Google Calendar is an integral part of our daily lives. It keeps track of everything from your to-do list to critical business meetings. Unfortunately, having to manage your entire schedule on it makes efficiency take a nose-dive.
Especially when Calendar doesn’t offer any noteworthy built-in features for automation.
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You still need to do a lot of manual work to keep your schedule organized. Putting all this time into getting things just right can take away your overall productivity. In this article, we’ll explore some automation solutions which can help you free up time from Google Calendar and boost your productivity.
Automate Google Calendar
There are three main ways you can automate Google Calendar to your requirements. Google Apps Script, Google Calendar add-ons and Chrome extensions, and, finally, Microsoft Power Automate. Let’s discuss all three of these.
Apps script
Do you know your way around code and want to automate manual tasks in Google Calendar? If yes, it’s possible for you to use the Google Calendar API with Apps Script and create your own automations.
Tuomas from Internet Made Coder created a program for time management in Google Calendar using this API. With the right programming know-how, you can also use the API and create a special program tailored to your automation needs.
While this sounds exciting, it surely requires an understanding of programming languages like Python and JavaScript. You also need to know how to work with an API.
We can’t cover all of the technical stuff here, but most of the things you need to know are available in the documentation. You can also try out some fun coding challenges as well.
Apps Script offers the most flexible options for automation since you’re literally writing your own code, but it’s definitely not ideal for most people. However, if you have the necessary skills, feel free to read up on it and develop something cool!
Add-ons and Chrome extensions
If you’re not a coding wizard, don’t feel left out! You can still automate Google Calendar. You can check out available Google Calendar add-ons and Chrome extensions developed for automating Google Calendar! Here are a few recommendations to get you started.
Add-ons:
- Calendar Event Automator: Creates a new calendar event each time a form submission is received.
- TimeNavi: A time management assistant for Calendar.
- Logic Sheet: Allows you to set up various kinds of automation workflows and import data from APIs into Calendar.
Chrome extensions:
- Checker Plus: Allows you to check events and get meeting notifications on Chrome without opening the Google Calendar page.
- Button: Offers a quick overview of upcoming events in Chrome. Plus, compatible with other platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
- Event Merge: If you’ve used multiple Google Calendars to add the same event, this extension will merge them visually to avoid confusion.
Although these extensions require some time to set up, they’re free and can increase efficiency in your daily schedule when using Google Calendar to make life a bit easier.
Microsoft Power Automate
In addition to the above options, Microsoft Power Automate is also a good option to consider for automating Google Calendar. You can download it from the Microsoft Store, but it should be pre-installed on any Windows 11 computer.
If you’ve never heard of it before, here’s what you need to know about it. In a nutshell, it allows you to create automated workflows. Known as ‘Flows,’ these can be used for everything from taking a screenshot to deleting a folder.
Browsing through Google Calendar-based Flows, you can spot many useful automations, like ‘create Google Calendar events for Todoist items,’ ‘post to Slack when an event starts in Google Calendar,’ and ‘block calendar time to work on JIRA Issue.’ You can dive into the documentation for Power Automate here.
The only major drawback of it is that it’s not available for Mac users (only iPhone). You can check out other tools like Zapier. If you want a Chrome-based workflow automation extension, Bardeen is an excellent option. Let’s talk more about it.
Top 6 Google Calendar automations
Bardeen is a free no-code workflow automation tool. If you’re passionate about automating Google Calendar and focusing on more productive tasks, you’re going to find it valuable. Before you dive in, you need to download it to Chrome. Bardeen runs locally in your browser, so your data will stay with you.
Installed it? Now, let’s talk about six awesome Google Calendar automations…
1. Sync Google Calendar and Notion
If you’d like to have all your meetings available in Notion but they’re stored in Google Calendar, you might be daunted by all the copy-pasting you have to look forward to. But, don’t worry. This automation will copy your Google Calendar meetings to a Notion database in just a few clicks.
You can set up a Notion database and map data from Google Calendar to Notion.
Notion is amazing in many ways. How about going a step further and embedding Google Calendar in Notion as well? Furthermore, you can also use the Notion Automation Hub to create a 2-way sync between both apps. Here’s a great video to guide you through the process of syncing Google Calendar and Notion.
The above automation copies over all meetings, but what if you only want to select meetings within a certain timeframe?
2. Create a meeting from your email with everyone from the email thread, with a Zoom link
Do you want to create a new meeting from a Gmail thread? But don’t feel like opening a new tab for Google Calendar, manually picking a time, and adding everyone from the email thread one by one? This automation will scan your currently opened Gmail thread and create a Google Calendar meeting and include everyone on the thread, with a Zoom link.
Once activated, you only need to specify the event date, duration, and title. Pretty easy, right? Just like that, you've created a new meeting!
A big part of having a successful and productive meeting is knowing each participant well. If you feel like you need to know the details of each participant in any future meeting, this automation will research them for you. It’ll add your participants’ social links so you can find the right topics for breaking the ice and connecting on a personal level. It'll also find their company and job titles for you to personalize your pitch. All information will be added in the meeting description in your calendar.
Explore more Zoom and Gcal integrations. Or if you prefer Webex or Google Meet, we have you covered.
Streamline your Email to Calendar workflow.
3. Send a Slack message to all participants to remind them about an event
Many teams use Slack to communicate. Using Bardeen, you can ensure that everyone is in the same boat. If there’s an important meeting coming up and you want to ensure all Google Calendar participants make it on time, you can use this automation to notify all of them on Slack with one click!
Are you running late for a meeting? Letting other participants of the meeting know can get you points for professionalism. Fortunately, that can be done very easily with this automation. If you prefer email to notify others, use this automation for email instead.
Explore more Google calendar and Slack integrations.
4. Create a Google Doc meeting note for the next event
Like most people, you probably have many online meetings to attend. But as you may know, it’s not always enough just to show up. Based on the importance of the meeting, you might also need to create notes for future reference. It can be hard to manage this with all your other responsibilities.
Once activated, this automation will look for your next event and create a Google Doc in a new tab with the event’s name before it happens. Afterward, whatever is discussed in the meeting, you can just type away!
This can be a huge step forward in managing your meeting notes since it’s all grouped neatly in each respective Doc file. If you prefer Notion over Google Docs, we also have an automation available for that!
Explore more Google doc and Google Calendar integrations.
5. Create an Asana task to follow up on the current meeting
Asana is an awesome tool for task management. If you use it to manage your daily to-do list, you’ll love this automation. It’ll automatically create a new task in Asana to follow up on a meeting.
This way, you can stay on top of all your meetings. One click to activate the playbook, and you can specify the project title and assignee to create a task in Asana.
In addition to this, we also have a ClickUp automation and an Asana automation to create a task for the current calendar event. If you’re a Pipedrive user, check out this automation to get all Pipedrive contacts from an event.
Love what you see, explore more Google Calendar and Asana integrations.
6. Add enriched meeting participant data to a Coda table
To keep your professional relationships active, it’s important to know the details of each person. This allows you to personalize your messages to them, send them relevant info, and discuss interesting topics with them.
This automation will make it easy to organize the info of all your new contacts in a meeting. It uses Clearbit’s email enrichment system to get info on a meeting’s participants and save them to Coda. Once the setup is complete, besides basic details like their name and social media profiles, it’ll also save their location, bio, current position, education, and website.
We also have similar automations for Google Sheets and Notion.
Or explore more Google Calendar and Coda integrations.
So, those were six great automations related to Google Calendar. Remember that each and every one of the above automations can be edited to your liking. To browse more automations, visit this page.
Conclusion
Getting started with automating Google Calendar—a tool you’ve been used to managing manually since the beginning—can be a daunting endeavor. But, as you start getting the hang of the tools mentioned above, things start to make sense and time-saving opportunities begin to pop up.
You can free up your time and focus on the things that truly matter. If you’re confused about what to do next, download the Bardeen Chrome extension and get started with it. You can also browse other cool stuff Bardeen can do to automate your Google Calendar.
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