Daylight saving time offset with Google Calendar?

[JMacFeegle]

GCal is set up as a datasource, with Bots entering events based on data entered in other AppSheet tables. This works, BUT:

Any events after 31. March (begin of daylight saving time in Germany) are synced to GCal with start and end dates +1h, so an entry that _should_ start at 10 is entered into the Google calendar starting at 11. Both for bot-created events and manual entries into the calendar via AppSheet.

This can't be expected behavior?

I could imagine including some sort of IF(date is after 31. March then use start and end time minus 1) into the bot actions, but this seems messy.

[Suvrutt_Gurjar · Accepted solution]

As Aleksi mentioned , yes there is no native support in AppSheet/ GCAL for this.

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@JMacFeegle wrote:

I could imagine including some sort of IF(date is after 31. March then use start and end time minus 1) into the bot actions, but this seems messy.

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You are correct. An IF() based solution may be needed based on daylight saving dates. Another post on similar lines just in case it helps.

Re: Timezone bug - Google Cloud Community

[AleksiAlkio]

Unfortunately this is a known bug.. for many years.

[Suvrutt_Gurjar · Accepted solution]

As Aleksi mentioned , yes there is no native support in AppSheet/ GCAL for this.

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@JMacFeegle wrote:

I could imagine including some sort of IF(date is after 31. March then use start and end time minus 1) into the bot actions, but this seems messy.

---

You are correct. An IF() based solution may be needed based on daylight saving dates. Another post on similar lines just in case it helps.

Re: Timezone bug - Google Cloud Community

[JMacFeegle · Accepted solution]

Update to solution in case anyone stumbles across this:

The mentioned if() construction worked AS LONG AS THE CURRENT DATE WAS OUTSIDE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME, then it added the events with wrong start/end times again regardless of them falling in- or outside of DST.

Frankly, I did not feel like digging into the whole thing again and adding some sort of logic IF(current date within DST),  so I opted for a different solution:

Events that should be added to Google Calendar are added to a separate table with references to the original records, and then Zapier adds them to the Google Calendar. No fuss with adding/subtracting anything there, 10:00 remains 10:00 whether or not it's within DST.

Added bonus, Zapier can then add the Google Calendar Entry ID into that table, so automated updates to that entry are easier later on.