Sometimes you know that your meeting guest use Apple’s FaceTime and you prefer they call you directly over FaceTime for your meeting. While few calendar tools directly support FaceTime calls, you can create a meeting invitation that will give your guests the ability to call you on FaceTime.
About FaceTime URLs
Apple’s FaceTime allows you to create a URL that will automatically open a FaceTime conversation. These URLs consist of your Apple ID username, your Apple ID email, or your phone number (depending on how you set up your FaceTime account) preceded by the text facetime://
. Example FaceTime URLs will then have this format:
facetime://5558675309
facetime://email@example.com
facetime://appleidusername
How to Conduct Your Meetings Over FaceTime
For this Time Hack, we are going to use this FaceTime URL along with a Meeting Template with a custom location. First, we will set up a “Physical” location in your x.ai account. We are choosing to use the Physical Location feature due to the way these are formatted (you’ll see!):

Next, we are going to set up a Meeting Template aptly named “FaceTime.” We’ll use this “Physical” location we created to add your FaceTime URL to the meeting invitation.

By using a physical location rather than a virtual location, the x.ai system is able to use the Location field in the meeting invitation for quick and easy access. Clicking the link in the location automatically opens FaceTime on your guest’s phone!

A few small tweaks here… First, we will use a custom field on the calendar page to require that the guest enters their phone number in case there is a missed connection so that you can initiate the call if need be:

Finally, sometimes if someone is calling from a laptop or a computer other than their phone, the facetime:// URL format may not be recognized and automatically linked. You can include instructions on how to join by adding the FaceTime URL into the invitation notes as well so that your guests will have

Share your Availability to Schedule FaceTime calls!
Now all you need to do is share your Calendar Page URL, copy times into an email or copy text availability into Apple Messages and your guests can schedule meetings with you!
Articles in the Time Hacker Series
- NEW: Prioritize your people: Get the availability for the most important guests first
- NEW: iPhone text replacement: Quick access to your Calendar Pages (on Android, too!)
- NEW: Get some FaceTime: Hack your Meeting Template to offer FaceTime URLs
- NEW: Cloak your availability: Block out time but still allow certain meetings
- NEW: Share a colleague’s availability: Schedule on behalf of your colleagues
- NEW: Make guests feel important: Add hidden restrictions to meetings
- NEW: Crowd control for calendars: Limit attendees for your group meetings
- Look busier than you are: Mask your true availability
- Stash a Slash: Surreptitiously include instructions to our AI to save you a step
- Automate your responses: Create email workflows to manage meetings for you
- Customize your overlap: Use Meeting Templates to optimize time zone overlaps
- Separate work and play: Route events to different calendars, personal or professional
- Make time for yourself: Instantly block out focus time with an email
- Add Amy to your emails with zero clicks: Loop in our AI with a simple email hack
- Leave yourself a graceful exit plan: Allow meetings to run long… or cut them short
- Gotta keep ’em separated: Double-book your time with multiple guests
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