Automate Adding Guests to Google Calendar Events

Introduction

In this article, we will learn about how to Automate Adding Guests to Google Calendar Events. In today's fast-paced world, managing our schedules efficiently is crucial. One tool that has become indispensable for many is Google Calendar. It allows us to keep track of our appointments, meetings, and events seamlessly. However, manually adding guests to these events can sometimes be a tedious and time-consuming task. Fortunately, there are ways to automate this process, saving you valuable time and effort. In this blog post, we will explore how to automate adding guests to Google Calendar events, making your scheduling experience even smoother.

In some cases, due to the cooperative nature of projects, some participants may be crucial for each meeting pertaining to that project and adding them one by one to each new project-specific meeting can be time-consuming. Additionally, it can seem careless or even counter-productive if a crucial member of the project team is not invited to a meeting where key decisions may be taken.

Therefore, you can use xFanatical Foresight to automate the task of adding guests to new google calendar events, not only saving yourself some time but also ensuring that all key participants required for a meeting are always invited.

Video Demo

This video demo illustrates an example of a simple use case. Suppose you have a shared calendar and would like to invite a specific member of your team as an observer guest to each new event created for a project on that calendar. Additionally, you would like to book a preferred meeting room for each new event on that calendar. You can see below how to automate both these tasks.

Instructions

Rule Setup

Follow these easy step-by-step instructions to set up your own rule for automating guest addition and room booking to your google calendar.

1. Sign into Foresight .
2. Go to Rules.
3. Click the button to create a new rule.
4. In the Select a trigger page, select the New calendar event trigger to initiate your sequence.
   
5. In the Edit trigger page
   • Sign in with Google.
   • In the Calendars field, select the calendar from the drop-down menu for which you wish to create the new rule.
   • Click Next.
6. In the Select an action page, select the Add event attendee action.
   
7. In the Edit actions page,
   • Sign in with Google.
   • In the Calendar field, select the Calendar Id variable from the drop-down menu. The variable resembles the form of {{ calendarId_xxxxxx }}.
   • In the Event field, select the Calendar Event Id variable. The variable is displayed as {{ calendarEventId_xxxxxx}}.
   • In the Guest email field, type the email address of the user whom you wish to be added to each new calendar event.
   • Click ADD NEXT ACTION.
8. In the Select an action page, select the Add event attendee action again. This time, the system will use it to book the room.
9. In the Edit actions page,
   • Sign in with Google.
   • In the Calendar field, select the Calendar Id variable from the drop-down menu.
   • In the Event field, select the Calendar Event Id variable.
   • In the Guest email field, type the calendar email address of the room you want to book for each new calendar event. You can find this on the calendar settings page.
10. Finally, click Review.
11. In the Review page, name the new rule.
12. Click Create.
13. Your rule’s workflow looks like this.
    

Rule Test

To test your rule, follow these steps.

1. Go to Google Calendar.
2. Wait for the system to create a new event in the calendar for which you are establishing the rule.
3. Go to Foresight .
4. Click on the New Notifications bell icon.
5. Select the VIEW LOG option in the notification.
6. The log should inform you that the rule successfully invited the two guest email addresses configured for the new event. It also tells you the total number of actions used, how many were successful, and how many failed.
   
7. Go back to Google Calendar and refresh your page.
8. You can then check if the system added the desired user to the guest list and booked the intended room.

Notes

1. You can choose to include events created by yourself or even those to which you are not invited for the new rule to be applicable on. While in the Edit trigger page of the New calendar event trigger, check the boxes accordingly.
2. If the variable menu is not appearing as drop-down when you select a field, you can type {{ to make it available.
3. If you want to invite more than one user to each event, simple repeat the Add event attendee action (Steps 6 and 7 under Rule Setup) for each user.
4. The email address of the room resource can be found in the calendar > Settings>Integrate calendar > Calendar ID.