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I’ve had a Google Sheet > Google Calendar (create detailed event) zap running for years. Have never successfully managed to get the free/busy setting to work. 

Basically, this is for my monthly roster. When I set a title to OFF, I’d like the entry to be set to Free. And Busy for anything else like WORK, TOWNHALL etc.

 

Yes, unfortunately my company does old-school spreadsheet rosters. And I need the right Busy or Free settings so my calendar can accept or reject other meeting invites, and Calendly correctly shows my availability. 

 

I’m pretty sure the column for Free/Busy should have Transparent/Opaque entries (instead of Free/Busy entries). Because when I have Guests, zapier shows Transparent/Opaque...

testing entries in google sheets
what shows in trigger data

 

I can successfully pull the 2 columns data using Busy/Free > Custom

But when I try to use either, I always get the error below. When I set Busy/Free to blank or Busy or Free, I can successfully test the zap. 

Failed to create a create detailed event in Google Calendar
The app returned "Bad Request".

 

What am I doing wrong? 

I know a workaround is to do all the Busy events in one go then change the zap setting before doing the Free events. But I am hoping for a set-and-go zap coz converting spreadsheet data to formats Zapier needs is tedious enough each month. 

Hi @gtgtgt 

The values need to be all lowercase.

 

Thanks @Troy Tessalone – that fixed the Bad Request problem. But I still have no success getting “transparent” to set the calendar entry as Free. Wonder if you have any tips on that? 

@gtgtgt 

Can you post update screenshots with how your Zap step is configured to give us context?

Hi @Troy Tessalone, I managed to get it working by re-selecting the Custom > Free/Busy 

Thank you very much for your help! 

Reply


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