Question

Google Drive and Google Calendar daily description updating obstacles

  • 5 June 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 234 views

Hi!

The context is journaling via Google Calendar linked to Google Drive.

Here’s what I’m working with. (and I’m stuck)

I have one zap which creates a 3hr block daily termed “RY Daily Summary Jun 5, 2020” using Schedule+Google Calendar. This zap is my daily “journal”

Second zap involves Google Calendar + Google Drive whereby whenever a new document/sheet is created, a “Detailed Event” of 1hr block is created with title “E.g alpacas are good”. This zap is to track and record docs that I made each day.

Here’s are some basic problems I can’t seem to solve.

#1 I want to add the titles+time of the Google drive docs into the DESCRIPTION of my daily journal

How do I automate the ADDITION to the DESCRIPTION of “RY Daily Summary Jun 5, 2020” to include “alpacas are good” AND other new subsequent events that pops up in my day e.g “bought some toothpaste,felt goOd” (*”update event” replaces “RY Daily…” into “alpacas are good”. That is not what I want to achieve)

 

#2 How to keep future events updated/disciplined(as if driving a vehicle and sticking to your lane) to the same day it begins. So e.g 10th june events gets funneled into “RY Daily… Jun 10, 2020” not “RY... Jun 5 2020”

On the next day, 6th June, I would ideally want events on 6th June to be inserted into the DESCRIPTION of  “RY Daily Summary Jun 6, 2020” not “… Jun 5, 2020” in my Google Calendar.

Would there be a way to have a Date+1day repeated ^

 

Thank you very much. Would love to experiment more with Zapier after I get these fundamentals right.

Best regards, 

Ryan

 

 

 

 

 


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1 reply

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I think that one change should address both of these questions - it will definitely work for the first (how do you add something to the event description rather than overwrite it) and if I’ve understood your second question (you want to add all the documents for that day into the description of the calendar block for the day).

 

In the Google Drive to Google Calendar Zap, you need to add a ‘Find event’ step into the Zap that will find the event for that day. In the Update Event step, use the event ID as the Custom value for the event. 

 

I think that addresses your second question - you want the document to be added to the event matching the day on which it was created. 

 

To answer your first question - appending a doc to the description rather than re-writing the field - the Find Event step will give you the existing event description. Add that into the Event description step before adding the details of the new document. That will write the description with the original description plus the new info. If you’d like to see how that works, there’s a Tips and Inspiration post that shows in more detail how to do this - it talks about adding attendees to an event, but it’s the same principal as adding to the Event Description: Adding Attendees to a Google Calendar Event