Better Calendar/Scheduling Option?

[CatHealy]

Hi,

I'm currently trying to build an app for the volunteers at my non-profit, and I keep running into issues with the calendar feature within AppSheets. I'm using Google Calendar to enter the various shifts (we are open 24/7, so there are 5 per day) and by the time they show up in the calendar in the app, the calendar is rendered useless. It's difficult to scroll within, nearly impossible to navigate without accidentally refreshing the page, and only the top two daily items appear in the monthly version.

Can you help me either fix this, or give me an alternative?

I have been playing around with this all day and I'm at the end of my rope here.

Thank you!

[WillowMobileSys]

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@CatHealy wrote:

I'm using Google Calendar to enter the various shifts (we are open 24/7, so there are 5 per day) and by the time they show up in the calendar in the app, the calendar is rendered useless.

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We will need some more details about your use case.  

Are you integrating Google Calendar into your app as described here - i.e. you have created a Table in your app from one of your Google Calendars?  The table name might show up as "primary" or "work" etc.

Are you attaching this Google Calendar table to an AppSheet Calendar View?

How long is it taking to see Google Calendar entries?

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If you have integrated the Google Calendar using the method described in the link above,  you should be able to see calendar entries and updates almost instantaneously - going in either direction - AppSheet to Google Calendar or Google Calendar to AppSheet.  

Please show us what you have implemented so far so we can best help resolve your issues.

[Steve]

Generally speaking, it is best to avoid managing your data source content outside of the app. In your case, this means you probably shouldn't be adding, updating, and deleting calendar entries using Google Calendar directly, and instead should be making those changes with your app instead. But, even then, you'll still run into problems because AppSheet apps do not update the data sources (Google Calendar) "in real time": changes made from your device must be synced to the data source, then synced to the devices of other users. That process takes time, sometimes a long time. So if time is of the essence, AppSheet may not be the best choice.

As for display concerns, there are not many options for the calendar views. Could you post some screenshots that demonstrate your concerns?

[WillowMobileSys]

Yes, correct.  I forgot about the need to Sync for data to flow from Google Calendar to AppSheet.  If a user is idle - not actively making data changes -  they will need to tap the Sync button to get the updates sooner.  In recent testing of Google Calendar integration, there is no delay when entering the calendar event and tapping Sync.