiday, and #HOLIDAY all match the same rule.

Out-of-Office: Template variables

Use these placeholders in your rule's subject line and message body. They're replaced with real values when the reply is sent.

VariableReplaced with
{{senderName}}Full name of the person who emailed you
{{senderFirstName}}Sender's first name
{{senderLastName}}Sender's last name
{{userName}}Your full name
{{userFirstName}}Your first name
{{userLastName}}Your last name
{{returnDate}}Your return date — the next day when your event ends at 4pm or later, with weekends adjusted to Monday
{{todaysDate}}Today's date (when the reply is sent)
{{eventTitle}}The calendar event title
{{signature}}Your configured email signature

How {{returnDate}} is worked out

The date comes from the calendar event that triggered the rule, adjusted so it reflects when you're realistically back at your desk:

  • Event ends before 4pm: shows that same day. A morning absence reads as "back this afternoon".
  • Event ends at 4pm or later: shows the next day. A 9am–5pm absence on a Thursday tells senders you're back Friday.
  • If that lands on a weekend: it moves to Monday. Finish at 5pm on a Friday and the reply says Monday.
  • All-day events: show the day after your last day away, again skipping weekends. A Monday-to-Friday holiday says Monday.

The date is written out in full, e.g. Friday 17th July.

Tip: On the OOO page, click any variable in the reference box to copy it to your clipboard.

No blocks appearing

If TravelSync has run but no travel blocks appeared, check:

  • Do your meetings have a physical address? The Location field needs a real address — not a meeting link or just a room name.
  • Is the correct source calendar selected? Confirm the calendar your meetings live in is listed under Source Calendars in the Calendar Setup tab in Settings.
  • Is the travel calendar set? Blocks are created in your travel calendar, not your main calendar.
  • Are the meetings within your look-ahead window? If your next physical meeting is in 3 weeks and your look-ahead is 14 days, it won't be processed yet.
  • Check the activity log on the dashboard — it shows what TravelSync did on the last run and why meetings may have been skipped.

Wrong travel duration

  • Is the meeting location a full address? A vague location like "London" won't geocode accurately. The more specific, the more accurate.
  • Is your home or office address correct? A typo or incomplete postcode can cause Google Maps to geocode to the wrong location. Check Settings → Calendar Setup → Default Locations.
  • Drive times are calculated at run time, not at the time you view the block. For very traffic-sensitive routes, the time may differ from actual conditions at departure.

Meeting not being picked up

TravelSync skips meetings it detects as virtual. If a physical meeting isn't getting a travel block:

  • Does the title, location, or description contain virtual keywords? Words like "Zoom", "Teams", "online", "virtual", or a meeting URL will cause the meeting to be skipped — even if a physical address is also present.
  • Is it an all-day event? All-day events are always skipped.
  • Is the drive longer than your maximum travel time? Check Settings → Travel Rules → Max Travel.

The activity log on the dashboard shows which meetings were skipped and why — the quickest way to diagnose a specific meeting.

Stuck on "Running"

TravelSync has a built-in safety mechanism: if a run hasn't completed within 10 minutes, the status is automatically reset to allow a new run to start.

If you see "Running" for more than 10 minutes, wait — the auto-reset will kick in. If it keeps happening, check the activity log on the dashboard for error details.

During a Reset & Rebuild the settings page will be locked and the dashboard will show "Backfill running". This is expected — a full two-year rebuild takes longer than a normal run. You'll receive an email when it completes.

Still stuck?

If you can't find what you need here, we're happy to help directly.

Email support@travelsync.co.uk