Add support for the Google Calendar API which allows a bi-directional communication between the Calendar and the client. Events can be changed in the Google Calendar and this is instantly reflected in the client eg. Airtable. But the most important thing: the refreshing over iCal feeds with Google is very slow, sometimes people don’t see their update in days.
Because the Google Calendar is the most used/important calendar support of the API would make much sense.
I see the ability for one-way updates using Zapier. This is nice, but is a long way from calendar sync, which would be an amazingly useful enhancement.
Yes! GCal has been notoriously bad about the timing and frequency of their syncs with 3rd party apps.Todist has recently found a way to allow for instantaneous 2-way and it has changed my life! If only Airtable could utilize whatever finally worked for Todist, it would drastically change the effectiveness of follow-up reminders/appts using AT!! Please, please!
I thought Todoist’s gcal sync was amazing, until it screwed up a ton of my recurring task due dates, watch out for that! Their change detection was not functioning right, one of their reps wrote me late last year: “We indeed still have some bad issues with GCal integration that may cause various problems with dates as we and Google have different models of date support :(” I turned it off pretty quickly after reading that…
Airtable is exactly what i need for my busines … expect Google calendar integration. Please support this. Its a deal breaker for me. I cant subscribe to airtable until a proper api integration is available. So I’m on the lookout now for an alternate to airtable that offers this. please, please add this, as airtabel is otherwise a perfect fit.
I agree that calendar sync would be nice to have. It’s a somewhat complicated problem to solve, though, when the user controls the structure of the data on one end (Airtable) but not the other (Google Calendars, or any other calendar service). That’s only to say that if something like that is in the works, I’m guessing it’d take awhile to get right.
On the upside, there have been a couple of private betas announced (in the Airtable newsletter) recently that may lead to this functionality through third-party development. If there is no official integration from Airtable this year, someone else may be able to accomplish this and share it with the community. I’m definitely keeping it in the back of my mind in case it’s something I have time to address myself. If user authentication doesn’t pose an issue, I’ve mostly figured out what else is needed and so I would like to take a shot at it if I’m afforded the time.
Right now, however, there’s some good news. If you’re willing to use an integrations service (like Zapier or Integromat) you can set up two-way sync with Google Calendar right now. It takes a little effort, but it should only take around 30 minutes to set up. I put together a how-to article on this topic, specifically, back in May. If you want to get calenday sync going both ways right now, check that out. The article deals with one-way sync methods first, but if you scroll past the first two options you’ll find the instructions for two-way sync.
