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Application managers, Site owners/managers, and End users can add a Google Calendar tile in addition to the existing Events tile on the Home and Site dashboards. Integrate your Google Calendar to display its events and open its details in Google Calendar directly.
Note this is a one-way communication method. You cannot currently post Simpplr events to Google Calendar.
Security information
When connecting to Google Calendar for the first time, Simpplr will request some OAuth permissions in order for the integration to work. The following table provides definitions of exactly what's being requested from Simpplr. Simpplr will NEVER overwrite any Google Workspace permissions set up, and essentially 'piggybacks' off any existing configuration in Google.
| Permission | Description | Use | Features |
| https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.events | View and edit events on all your calendars |
Currently used for hitting Google Calendar APIs to fetch the user’s GCal Events and display them on the ‘Events’ page. In the near future, this will also be used for hitting the APIs for performing 2-Way Event Sync. |
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| https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar | See, edit, share, and permanently delete all the calendars you can access using Google Calendar |
Currently used for hitting Google Calendar APIs to fetch the user’s GCal Calendars in order to display & search through them before adding them to a tile. In the near future, it will also be used for hitting the API for creating a new calendar in an event organizer’s account in order to support 2-Way Event Sync. |
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Integrating and connecting
The App manager for your org must first connect Google Calendar at the application level. Group admin permissions for the calendar app are required. To do so:
- Go to Manage > Application > Integrations > Calendar integration. Check the box for Google Calendar.
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If the Google Drive integration is already enabled, the domain for Google Calendar should match the domain used for your Google Drive. If you have not yet set up a domain for the integration, first head to the Domains tab to add your company's domain to the list for Google Calendar.
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If the Google Drive integration is already enabled, the domain for Google Calendar should match the domain used for your Google Drive. If you have not yet set up a domain for the integration, first head to the Domains tab to add your company's domain to the list for Google Calendar.
Note:
If your organization is on the Laki release or later (or if you're using Google multi-domain and not switching to it from previously using Simpplr-managed permissions), then we don’t require nor do we ask for the 'manage groups' permission. However, if a user has previously granted Simpplr the manage groups permission (for example, if they were using the pre-Laki, Simpplr-managed permissions configuration), 'manage groups' permission will continue to show in the request. This is because when requesting new permissions, the Google authorization screen will always display all permissions previously granted together with the new requests, so that the user can review them all.To connect Google Calendar at the user level, navigate to your user profile and select Edit profile & settings > External apps > Google Calendar > Sign in with Google. All End users as well as Application managers must connect at the user level.
Adding events
Depending on App management governance settings, you can add Google Calendar tiles to Home or Site dashboards. To do so:
- Go to the Edit dashboard icon at the bottom right of the home screen. Then choose Add tile > Content tile (the top selection) > Events > Google Calendar. Here you'll be given a dropdown of all applicable calendars. Click the one you'd like to add to the home dashboard, then choose Add.
Here you can link your Google Calendar. The calendar dropdown can display a maximum of 250 events for you to choose from.
This is how Google Calendar events appear in the Events tile:
Note
If the Simpplr Home dashboard is user-controlled, users will have the ability to add events linked from Google Calendar to their dashboards. Also, if Content type = Events are turned off at the app level, users won't be able to add or see the Google Calendar event tile on their dashboards.Calendar visibility and expected functionality
Shared calendars: When adding a shared calendar to your Simpplr tiles, it should be visible to all users whom it's shared with, unless the calendar got renamed after adding as a tile, or someone's access to it was removed via Google. Note if a calendar is shared across multiple domains, it still will not be visible to users in Simpplr if they're connected to a different domain than that of the calendar owner/source domain.
Personal calendars: The events from a personal calendar, if added as a tile, would be visible to only those who have access from within Google.
Public calendars and corporate calendars: These are not supported by this integration.
Multi-domain calendar support
If a calendar is shared across multiple domains, it will not be visible to users in Simpplr if they're connected to a different domain than that of the calendar owner/source domain.
When a user from one domain, Jim.Smith@smallcompany.com, shares calendar to a user from another domain, Jane.Doe@bigcompany.com, then the calendars returned from Graph API for Jane.Doe for will have the result of "owner = null". In Google Calendar, Simpplr does not have a unique calendar ID for a shared calendar across users, therefore we are relying on the owner name and calendar name for shared calendars. Since in cross domain calendars, we get "owner = null" from the API, our shared calendar logic will not be supported in shared calendars across domains.
Comments
How can we add one particular google calendar to the home page so that all Simpplr users can see? The instructions above are for connecting to the calendar at the user level (meaning each user has to connect to their own Google account).
Hi John. For that you'd need an App manager-controlled home dashboard that End users cannot edit. That's done through the Manage > Application menu. Then you would create an Event tile on the home dashboard and make it a shared Google Calendar tile.
Where are the instructions on how to adjust how many events show at one time in a calendar?
Hi Rob. There is no controlling the number of events you can show with a calendar integration tile. By default, the tile will show the next 4 events you have upcoming. When you click show more, it will show the next 4, and so on until you reach 250. That's the max the tile can show at once.
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