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  • Clockify's "New Timer Start" and "New Time Entry" triggers have the same behavior
Best answer

Clockify's "New Timer Start" and "New Time Entry" triggers have the same behavior

  • 19 September 2019
  • 8 replies
  • 563 views
hchen
Userlevel 1

As far as I understand....

  • "New Timer Start" should trigger immediately when Clockify initiates a start timer
  • "New Time Entry" should trigger ONLY when a complete time entry (that is, a timer that has started and ended) is initiated.

Currently, "New Time Entry" seems to exhibit the same behavior as "New Timer Start" - shouldn't it only trigger when Clockify's EndTime field is not null?

Been spending too much time trying to get this right : I want Zaps to trigger Clockify when TIMER ENDS, so that it will add to my Google Calendar w/ an END TIME so that when Zapier adds to my calendar, it will include BOTH "Start" and "End" time in a Detailed Event. What am I doing wrong?

At the moment, this is how I have my zap setup

  • when New Timer Started in Clockify
  • Create Detailed Event in Google Calendar

However, when a new Timer Starts, there's technically no End Time. I would prefer my Google Calendar to track my time accurately by the minute, so I would prefer my Detailed Event to have its End Time defined by Clockify's end time.

Essentially : I want Clockify to only trigger when a Timer Ends (giving it a Start + End time)...THEN add Detailed Event.

How do I do this?


EDIT: Edited to merge this post and another similar one on Clockify Triggers not including an end time.


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Best answer by hchen 23 September 2019, 21:51

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This post has been closed for comments. Please create a new post if you need help or have a question about this topic.

8 replies

hchen
Userlevel 1

And to add - I also tried select trigger Clockify->"New Time Entry", it will attempt to "Create Detailed Event" in Google Calendar, despite the time entry not having being stopped yet. As a result, returns a status reason "Errored" because there's no End Time.

I feel this problem could be easily solved if there's a Clockify trigger for "New Timer Ends", as such a trigger would definitely include a Start time, allowing for a complete "Create Detailed Event" in Google Calendar.

At the moment, my solution is to Clockify->"New Time Entry" and create "Create Detailed Event" with a fixed time [StartTime]+1h, creating a 1 hour event on my Google calendar, but it would ideally like my Google Calendar to reflect my Clockify 1 to 1.


TheDavidJohnson
Userlevel 5

Hey there @hchen — it's great to see you over here!

Just to recap my answer over on Reddit for you, I think your solution will be to

  1. use the "New Timer Started" trigger like you're already using it.
  2. Then either create a Google Calendar Entry with a default end time like you are currently or wait to create it when we have all the data we need.
  3. Then add a "Delay" step to your Zap for some predetermined period of time that's long enough to allow most of your time entries to be completed.
  4. After the "Delay" step, add a "Search" step to your Zap that uses Clockify's "Find Time Entry" Search action to locate the time entry from your trigger step.

Assuming that the Search step returns the timeInterval__end value from your Time Entry, then you can set up Paths to decide what to do next.

For example:

  • Path A might proceed if the timeInterval__end value is later than the timeInterval__start value (using Zapier's "Date/Time After" function to compare the two values, which might be slightly more reliable than the "Exists" function). If so, the Path A should have a Google Calendar "Update Event" Step to go back and modify the calendar entry from earlier.
  • Then Path B might proceed if the timeInterval__end value is not later than the timeInterval__start value, in which case you might introduce another (possibly longer) Delay step followed by another Search step and then finishing with the step that updates your calendar entry.
  • On the odd chance that you accidentally leave a timer running, I don't know what Clockify does. If, by chance, it never stops the timer (or stops it only well after your 2nd delay time in Path 😎, then you might set up a Path C that does something useful like sending you an email to tell you to go check your timer and manually change your Google Calendar entry.

If you don't get a timeInterval__end value from your search step, then we'd need to take a look at what values that step returns and then we can figure out what to do from there.

I hope this helps!

Incidentally, in case you're curious about this: often the integrations between Zapier and a third-party app like Clockify are actually written by the app's developers. So the availability of a certain trigger is often outside of Zapier's control. But even if they had written it themselves, any developer of an integration like this one often relies heavily upon user feedback to determine what's useful about it and what might be more useful. So it's super helpful to let them know (probably both Zapier and Clockify in this case, since we don't know who wrote the integration) that you'd like a trigger that only fires once the timer has stopped. I can definitely see how that would be very useful myself!


hchen
Userlevel 1

Thanks David for your solution.

I have personally emailed Clockify about this issue myself just now.

As I really do enjoy what Zapier and Clockify does, I am determined to get an easier user-friendly solution - either a clarification/fix on the currently existing triggers or to have another trigger "When Timer Ends" implemented and would like to keep this question unanswered until a solution comes up (whether it would be from Zapier or Clockify).


Danvers
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

@TheDavidJohnson That's a great workaround, thanks for sharing!

@hchen I took a look at the Clockify App and I can see that this is a known issue - the New Time Entry trigger doesn't give you the End time or duration. I've added you as an affected user on that issue, which let's the Clockify Team know how many users are affected and also means that we'll send you an email when we have an update on that.


AndrewJDavison_Luhhu
Userlevel 7
Badge +10

Hey @hchen - happy to see you took my suggestion to bring this question over from Reddit 😀


We're Zapier Certified Experts - we help businesses do cool stuff with automation | www.luhhu.com
TheDavidJohnson
Userlevel 5

You're welcome, @hchen — I hope the solution works until you can get what you're hoping for! I admire your determination to get a fix!

@Danvers glad to help out! Thanks for diving in and bringing some clarity to the status of the issue!

Hi @Luhhu 👋


hchen
Userlevel 1

Update : issue has been rectified on Clockify's end and "New Time Entry" is working as intended with Google Calendar. Zapier and Clockify were great at handling this.


TheDavidJohnson
Userlevel 5

Very nice, @hchen! Thanks for the update!


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