WARNING: We recommend using our native Google Calendar integration to sync bookings across your campus with your google calendar.
If you would like to continue reading, below is an example of how to use Zapier to push bookings to a calendar. This route is much more limited than our native integration.
SETUP REQUIRED: If this is your first zap in Coworks, please stop and make sure you've completed the necessary setup steps here. Once you get to section 2, please skip those steps and start here.
For other example Zaps, check out our Zapier homepage here.
Example Zap: Automatically add Coworks bookings to a Google Calendar
In this example, we're going to make sure that all bookings that are created in a specific room get pushed to a corresponding Google Calendar. This is very useful if you'd like to have an externally viewable/shareable calendar of bookings for each room.
This can also be a great way to integrate your calendar with any 3rd party system that integrates with Google Calendar (such as Liquid Space). By pushing bookings to a specific Google Calendar that is already integrated with a 3rd party booking platform, it can help prevent double bookings by having Google Calendar serve as the middle-man.
Pro Tip: If you upgrade to multi-step Zaps, you can add more steps. For example, after creating a booking, you could trigger an email alert.
Breakdown of the Zap
App 1: Coworks
Trigger: New Booking Created
App 2: Google Calendar
Action: Quick Add Event
Summary: When X (New Booking Created) in Coworks, do Y (Create Event) in Google Calendar.
How to set up the Zap
Coworks Setup
Authenticate with GCal in Coworks
First, you need to make sure you've integrated your Google Calendar with Coworks. Head over to the Calendar tab. You should see a button in the right upper corner that says "Google Calendar."
This will take you to the Integrations page in Coworks. Under Google Calendar, click "Connect," and follow the on-screen prompts to log in to your Google Calendar account that contains the calendars you want to sync with Coworks.
Note: This integration also allows you to push Coworks events directly to Google Calendar every time you make them in Coworks. More info here in step 6.
Link Google Calendar to Room
Next, we need to make sure that your rooms in Coworks are linked to specific Google Calendars. This will allow us to reference those calendars from the booking in Coworks.
For example: if a booking gets created in "Room A," we want to push that booking to the "Room A" calendar in GCal. If a booking occurs in "Room B," we push to the "Room B" calendar in GCal.
This will result in unique calendars for each conference room that will remain in sync with bookings created in Coworks.
Start by going to the Rooms tab in Coworks, and choose which rooms you are interested in linking to a calendar in Google.
Find the room and click "Edit". At the bottom of the page should be an "Integrations" section with a toggle to link to a Google Calendar (If you don't see this option, please make sure you've completed the GCal authentication step above).
Choose which calendar to link this room to (note: it must be a calendar owned/managed by the account you authenticated with in the previous step). This will allow you to choose this GCal calendar in the Zapier step when a booking is made for this room.
You are now ready to create your Zap!
Tip: Go ahead and create a quick test booking in that room after you've attached the calendar, so that you can use that booking as a test in the upcoming Zapier steps.
Zapier Setup
Log in to Zapier
Click on "+ Create Zap" to make a new Zap.
Click on the "Trigger" step. In the modal that appears, select "Coworks" as the app, and then set the "Event" to "New Booking."
Choose your Coworks account and select your campus (the context in which the booking was made).
You can test the trigger at this point if desired.
Select Google Calendar as the second app, and set the "Event" as "Quick Add Event."
Select or connect your Google Calendar account to Zapier.
With Google Calendar as the "2nd step" in this Zap, we're going to instruct Google Calendar to add this booking in Coworks from the previous step as a new event in the Google Calendar. In this step, you actually can use the information from the booking you just captured from Coworks to populate the fields on the GCal event. Most critically, you need to connect the appropriate calendar by using the room gcal calendar id field from the booking.
Start setting up your action, and click on the "Calendar" field. Choose "Custom" from the tab options. This is going to let you populate the Google Calendar ID from the booking above. Select "Show all options" to see the attributes of the booking, and scroll until you find "Room gcal calendar_id" and select that as the value.
Now you have instructed Zapier to push any bookings to the corresponding Google Calendar that's linked on the room of the booking.
Finish by giving your booking a name. Typically, you should populate the name from the Coworks booking name field (in this example my booking was called "Zap test," but yours may be called "[John Smith's] booking").
After you're finished customizing the new calendar event, go ahead and save it and give it a test.
Once successful, turn on your Zap and watch your Google Calendar get populated every time you've added a new booking in Coworks!
HELP: My Test Wont Pass!
Tip: If the room gcal calendar_id is not populated in your test booking from the first step (the Coworks booking trigger), it may be difficult to successfully pass the test for this Zap. You can resolve this by first creating a new booking in Coworks (make sure the room you book has a gcal linked!). Then, go back to Zapier, choose the New Coworks Booking step, and click the "Test Trigger" option.
You can manually select a booking to use as your test case and make sure the booking you choose was made in a room with a Google Calendar linked to it. Simply click on the booking field to choose another, and click "Load more" to get a fresh batch of bookings to choose from.
You will be able to see the booking data and determine if a valid room gcal calendar id is present.
If you run into any issues, please contact Coworks support.
Happy Coworking!