The access dropdown is greyed out for a tool you added yourself (and how far Settings > Permissions can really reach)

You brought your own tool into Booked Solid, its row shows up under Settings > Permissions, and then it will not budge. In the words of the performer who first reported it: "I now have my crm integrated into Booked Solid. It allows me to toggle the on and off switch, but the read-only dropdown won't open to let me pick Read & write - is this expected for a freshly integrated tool or a bug?" It is expected behaviour, not a bug, and nothing on your computer is broken. Below is why the access dropdown is greyed out for a tool you added yourself, what the Permissions sub-tab really does control, and the one supported way to get data out of Booked Solid and into your own system.

The short answer

Any tool you bring in yourself through Discover installed tools is adopted as read-only on purpose, and it stays that way. The on/off switch works because you get to decide whether Otto uses that tool at all. The access dropdown is locked because you do not get to widen it. There is no in-app route from Read-only to Read & write for a tool you added yourself, in any current build.

Open the Permissions sub-tab

1. Open the Settings tab in the right pane.
2. Click Permissions, the sub-tab next to General.

Computer permissions

At the top is a compact list of the permissions your computer grants the app. Each item that still needs granting has an Allow button, or an Open Settings button that jumps you to the right spot in your operating system's settings when the OS has to do the granting itself.

Per-tool access: read, write, or both

Below the computer permissions, every connected tool gets a row with an on/off switch and an access select. The select has three levels:

• Read-only: the tool's data can be read, but nothing is ever written or sent through it.
• Write-only: the app can write through the tool but not read from it.
• Read & write: full access in both directions.

On a good number of rows that select is disabled and will not open at all. Hover it and the app tells you which of two very different reasons applies. The difference matters, because one of them is about your tool and the other one is not.

"This one only has read tools."

This tooltip means exactly what it says: that connection has no write action at any level, so there is nothing to grant. The Calendars (agenda & conflict check) connection is one of these. It can see upcoming events and check whether a date is free, and it cannot create, change or delete an event, no matter what the select said. The payment connections sit in the same group: they read a payment's real status and money never moves from there.

"Self-added tools stay read-only by design."

This is the one that brings people to this page, and it is a policy, not a statement about your tool. Your tool may have a full set of write actions. Booked Solid is not claiming it does not. It is saying it will not use them. Underneath that row the app says so in plain words: "This tool was found on your computer, not built by Booked Solid, so it stays read-only - the shortest leash for a tool we cannot vet." On builds before 1.9.0 a self-added row showed the other tooltip, "This one only has read tools", which is why performers who knew perfectly well that their own tool could write read the locked dropdown as a defect. It was not one then either.

Why the app refuses, even when your tool can write

Read & write is offered only for the connections Booked Solid ships and knows the write actions of. For a tool you brought in from outside, turning write on would mean trusting that tool's entire write side, not the single action you have in mind, because there is no way today to let one write verb through and hold the rest back. It is all or nothing, so the app chooses nothing.

What read-only actually means in practice

Otto can look things up through the tool and read from it as much as a job needs. He will never change, create or send anything through it. So if what you wanted was for Otto to see your data, the state in front of you - switch on, dropdown pinned to Read-only - is already the finished setup. Leave the switch on and carry on.

The dead ends, so you do not spend an evening on them

• Removing the tool and adopting it again through Discover installed tools puts it back in exactly the same read-only state. The lock follows any tool Booked Solid did not build, not one particular copy of it.
• There is no hidden setting, no advanced expander, and no file on disk to edit. The read-only pin is applied inside the app every single time it works out what a tool is allowed to do, so an edited value elsewhere would be overruled anyway.
• Support cannot loosen it on your machine, and will not. It changes how far an outside tool can reach into your data, which makes it a product decision rather than a per-customer favour.

What to do instead: the Lead Outbox

If the reason you want write access is the common one, that a lead Otto sourced should land in your own CRM instead of being retyped, that is built, and it deliberately did not arrive as a wider grant for adopted tools. It arrived as its own first-party connection, the Lead Outbox, shipped in version 1.9.0. It is create-only by construction - one new lead record, never an edit to an existing record, never anything financial - and because Booked Solid wrote it, its Read & write dropdown does open.

1. Make sure you are on 1.9.0 or later. Check for updates sits next to the logo.
2. Create an inbound catch webhook that accepts a JSON POST and creates one new lead from it. Zapier and Make both work out of the box, and so does your CRM's own inbound URL. The address has to use https, with one exception: if the CRM runs on this same computer, a loopback address such as http://localhost:3000/hooks/lead is accepted, because there is no certificate to have.
3. Open the Connections tab and find Lead Outbox (your CRM). Paste the address into its Webhook URL field. Webhook URLs carry a secret token, so it goes in that form and nowhere else - never into Otto chat and never into a terminal.
4. Back on Settings > Permissions, set Lead Outbox (your CRM) to Read & write. This is the dropdown that opens.
5. On the Lead Outbox card, click Send a test lead and confirm it lands on the other end before Otto uses it for real.

Then tell Otto in plain words what you want, along the lines of "when you source a lead worth pursuing, hand it to my CRM through the Lead Outbox." What can leave through that pipe is a fixed shape and nothing else: a name, at least one of email or phone, and optionally event type, event date, location, a note, and where the lead came from. Anything outside that list is refused before it goes anywhere.

For the wider picture of connecting your own CRM, including what a tool you adopt can and cannot do for you, see "Can I connect my own CRM? MCP servers for bringing data in, and the Lead Outbox webhook for pushing leads out" in this help center.

Drafts need your OK

Any tool set to write, in either direction, also carries a Drafts need your OK toggle. With it on, anything outgoing through that tool waits for your approval before it goes, even when your autonomy dial is set to Run it. This is the belt-and-braces option for tools where a wrong send would sting.

For the Lead Outbox it works like this: each lead Otto stages appears on the Lead Outbox card and posts only when you click Deliver, or disappears when you click Discard. Once you trust the flow you can switch draft approval off and let leads go through on their own.

One special case: for Microsoft 365 the toggle is forced on and cannot be switched off. Outgoing Microsoft 365 drafts always wait for your approval.

Narrowing a tool back down

For the built-in connections whose select does open, none of these choices are permanent. Move a tool back to Read-only whenever you like, and leave Drafts need your OK on while you are deciding: wider access that still cannot send anything without you seeing it first is a reasonable middle position to sit in for a while.

If you need a write action anyway

Ask for it, but ask narrowly. Describe the one thing it should do, and be explicit about what it must never touch. A single named action with a boundary around it is something that can be built. A blanket write grant for a tool from outside is not, and asking for that one gets an honest no. The Lead Outbox exists precisely because a performer scoped his request that tightly: hand over one new lead, nothing that edits an existing booking, nothing financial. That is why it went from request to shipped feature quickly.

Still stuck?

If the greyed dropdown is on a connection Booked Solid ships rather than one you added yourself, and hovering it gives you no reason at all, that is worth a second look. Submit a ticket from this help center, tell us which connection it is and what the tooltip says, and we'll take it from there.