What is an Action?
An automation action is a step that performs a task, activity, event, or change. Think of a action as:
When Something happens (the Trigger) and These Conditions are true, then This Event (the Action) occurs.
SmartSuite's Create an Event and Update an Event actions for Google Calendar allow you to automatically add or modify events in your linked Google Calendar. If you haven't already, we also recommend that you check our our articles on creating an automation and managing automations for more information about setting up new workflows.
Setup
Prerequisites
To use the Google Calendar integration you will need to have an existing Google account. Google Calendar actions are part of SmartSuite's automations system, which all account types have access to. Simply click the Automations option in the Solution drop-down menu (see image below).
Note
This action requires Solution Manager permissions or the Administrator role. To learn more, please see our article on roles and permissions.
Accessing the Automations configuration interface:
Create a New Automation
Once the Solution Automations dialog is displayed, click Add Automation to begin creating an automation that will interact with Jira Cloud.
Choose a Trigger
You will need to set up a trigger to tell the Automation when to run and which record to use as the source of data for your Google Calendar actions.
For example, you might be tracking user-submitted help requests in SmartSuite. If you wanted to create a new calendar event when a "meeting" record is created, you would select a When a Record is Created trigger to initiate the automation when the SmartSuite record is added.
Select the Google Calendar Action
After creating your automation and selecting your Trigger, you can select Google Calendar from the Integrations section of the Add Actions list. You can then select either the Create an Event or Update an Event action. It looks like this:
How to Add a Google Calendar Event
Whenever your automation trigger fires and the conditions are met, the Create an Event action will create a new Google Calendar event. Configuring it just requires a few clicks.
You will be prompted to select or connect your Google account.
Click Sign in with Google to get started:
If you are not authenticated you will be prompted to log in to your Google Calendar account. You will see a screen like this:
Provide the credentials you would like to use to connect to Google Calendar. Then accept the request to connect.
Important!
If there are unchecked boxes for the functions listed on this form, please check them. They are required for SmartSuite to have permissions to read and update your Google Calendar.
When your account is connected, you will be returned to the connection screen. Click anywhere outside of the dialog box to continue. Note: you can disconnect your account from the automation at any time by clicking the Disconnect button on this screen.
After this initial account configuration has been completed, you can then specify the details for the Google Calendar event you want to create. Customizable fields include:
Calendar. The Google Calendar associated with your Google Account that you want to use. If left blank, the account's primary calendar is used.
Start Date & Time. The date and time the event starts. You can optionally select a date and add a specified number of days to it (i.e. TODAY + 5 days)
End Date & Time. The date and time the event ends. You can optionally select a date and add a specified number of days to it (i.e. TODAY + 7 days)
Title. The event's name.
Google Meet. Check this box if you want to add a Google Meet to the event.
Fields. You can optionally specify additional information for your new event. They include:
Attendees. The event attendees.
Description. A description of the event.
Location. A location for the event.
You can add either static values to each of these fields, or map values from the triggering record as their value. Continue adding fields until you have populated everything you need in the event. When you're done, click Save Automation at the bottom-right corner of the screen to save the automation and its configuration.
Note
You will be prompted to switch the automation on. If you click Yes, switch it on the automation will be active and will trigger when its criteria are met. You can also choose to keep it off if you're not yet ready to start creating new Google Calendar events.
Update an Event
To configure the Update an Event action you will need to find the issue to update by matching one of the following fields to either a static value or a value contained in the triggering record.
Follow the steps described in the Add Issue action above to connect your Google Calendar account. After this initial account configuration has been completed, you can then specify the details for the event you want to update. They include:
Calendar. The Google Calendar associated with your Google Account that you want to use. If left blank, the account's primary calendar is used.
Find Events. This property allows you to identify the event(s) you want to update. You do so by specifying one or more conditions that need to be true to select the event for update. Options include:
Attendees
Description
End Date & Time
Location
Start Date & Time
Title
Fields to Update. Here you choose the fields in the event to update. You can select any number of fields from this list of available fields:
Attendees
Description
End Date & Time
Location
Start Date & Time
Title
You can add either static values to each of these fields, or map values from the triggering record as their value. Continue adding fields until you have populated everything you need in the event update. When you're done, click Save Automation at the bottom-right corner of the screen to save the automation and its configuration.