Is it planned to properly integrate Google Calendar?

[Alan_Thorp]

Many, many, many of us users would like to be able to schedule events of various types easily through AppSheet. A lot of us will be using Google Calendar to do it. Currently the integration is far from seamless and basically needs to be shoe-horned to fit, and even then doesn't really work, becasue of the lack of easy reference between calendar entries and other table rows.

Please can you tell us if there is a plan to improve this with proper Google Calendar integration. We would all love to see it.

[WillowMobileSys]

Hi @Alan_Thorp !

First, for suggestion or improvements, you will want to post those under Feature Ideas.  You may want to search there beforehand because there are likely a number of Google Calendar ideas already there.

Second, Can you provide an example or two where the current Google Calendar integration creates issues for you?

I played with Google Calendar integrations recently and, while AppSheet could expose more of the Google Calendar fields, I  found it quite easy to pair it with existing app tables.  Keep in mind that Google Calendar is an external service over which we (and AppSheet - even though they are a Google company) have no control over what fields of data they provide.  We are at the mercy of what THEY make available as to what makes sense for them and their service. It is highly unlikely they will add fields to support ApSheet app integration.

So...to tie Google Calendar events with other AppSheet table rows we MUST get creative.  For example, formatted data can be placed into the Title or the Description in a way that we can parse it into bits of information to be used in AppSheet.  We CAN insert Virtual Columns in the Google Calendar AppSheet table that retrieves these bits to be used as identifiers or to lookup Ref values.  It can be done!

This obviously would be hard to control if the events were entered through Google calendar directly.  Even with the clearly defined process of HOW to enter the calendar events so AppSheet can parse them, users will make mistakes or simply forget to follow the process. But possible.

I would recommend encouraging users to create these events from your app so the app can insert the formatted values it needs to parse.  This is where the lack of fields in the integration comes in.  It would be nice to have more control over the event details from within AppSheet - but worse case, Appsheet can establish the event and then users can modify it in Google.  It is at least a step forward.

[Alan_Thorp]

Hi,

Thanks for considering my question. I meant it more as a question rather than a feature idea as I'd like to know if it is something that is in the pipeline, which is why I posted it as a Q&A.

Here's a link to a thread that highlights one of the issues to do with integration.

Google Calendar: Not able to set Row ID in action 

I think that your reply highlighted quite a few other points where the lack of integration causes issues. I have certainly noticed and considered the changes via the Google Calendar app not carrying through to connections in AppSheet.

Thanks again for your time responding.