We use Zapier to sync appointments to our planning tool. However, Zapier holds a lot of tasks if a change occurs in an (infinite) recurring Google Calendar event. Is there a workaround for this?
Best answer
Any help with Google Calendar recurring events?
Best answer by Danvers
Hi
There isn't a way to safely update a recurring event using Zapier, but you can add a filter to your Zap so that you can update an event without it triggering a deluge of tasks.
If an event is a recurring event, it will pass a field called 'recurringeventID', that you don't get with non-recurring events.
That's the field that you need to use to stop your Zap from triggering when a recurring event is updated:
- Add a filter step into the Zap.
- Set the filter to look at the field 'RecurringeventID'
- Set the condition to 'Does not Exist'
The tricky part of adding this step is that the field isn't passed by events that aren't recurring, so you'll need a sample in your Zap that is from a recurring event.
Secondly, if you add this filter then your Zap wont continue if you update a recurring event, meaning that you will manually need to sync that with your other calendar.
I hope that helps, please let me know if you have any questions!
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+11- Zapier Solution Partner
Hi
How many tasks is it typically holding when you make a change?
They feature that is holding them is called "flood protection" - it kicks in if more than 100 tasks try to trigger at once.
You can have the threshold raised, up to about 2,000 I think. So long as you've got filters in your zaps to stop wasted tasks, this might be your easiest fix. Just write to support and they'll handle it for you.
+12- Zapier Staff
- Answer
Hi
There isn't a way to safely update a recurring event using Zapier, but you can add a filter to your Zap so that you can update an event without it triggering a deluge of tasks.
If an event is a recurring event, it will pass a field called 'recurringeventID', that you don't get with non-recurring events.
That's the field that you need to use to stop your Zap from triggering when a recurring event is updated:
- Add a filter step into the Zap.
- Set the filter to look at the field 'RecurringeventID'
- Set the condition to 'Does not Exist'
The tricky part of adding this step is that the field isn't passed by events that aren't recurring, so you'll need a sample in your Zap that is from a recurring event.
Secondly, if you add this filter then your Zap wont continue if you update a recurring event, meaning that you will manually need to sync that with your other calendar.
I hope that helps, please let me know if you have any questions!
+10- Zapier Solution Partner
In Path B I would start with the following steps:
- Storage, look for the value of recurringeventID inside a Key, for example modified-events
- Filter - if the value was not found, continue, if it was found then stop the zap
- (do your changes in the planning tool)
- Storage - push value to Key, pushing it into the same key you looked for above.
Two caveats:
- Storage as a limit to the number of characters (bytes) stored in a key and using the above method I have hit it pretty quickly for some clients.
- This would prevent changes to any reoccurring event from getting to your planning tool if the event had already been changed once.
The solution I used for my client to solve those two caveats was:
- Have a zap that fires off at 12:01am and creates a new Key in storage basically modified-events-(date) where the (date) is replaced with today's date.
- then in the Path B of the above step use {{zap_meta_human_now}} to get today's date (might need a formatter step to get it in the right format) and then use that in the Key name modified-events-(date) in both storage steps.
The caveat on that is if a recurring event is changed twice in the same day it will only "sync" the first change.
All that being said you'd still want to request the increase
Hi there, I recently had a Zap go awry because it seems Google has gotten rid of the Recurring Event ID? Does anyone know how to fix this again? I can’t use Google Calendar zaps with Zapier if I can’t get it filter out recurring events because recurring events use like 1400 zaps at a time.
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