Google Calendar
Google Forms + Google Calendar Integration
Create Google Calendar Events on Google Form submission or Add guests to calendar event.
What is Form Director?
Form Director is a Google Workspace add-on that directs data submitted from Google Forms to applications like Google Docs, Forms, Sheets, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Email, Trello, Slack, QuickBooks etc.
It is available in the Google workspace Marketplace.
Please check installation instructions to install the add-on.
What is Google Calendar?
Google Calendar is a time-management and scheduling calendar service developed by Google
Google Calendar suggests meeting times and integrates seamlessly with Gmail.
Shareable calendars designed for teams.
Google Forms to Calendar: Use Case(s)
> Create Google Calendar Events on Google Form Submission
> Add Guests (attendees) to an existing Google Calendar Event on Google Form Submission
Google Forms
Create Event/
Add Guests on Form Submit
Add Guests on Form Submit
Form Director
Google Calendar
Demo Video1: How to create Google Calendar Event from Google Form submission?
Demo Video2: How to add attendees (guests) to Google Calendar Event from Google Form submission?
Service 1: Create Event
Setting up Google Calendar in Form Director
Choosing App and Service
Select Google Calendar from the list of applications
In order to create an event select Create Event under Service
Choosing Calendar
Choose the Calendar from the list of calendar in which you need to create event
What is All Day Event?
Choosing All Day Event will create event for the whole day
Note: If you are creating a Full day event, you do not need to enter start time and end time of the event
Set event duration
This option will automatically sets the event End Date based on the duration provided.
No mapping asked for End Date inside Edit Mapping because it calculates the End Date based on duration settings.
Duration can be set as Minutes, Hours and Days with duration.
Configuring Event Recurrence
If you need to repeat the event after certain number of period, you need to switch ON the Custom occurrences switch.
To setup recurring events,
Switch ON the Custom occurrences switch
(note: The interval defaults to 1 week and it will end after 10 occurrences by default.)
Set interval of your choice by changing values in the Duration input box and select any period type from the Period dropdown box (eg: Days, Weeks, Months, Years)
Select repetition days. On the selected days of the week the event will be created throughout.
Set when to end the recurring event by selecting any one of the radio buttons that were listed below the Ends label.
Repeat on:
By selecting the required day of the week, the event will be created on that selected day.
This will be created for the selected number of weeks.
Ends
Never - recurring event will never ends
On - recurring event will ends on specific date
After - recurring event will ends after certain occurrences
Configuring Time Zone
Google Forms' Date and Time fields do not keep timezone information.
So you need to provide time zone settings to create events on correct time as per time zone.
It requires the users time zone to create Calendar events correctly.
There are two ways you can configure your time zone
Single
Multiple
Single Timezone
This method allows to Configure your time zone in the add on.
Choose your time zone in the list of time zones
By Default Form Director will try to guess your time zone
If all your Google Form users are from same time zone you can use this method
Multiple Timezones
This method allows the Form Submitter to choose his time zone
Choose the list of time zones you need to insert in the Google Form
Choose which Form Field accept time zone value, you can also create a new Form Field which can collect time zone value
Click on Setup timezone in form to insert the time zone form field
Important Note: Multiple timezone will be useful if we want to accept the form responses from global users (people from multiple timezones). Use this only if it is really required.
Note: Please ensure the timezones are setup in the form by Form Director. Do not make any changes or add your own text in the timezone form field set up by Form Director.
Adding Guests to Calendar Events
Specify the list of people you need to add as Guest to the Event
Note : Emails Address should be comma(",") separated
Sending Event Invitation to Guest
Turning on Send event invitations will send invitation to your event to the guests
Choosing event color
Choose in which color your event should appear in the list of colors
Show user as Free/Busy
Events marked Busy will be visible to others (the level of detail visible depends on the calendar settings), while events marked Free won't even show up for others.
Default is Busy
Advanced Calendar Services
The advance calendar services consist of the following settings
- Add Conference
- Add Visibility
- Allow Guest to Modify Event
- Add Remainder
- Avoid overlapping of events
Add Conference
Add a Hangouts Meet conference by enabling "Add Conference" under Advanced Calendar Services
Add Visibility
Choose the visibility of the event by enabling "Add Visibility" under Advanced Calendar Services
"Default" - Uses the default visibility for events on the calendar. This is the default value.
"Public" - The event is public and event details are visible to all readers of the calendar.
"Private" - The event is private and only event attendees may view event details.
Allow Guest to Modify Event
This option allows your Guests to Modify the created Calendar event.
Add Reminder
Add a reminder to remind yourself before the event starts
Type
Choose in which way you need to remind, there are two ways
1.Remind through Email.
2.Remind through Notification
Duration
Specify before how much time you should be reminded
Period
Choose when to remind, you can configure to remind before minutes, hours, days and weeks
Avoid overlapping of events
This option will avoid the overlapping of events within the given time slot.
For Example: Consider one of your guest is booking a meeting in your Google Calendar. He has chosen a timeslot of 10 A.M to 11 A.M. But you already have another meeting scheduled at that time. In this case Form Director will not create the meeting for your guest instead it will send a notification email about the already existing event during the selected time slot.
Configure the email message as required.
When there is an overlapping of event then Form Director will send this notification to the user.
Event Attachments:
Click Pick Drive Files to attach static files from drive to Calendar events.
Click the Delete icon to delete the attachments.
Note: Attachments from the Google Form can be mapped to the 'Attachments' app field (using Mapping GUI) to add the dynamic attachments submitted from the form
Setup Mapping
Mapping of form fields to that of Calendar fields is to be done in order to create an calendar event
Click on the add icon to add new mapping
Once you have done mapping you can save the service
Note : Mapping should be done between app field and form field of same type.
Email Template
Send your own customized emails on form submission to your audience.
Attachment
Click Pick Drive Files to attach files to email.
Click Save to save the services.
Sample Output
The following is a sample event created in calendar.
Supported Application Fields
Title - Name of the Event
Start Date - Date when the Event Starts
Start Time - Time when the Event Starts
End Date - Date when the Event Ends
End Time - Time when the Event Ends
Start Date Time - Date and Time when the Event Starts
End Date Time - Date and Time when the Event Ends
Description - A detail about the Event
Location - Location of the Event
Attachments - Add attachments to events by mapping the app field to a file upload Field
Mapping Tips
Date and Time Fields
If your form contains date and time type fields separately then you can map these fields to start date, start time, end date, and end time.
ORIf your form contains date-time type fields then you can map to start date time and end date time app fields
If you map the date and time fields separately, you do not need to map the date-time fields and vice versa.
If you set automatic duration then you do not need to map end date, end time, or end date-time mapping
Start Date and End Date can be mapped to a single field in the form if you want the event to be ending the same day.
Start time and End time are not required for All day events.
Service 2: Add Guests to Event
This service add guests (attendees) to existing events and send calendar invites to them. This will be very useful if you have many attendees and they will be added to the event at different times.
For example, enrolling attendees to a webinar.
Choosing App and Service
Select Google Calendar from the list of applications
In order to add guest select Add Guests to Event under Service
Choose the required Calendar from the dropdown
Select the required event. Type few letters the name of the event for the Form Director to auto-complete the event selection.
Adjust the required Calendar month, so that the relevant events will appear in the auto-complete to select events
Click on Setup Mapping to start mapping.
Mapping of form fields to that of Calendar fields is to be done in order to add guests to the calendar event
Click on the add icon to add a new mapping
Once you have done mapping you can save the service
Submit the Form to add guests to Calendar.
Sample Output
The following is a sample event created in calendar.
Can I auto-set the duration? or end date time is mandatory.
If your End Date should be based on a fixed duration provided from the Start Date, then you don't need to set an End Date. You can use the Set Event Duration option to automatically add duration
Why my Calendar invites are not going?
If you are not getting calendar invitations, please check the below.
Check if the "Send event invitations" switched-on in Google Calendar configuration on Form Director
Google Calendar will send an invitation to every guest email added. However, it will not send multiple invitation emails to the same guest on every update. If you are adding guest email again on the same event, there will not be any email notification sent.
Form Director will show a warning message if the guest email already exists in the event.
You can remove the already added guest manually and try adding the guest again using Form Director it will give a notification.
Note that Google Calendar will not send an invitation to past dated events.
If still not giving an invite or any error notifications check the troubleshooting docs.