Introduction Managing multiple calendars can be complex, particularly when it comes to accurately reflecting availability across different contexts—work, personal, and project-specific.
Use Cases
Multi-Calendar Management: Useful for managing both personal and work calendars, ensuring that colleagues or friends can see when you’re actually available.
Team Collaboration: Helps maintain clarity around availability in team environments.
Event Coordination: Assists in coordinating events across multiple calendars by providing a unified view of availability.
SyncFreeBusy is a handy solution published by Jasper Duizendstra designed to synchronize events between a primary and secondary Google Calendars. It can be used to provide a unified free/busy status across different calendars, preventing scheduling conflicts and reducing manual overhead.
The script works by fetching events from both calendars, creating corresponding “blocking events” in the other calendar to mark busy times, and periodically cleaning up obsolete events. The solution is achieved using Google Apps Script which can easily be setup to run on a timed trigger and also allows for easy customisation to your specific needs.
The script is available on GitHub for those interested in trying it out, just follow the source link below.
In this article I will showcase the way I deploy Google Apps Script code in an Enterprise environment. I will share the actual build file and the necessary steps and tools to reproduce my workflow. This approach does require Google Cloud Platform knowledge and a credit card. The instructions are high level, this article is not a codelab.
For those interested in scaling up their Google Apps Script development Jasper Duizendstra outlines how you can use Google Cloud Build for version control and Continuous Deployment (CD). As Jasper notes:
When the CD pipeline is in place it becomes easy to deploy the script, separate the responsibilities and support multiple versions and implementations of the code … Â the most important advantage of using CD is the mindset that it enables. It provides an environment where I feel confident and safe to create small incremental changes in my applications.
In this article I will showcase one of the many ways you can customize your Google Workspace environment. We will implement two custom functions in Google Sheets. With these functions as an example I will demonstrate how to use Google Apps Script Libraries to organise and distribute your solution. There are multiple ways to distribute your Apps Script code within the Google Workspace, and this article will help you decide if this library method is right for you.
Always nice to have some advanced techniques in your toolbox. In this example from Jasper Duizendstra he explores how custom functions in Google Sheets can be packaged and used in Libraries.
Source: How to write a custom function library for Google Sheets
Google Apps Script can go way beyond a simple script that solves a problem. In this article I will showcase the way I deploy Google Apps Script code in an Enterprise environment. I will share the actual build file and the necessary steps and tools to reproduce my workflow. This approach does require Google Cloud Platform knowledge and a credit card.
Jasper Duizendstra has a passion for technology. As a freelance Google Cloud architect he handles the architecture choices. He is driven by a desire to understand the pros and cons of available platforms and languages.
Jasper worked in multiple countries in many roles. He is a specialist on the Google Cloud Platform and G Suite. He manages or participates in migrations to G Suite or the Google Cloud Platform. He likes hands on work like coding and creating apps or ELT data processing pipelines.
As a motivated educator he also coaches developers and supports offshore teams. He is also an App Script GDE and Google Mentor.
Building and maintaining code can be hard. There are multiple phases in the livecycle of the code, each phase with its own challenges. Being able to easily retrieve information about the execution of your code in each phase is key. This is where the new Google Apps Script IDE debugging and logging features can help. In this article I will show you what you can do with the new debugging and logging features.
Some great tips from Jasper Duizendstra on using the logging and debugging features of the new Apps Script IDE.
Apps Script now supports the V8 runtime. Time for an update to the story “Structure and simplify your Google Apps Script Apps script”. The V8 runtime brings modern ECMAScript syntax to Apps Script. So we can now use arrow functions and destructuring assignments. No more hoisting with let and const and my personal favorite, template literals.
In this story Jasper Duizendstra shows the added value of the changes made in the constructor pattern using the factory functions. It also shows how to implement chaining and a builder pattern in Apps Script.
Jasper Duizendstra demonstrates how with a little bit of Google Apps Script you can easily use your Google Calendar to keep a record of how much time you spend on tasks and then query/report this via Google Sheets. The post contains instructions and code for getting started
