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Event triggers for Google Calendar

Users can set up automations that will trigger when a Google Calendar event on a selected calendar is either created, changed, or canceled depending on the trigger selected. 

If you are unfamiliar with automations we strongly recommend reading the Creating an automation support article before diving in.

IN THIS ARTICLE

Account authorization
Google Calendar event created
Google Calendar event changed or cancelled

Account authorization

As a prerequisite, you will need to already have a Google account. This account will need to be connected to the Airtable base that you are working in. After choosing which trigger you would like to set up, you will have the option to "Manage connected accounts" or "Connect new account". This authorization process is scoped to each individual Google service, so you will need to perform this process multiple times, at least once for each Google Workspace trigger, and also reauthorizations in the future as needed.

 

Google Calendar event created

NOTE

All Google Calendar triggers will return a Google Calendar Event ID. A Google Calendar event's ID is a unique identifier returned from Google Calendar for that event. If you intend to update a Google Calendar event at any point, we recommend storing the Google Calendar Event ID on your table. 

Choose a trigger

For this section of the article, we'll use the "When event created" trigger, but the essential setup steps will be the same for each trigger type. 

choose_trigger_google_calendar

You'll need to:

  • Connect your Google account (or select an already connected account)
  • Select a calendar that will trigger this automation
  • Run a test to make sure the connection is configured correctly (at least one event will need to be present in the calendar you selected) 

google_calendar_trigger_event_created_trigger_config

We'll use the "Google Calendar: When an event is created" trigger for the first part of this demo.

Add an action

After you’ve configured and tested the trigger, it’s time to add an action. In the example below, we’ll use the “create record” action to create a new record in Airtable whenever a new Google Calendar event is created on our selected calendar. Once you select the table where you want to create the records, you can configure which fields in that table you want to add in data from the Google Calendar event.

Note in the video above that we have a text field for storing the "Google Event ID" from the Google Calendar trigger.

 

Test and enable your automation

Once your action is configured and tested, make sure to turn the automation on. When a new event is added to the Google Calendar you selected, the automation action will run. In this example, a new record will be created in your base. 

create_new_event.gif

Google Calendar event changed or cancelled

Choose a trigger

For this section of the article, we'll use the "Google Calendar: When event changed" trigger, but the steps for the trigger and action steps will essentially follow the same pattern for both the "event canceled" and "event changed" triggers.

triggers.png

You'll need to:

  • Connect your Google account (or select an already connected account)
  • Select the calendar that will cause this automation to trigger whenever an event on that calendar is changed
  • Run a test to make sure the connection is configured correctly (at least one event will need to be present in the calendar you selected) 

google_calendar_trigger_event_changed_config

 

Add an action

NOTE

All Google Calendar triggers will return a Google Calendar Event ID identifying that event. Note, that this ID is different from an Airtable Record ID, which is a unique identifier for an Airtable record.

After you’ve configured and tested the trigger, it’s time to add an action.

For this example, we'll build off our previous example by finding and updating the corresponding record for our Google Calendar event. So to do this we need to do two things:

  1. Find the record that corresponds to the Google Calendar event
  2. Update that record with the new details from the triggering Google Calendar event.

This is where the field we created holding "Google Event ID" comes in handy! We can use the "Find record" action to find the record with the same Google Calendar Event ID as the one from our Google Calendar trigger.   

find_records_action_config_with_google_calendar_event_id

Now that we have found our record it's time to update it. We'll use the "Update record" action to update the record we just found with the new information from our Google Calendar trigger:

update_record_action_config_insert_airtable_id_as_list

Then we can update all our fields from our original calendar. Here is what it looks like altogether:

update_record_action_config_google_calendar_event_info

NOTE

While updating an existing calendar event, if you specify a field and do not input a value for that field, the automation will assume you'd like that field empty within the updated event.

Note that we don't need to update the Google Event ID because that ID won't change—it is still a unique identifier for this event.

Test and enable your automation

Once your action is configured and tested, make sure to turn the automation on. Now when an event is changed on the calendar you selected, the automation action will run. In this example, a change to the calendar will also update the corresponding record in our table:update_record_from_calendar_event.gif

 

 

 

 

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