In the API documentation (Create Configuration - Configurations - API Reference | Docs) it states that all participants’ email addresses must be associated with a valid Nylas grant.
However, with the scheduler editor, I can add participants with only email address. In the return payload, the participant comes with a grant id if there is a valid grant associated with that email, otherwise returns the participant as sent.
While testing, it seems like scheduling confirmations are still sent to participants without valid grants. Is the documentation referring to something else? I believe with group meeting types, the participants having valid grants is strictly enforced, but not with standard configurations. Also, if the participant doesn’t have a grant, is there a difference in functionality for that participant vs other participants with valid grants?
Hi Joshua,
The doc line is a bit overstated (we will work on updating our docs). Here’s how it actually works.
Standard (1:1) configurations: the “must be associated with a valid Nylas grant” requirement only applies to participants who are contributing availability to the scheduling page (i.e. their calendar is used to compute free/busy slots). If you add a participant by email only, with no availability/booking data attached, it’s treated as an “email-only” participant, it’s not grant-validated, it’s echoed back in the response exactly as sent (no grant_id), and it still receives scheduling confirmation and reminder emails like any other participant.
Group / round-robin configurations work differently: you can’t pass a participants list at all for group configs, the meeting is anchored entirely to the calendar of the grant that owns the configuration.
Functional differences between a grant-backed participant and an email-only participant:
- Availability calculation: only grant-backed participants’ calendars are checked when computing available time slots. Email-only participants don’t constrain or affect the offered times.
- Round-robin host selection: only grant-backed participants can be selected as the meeting host.
- Calendar event creation: the booking event is created on the organizer’s (grant’s) calendar. Email-only participants are added as attendees/invitees on that event and get the provider calendar invite, but nothing is created on “their” side since there’s no connected grant.
- Emails: both participant types receive scheduling emails, that part has no dependency on grant status.
So to directly answer your question: no, the “valid grant” requirement isn’t strictly enforced for all participants in standard configurations, only for those actually driving availability. Group meeting types are the exception where the model is fully grant-anchored.
Many thanks,
Samuel R.
Support Engineer, Nylas