S1. Ep37 - How to Set Up Business Automations on Your iPhone

Wondering why sharing your availability feels like such a drain when it should be simple?

You're not alone. In this episode, Katie and Noel tackle one of those simple but overwhelming business tasks: coordinating calendars and sharing availability with clients.

They reveal how to use the iPhone Shortcuts app (already on your phone) to automate calendar sharing in five minutes. No coding, no complex tools, just a step-by-step walkthrough that turns availability sharing into a single tap.

Perfect for beginners to automation, service providers drowning in calendar coordination, and anyone who thought automation was too technical to tackle.

How to find us:

Join our membership over on Skool, where we support you on your AI and automation journey. We share exclusive content in the membership that shows you the automations we talks about in action how to build them. Find out more about the AI Business Club here.

We have a free LinkedIn group (AI Automations For Business), the group is open to all.

If you would like dedicated help with your automations or would like us to build them for you then you can find our agency at makeautomations.ai

• Episode Transcript

  Katie (00:00)

  Hello, welcome back to another episode. Hi, I'm Katie. And as always, I've got Noel here with me. Hi Noel. How you doing?

  Noel (00:08)

  Hello. Amazing as always.

  Katie (00:11)

  Amazing. Good. Have you recovered from the Make conference yet?

  Noel (00:20)

  I think so. It was a lot to take in. Yeah, it was a really fun event.

  Katie (00:21)

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so this week, we are talking about multiple tasks when running a business. Like when you first start your business, you kind of just started thinking, I want to do this, and you kind of don't realise all of the things that go with it. So it could be like admin, marketing, accounts, you know, all of those things. And actually, a lot of them can feel overwhelming, even though some of them might be, you know, fairly straightforward or simple. And this week we are kind of being an advocate for some of those tasks, even if they seem simple or straightforward.

  To some, I would like to add in to some. So yeah, this week we aren't sharing a complicated automation or a tool or piece of software where you need quite a lot of experience. So if you are a beginner to automations or still getting used to them, then this is definitely going to be your episode.

  Because we're gonna be talking about the Shortcuts app, which is available on iOS. So if you've got an iPhone. So this app, it's so much fun. And there are many things that you can use it for that aren't business related. There are things that you can use it around the house, like, you know, remembering to take the washing out of the machine.

  Or remember if someone's coming to your house or something like that. Yeah, this app allows you to create custom workflows to automate tasks. So the app is often pre-installed on an iPhone. So if you're thinking, I don't recognise the name, I would maybe search it on your phone because very often it is already on there.

  So yeah, you can do loads of things with this app, like make a PDF from a website with a single tap. You can run shortcuts by asking Siri to perform them by name, automate reminders and much, much more. So when you open up the Shortcuts app, it's gonna be pre-populated with the apps that you already have on your phone. So it's going to be, you know, the standard ones like, you know, your camera, your calendar, but also things like Amazon, Facebook, whatever.

  So one of the tasks that I personally find overwhelming and Noel you'll have to tell me if you find this because actually we haven't had a conversation about this is when someone asks me for my availability for like a meeting or to record a podcast.

  Noel (03:28)

  Yeah, I get that a few times, it's like I've got a lot of calendars going on on my end.

  Katie (03:35)

  Yeah, so I use Calendly because I feel like it gives quite a professional feel and people can just like then automatically book in, it sends them a Zoom link, like great. But with me, a lot of the time my Calendly is not up to date.

  Noel (03:51)

  That's true, you've really got to keep on top of your main calendar which it links to haven't you? That's the crux of it isn't it?

  Katie (04:03)

  Yeah, yeah, and I sort of always forget to do it. So maybe that is a whole kind of different automation that I need.

  Noel (04:10)

  I'll get to work.

  Katie (04:14)

  Yeah, yeah, so I always need to make sure that it's up to date. And sometimes I think as well, if people have asked you for a meeting, they're not gonna be you sending a Zoom link or if they want you to be on their podcast, they're gonna be sending you a link. And so actually sometimes sending a Calendly link over, you know, with that automation, if it sends over, you know, like the Zoom link to them, actually isn't gonna work because actually what they're gonna do is send over their own link for you to join.

  Noel (04:52)

  Yeah.

  Katie (04:54)

  But yeah, so if I do then have to send over my Calendly link, obviously I've got to update it. So that then takes me time, like it's another task. It's not just a quick copy my Calendly link and send it over to someone. It's a whole like, now I have to go through my calendar for the next two weeks to make sure that, you know, I've blocked out the time so that I don't double book myself because as well I have double booked things before which is not good. So Noel you're going to walk us through aren't you how we can use the Shortcuts app using the calendar app on our phones to reduce overwhelm, reduce task fatigue and give a bit of a faster response.

  Noel (05:46)

  Yeah, absolutely. So I guess first things first, if you've got an iPhone, obviously this is, if you've got an Android, I'm sorry, I'm sure there's ways of doing it, but we don't have Android phones.

  Katie (05:57)

  Yeah, you don't have the Shortcuts app though, unfortunately.

  Noel (06:01)

  No, no, I'm sure they've got their own version, but they are. So for this one, what we're going to need to do is first off, if you haven't already set up your business calendar on your phone. So that's going into the Apple Calendar app and then connecting, you know, whether it be Outlook, Google, whatever calendar you use and getting that connected in. You know, ideally when we're sending our availability, you know, we don't really want to be sending them details of everything that we're doing on an evening. You know, so I'm going out for dinner tonight. They don't care about that. That's in your personal calendar.

  Katie (06:37)

  No. No, they don't need to know when you've got your waxing appointment.

  Noel (06:43)

  I know when is that I need to check what I've got that booked in. See you just yeah making sure that we've got all that pre-configured ready to go. But the opposite like you mentioned before you know we also need the Shortcuts app installed. Really is fun on the Apple store if you haven't got it already. But once we have it open you'll see there might be things all kind of pre-populated in the library. There's some useful tips, things that you could automate from the way it go. But you'll see at the very bottom, we've got automation and gallery. So the buttons at the very bottom. And for us, this automation is already going to be pre-built and is in the gallery, which is really, really helpful. So if we click on gallery,

  Katie (07:31)

  Yes.

  Noel (07:34)

  you'll be met with a whole host of really cool automations that you could set up on your phone. But if we scroll down to collaborate better, you'll see the share availability automation. So there's a little plus button. So we just click the plus and then that is now added to the library. It's as simple as that. So we go on three buttons at the very bottom. We'll go back to library and we'll now see that that's there ready to go.

  But there are a couple of things that we do need to change in order to get this to work properly. So at the moment, there is no button on your phone to very quickly go off and check this, just show your availability. So we will add that. And also, as standard, this is just going to look at every single calendar within your account and then send the availability for everything, which is not what we want.

  To do this, you'll see there's three little dots in the top right corner on the share availability app. So I'm just going to click three dots and this looks very daunting. There's a lot of things going on within this, but we'll keep this very simple. If we scroll down, you'll see that you've got a module where it's called find and then calendar events. So that's the only bit we need to look at. We don't need to change anything else so we can leave that alone. On that card, we'll see if we've got an add filter it's about halfway down and what we'd need to do is just tap add filter and then straight away it's already come up and thought well maybe they want to pick the right calendar so it says calendar is and then choose is kind of greyed out so if you click on choose and then you can then select your company business calendar and then yeah once that's done that's all good to go. We don't need to go off and save it or anything like that. We can leave it as it is. But if we want to then add the shortcut button, there is the share button in the very bottom right. So we've got the usual square with the up arrow for sharing. So if we click on there at the very bottom, you'll see add to home screen. And if we select that, you can then pick how this is going to look on your phone. So you could have, you can select different colours, you can add different symbols to it. And then once you're happy with it, we can click on add, and then that's now added onto your home screen. So every time somebody says, what's your availability? You can come to your home screen, click on the app. And the first thing you see is then your calendar. So, well, not your calendar, but a date picker, should I say. And then, yeah, you just select the date, click done and then it goes off and then you can then share it either by email or by text message or however they've contacted you. So yeah, really, really straightforward how to configure that.

  Katie (10:32)

  And it should, we should also say as well, like you can edit that before you send it as well. So if you do have everything on your calendar, on your phone, it's personal and work stuff. You can just change it. So, you know, perhaps Noel is going for his waxing appointment. He could just change that to private appointment or not available.

  Noel (10:37)

  Yes. Yes, you get to see all the information, but yeah, make sure to sanitise.

  Katie (11:02)

  So then yeah, before you send it. Yes. Yeah, you have full control. It doesn't just go, you know, you don't click share and then it zooms off somewhere because you've got to click how you want to share it, who you want to share it with. So, you know, you have plenty of opportunity to edit it before you send it to whoever you want to send it to.

  Noel (11:32)

  Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome.

  Katie (11:34)

  Yeah. So yeah, I feel like that's quite another nice hack as well. Like, you know, we were saying at the beginning, you know, you want to choose your business calendar, but actually, if you've just got everything on one calendar, that's fine. It's just that, you know, you might have to do a bit of tweaking before you send it. But for me, I would rather do the tweak in that way, like just say, you know, delete, you know, what's actually, say I've got Pilates, I would just change that out and kind of just put not available.

  Noel (11:58)

  Yeah, absolutely.

  Katie (12:02)

  Yeah.

  Noel (12:04)

  There's some really cool things you can do with that Shortcuts app. Definitely. Yeah. And obviously it's different for everyone because it depends on the apps that you have on your phone. But not every app has shortcuts available. So, you know, we did some testing earlier, didn't we? And we were like, that'd be cool. And then we were like, it doesn't actually do anything, they don't have any shortcuts whatsoever.

  Katie (12:20)

  Yeah. No. Yeah, it was like things like Asana and Notion, wasn't it? We were like, it'd be really cool, like if you could have an automation, sorry, a shortcut on your phone that would like add in the task to like Notion or Asana, but they're not there at the moment, are they?

  Noel (12:46)

  Yes. Yeah. No, not as standard. No, there are ways of getting around that but this gets far too technical.

  Katie (13:10)

  Yeah, yeah, because we want to keep this episode like really nice and simple for people to feel like really confident to be like, I've got my iPhone, I can create automations, just using my iPhone with no other software or tools.

  Noel (13:30)

  Yeah, absolutely.

  Katie (13:33)

  But I would definitely go and have a little play around with it. I've seen lots of cool things being able to automate and kind of like hack your business and also life using the Shortcuts app. And Noel, you're actually gonna do a little bit more about the Shortcuts app in our membership, aren't you? AI Business Club on Skool.

  Noel (14:00)

  Yes. Yeah, I think it's probably going to be a bit more of like a course than kind of like a quick video that we usually do. So yeah, this would be a bit more in depth. But yeah, there's plenty of things that we can do and do some more really cool advanced features with it. Yeah. I've seen some in competitions as well. It was like, wow, OK, that's pretty clever. They're taking pictures of things and then that's getting processed and things like you're getting all sorts of information back with AI and stuff like that. Yeah, there's some amazing things that can be done.

  Katie (14:35)

  Yeah, I've even seen some cool things that you can do like with say like Facebook and Instagram as well. Yeah, well, I will look forward to seeing what you create for AI Business Club using, you know, the Shortcuts app.

  And if you do want more information about AI Business Club over on Skool, then we would love for you to check out the link below. Or you can come and join us on our free community, which is on LinkedIn. It's a LinkedIn group. It's called AI Automations for Business. And anyone and everyone is welcome to join. Come and tell us what you're creating, what you're building. If you've got any questions, lean into the community. If you're brand new then feel free to use the brains of the people within the community already who might be a few steps ahead of you. I heard somewhere as well that some people are really frightened that they've missed the AI boat. But I would say far from it. I think there are millions of boats still very much in the harbour. Would you say that as well, Noel?

  Noel (15:53)

  I would say for most of them they're still being built. They're not seaworthy yet. We're still very early to this. It's getting better as time goes on but it doesn't take long to very quickly get up to speed and you'll be set to sail before you know it.

  Katie (15:57)

  Yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for listening to this week's podcast episode and we will catch you next time for another episode very soon.