Automatically schedule Google Calendar events from Airtable

Learn how to create an automation that will automatically schedule Google Calendar events. In this article, we’ll show you step-by-step instructions for how to add this automation to an existing Airtable base for an applicant tracking system. You can use similar techniques to add a Google Calendar automation in other bases, and you can also make a copy of the base below, which already has the automation built into it for you.

Preparing a base to automatically schedule calendar events

To build this automation, you’ll need a couple of ingredients. First, you’ll need an Airtable account and a Google Calendar account. You’ll also need to have an Airtable base in which you’re organizing the events that you’d like to schedule. In this example, we’ll use a simple applicant tracking system (shown below) that a recruiting team is using to schedule interview sessions.

Click the Copy base button in the embedded base below to add this example automation to one of your workspaces.

In the Airtable base created by copying the template above, you should have a table (called “Interviews,” or something similar) that lists the specific interviews that you’re trying to schedule.

In this table, you’ll need the following:

• Two date fields, one of which will contain the start date and time of the event, and the other one which will contain the end date and time of the event. Call these fields “Start Time” and “End Time,” or something similar.

• A single select field that will contain select options designating the status of each interview. Call this field “Status,” or something similar. This status field should include at least these two options:

• “Tentative” or “Not yet scheduled” (To designate interviews that aren’t yet ready to be pushed to Google Calendar)

• “Scheduled” (To mark events that are ready to be synced to Google Calendar, when you’re ready)

If you’d like, your table can also include other optional fields with information about the interviews. You can mix and match different values from these fields to customize the title, description, and other optional attributes of the Google Calendar events that get created. For example, you could include:

• A text-based primary field (like a single line text field or a text-based formula field) to determine the name of the event as it will appear in Google Calendar.

• A linked record field, linked to a separate table of candidates, and maybe a lookup field or two to pull in relevant information on candidates. A collaborator field, to indicate which of your colleagues will be conducting each interview, and to invite them as an attendee of your meeting.

Setting up the scheduling automation

1. To start creating an automation, from the open base of your choice click on Automations in the upper left corner of your screen to open the automation configuration window.

2. Click the + Create automation option to begin the setup process. If you would like, you can rename the automation right away to make it easier to understand what it does.

3. Next, you will need to click + Add trigger option. Once clicked, the available triggers will be displayed for you to choose from. The trigger is the event that starts the automation. In our case, we want the trigger to fire when we mark an interview session as being “Scheduled.” So, for our example, you’ll want to click the When record matches conditions trigger.

4. Next, you’ll have to specify the conditions under which the trigger will fire. First, pick the specific table (“Interviews”) from the earlier setup you did. Then, click the + Add condition button to add a new condition. If you’re already familiar with using filters in your Airtable base, the process of adding a condition is very similar: you pick a field, operator, and comparison value so that you can construct statements like "When [Status] [is] [Scheduled]." You can also add additional conditions if you’d like, although in this example, we’ll stick with just a single condition.

5. Next, test the trigger step. It’s important to test the trigger at this point so that you can utilize dynamic tokens in the automation action steps. Dynamic tokens allows you to pull in information from the created record that triggered this automation such as record ID or time of creation. You can click Use suggested record to allow our system to choose a random record that aligns with the trigger type you selected or you can click Choose record to be able to select a specific record of your choice that may fit your needs when testing other steps of the automation. You will see a green “Step successful” message under the “Results” section after the trigger step has successfully tested.

6. Next, click the + Add advanced logic or action button. A menu will appear with a wide variety of potential actions. Select the Google Calendar: Create event option.

   1. Now, you’ll need to select a Google Calendar account where events will be created. If you haven’t connected a Google Calendar account before, you’ll need to authorize Airtable Automations to connect your account.

   2. Once you’ve connected a Google Calendar account, you’ll need to specify the calendar to which you’d like to add the events. The Calendar dropdown will automatically list the calendars associated with the selected Google Calendar account.

   3. You’ll then also need to specify the start date and time as well as the end date and time of each event. In this case, we want the timestamps to come from the “Start Time” and “End Time” fields, respectively. In order to set this up, click the blue + button under where it says “Start Date and Time”—this allows you to insert variables from the trigger step. From there, mouse over “Record (Step 1: Trigger)” then click the “Continue” that appears. This brings up a list of potential variables from the record in the trigger step. In our case, we want to insert the time from the “Start Time” field, so mouse over the “Start Time” field and click the blue “Insert” button.

   4. Repeat this step when specifying the “End Date and Time” for the action, but this time using the variable from the “End Time” field.

   5. There are a number of other options available that will allow you to customize the event details. For example:

      1. There’s a box you can check called “All Day Event.” In this case, the interviews are not all-day events (thankfully) so you can leave this box unchecked.

      2. The “Title” section allows you to give a name to your event. In this example, let’s pick the value of the Name field in the record from the trigger step.

      3. The “Description” section lets you customize the event description text. You can mix static text with variables from the trigger step to create an event description that automatically incorporates information from your Airtable base into the Google Calendar event.

      4. The “Location” section allows you to specify the location of your Google Calendar event. If you’d like, you can specify a variable from the trigger step here as well.

      5. The “Attendees” section allows you to invite other people to your Google Calendar event using email addresses. In this example, we can insert the email address of the interviewer, using the variables from the “Interviewer” collaborator field in the previous step.

      6. Lastly, you can also add a video conferencing software from the dropdown menu, if you’d like.

   6. Once you’ve customized all the components to your liking, make sure to run a test to ensure that everything is working successfully. Note that if you run this test successfully, an event will be created in Google Calendar based on your test data from the trigger step. Go check it out in Google Calendar to see if all the customized variables look good to you.

7. Finally, test and turn on the automation. Be sure to test all of the steps in the automation that you are building. Once every part of the automation has tested successfully, you’ll be ready to turn the automation on. Find the red colored “OFF” toggle and click it so the automation now appears as “ON” in green.

FAQs