Integrate with calendar apps, update in both directions

[Helen_Vaskevitc]

I would like to link my airtable calendar to a third party calendar app. I am willing to use either apple calendar or google calendar, either would be fine. But, I seem to have come up agains some limitations.

With airtable/google calendar integrations, you can do these actions (using Zapier to link the two):

• creating a new airtable record will create a new google calendar event
• creating a new google calendar event will create a new airtable record
• updating a google calendar event will update an airtable calendar event

With airtable/apple calendar integrations, you can do these actions (using an ical subscription link):

• creating a new airtable record will create a new apple calendar event
• updating an airtable record will update the associated calendar event

The issue is with updating events. It seems, if I use google, I can update from google to airtable, and if I use apple, I can update from airtable to apple, but there is no way to update in BOTH directions, both into and out of airtable. Is this correct?

[ScottWorld]

Apple Calendar is just a calendar client. It will display Google Calendar events. So just keep using your Google Calendar zaps, but display your Google Calendar events in Apple Calendar.

[Helen_Vaskevitc]

The problem with using google calendar is, if I update any events in airtable, those updates are not reflected in the google calendar. Unless there’s a way to do this that I don’t know?

[ScottWorld]

Openside has a product that lets you trigger Zapier actions when you update a record in Airtable: https://openside.com/product/on2air-actions/

[ScottWorld]

Also, FYI, there is no difference between Google Calendar & Apple Calendar, even though you thought you were seeing a difference in your original post above.

The difference you’re seeing is because you’re sharing an .ics subscription to Apple Calendar, but you’re NOT sharing an .ics subscription to Google Calendar.

You can’t edit those .ics subscriptions within your calendar program — those are read-only.

So, if you want editing capability within your calendar apps, you need to use the zaps to essentially “manually synchronize” your Airtable data to your calendar.

Updating records in Airtable is not yet natively supported by Airtable with Zapier, so that Openside product above will perform that trick for you.

[Orin_Hutchings]

Hi @Helen_Vaskevitch,
With zzBots, you can install a full 2-Way Sync between Airtable and Google Calendar. This will sync new and updated events or records both ways.

You can install this 2-Way Sync here: https://www.zzbots.com/store/etsxGGrfvx5BtXmnt

You can install the same 2-Way Sync with Apple Calendar here: https://www.zzbots.com/store/5tjiPQ5sZKaS2Xvej

I hope this is helpful, and provides a solution to the issue that you are running into trying to sync.

Disclaimer: I am affiliated with zzBots.

[ScottWorld]

How does your sync tool handle repeating events in Google Calendar coming over to Airtable? Airtable doesn’t support repeating events at all. (Airtable also has very weak, nearly nonexistent, support for all-day events.)

[Orin_Hutchings]

This 2-Way Sync will sync over, new and updated, specific times, all day events, and multi day events.

Only the first event in a series of re-occurring events will sync over.

We plan to add a capability in the future to sync over re-occurring events.