Create Google Calendar Recurring Events from Spreadsheet - google-apps-script

Question

At the bottom is the code from a previous blog, which works great!
This code is set up with the following Google sheet header:
Date | Title | Start Time | End Time | Location | Description | EventID
However, I need to have the ability to create recurring events.
The new Google sheet header is as follow:
Date | Title | Start Time | End Time | Location | Description | Type | Recurring | EventID
I need to create recurring events if Type = "PM" (new column) on a monthly basis for "Recurring" (also a new column) amount of months.
How is this possible while still not having duplicates every time the script is ran?
/**
* Adds a custom menu to the active spreadsheet, containing a single menu item
* for invoking the exportEvents() function.
* The onOpen() function, when defined, is automatically invoked whenever the
* spreadsheet is opened.
* For more information on using the Spreadsheet API, see
* https://developers.google.com/apps-script/service_spreadsheet
*/
function onOpen() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
var entries = [{
name : "Export Events",
functionName : "exportEvents"
}];
sheet.addMenu("Calendar Actions", entries);
};
/**
* Export events from spreadsheet to calendar
*/
function exportEvents() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var headerRows = 1; // Number of rows of header info (to skip)
var range = sheet.getDataRange();
var data = range.getValues();
var calId = "YOUR_CALENDAR_ID";
var cal = CalendarApp.getCalendarById(calId);
for (i in data) {
if (i < headerRows) continue; // Skip header row(s)
var row = data[i];
var date = new Date(row[0]); // First column
var title = row[1]; // Second column
var tstart = new Date(row[2]);
tstart.setDate(date.getDate());
tstart.setMonth(date.getMonth());
tstart.setYear(date.getYear());
var tstop = new Date(row[3]);
tstop.setDate(date.getDate());
tstop.setMonth(date.getMonth());
tstop.setYear(date.getYear());
var loc = row[4];
var desc = row[5];
var id = row[6]; // Sixth column == eventId
// Check if event already exists, update it if it does
try {
var event = cal.getEventSeriesById(id);
}
catch (e) {
// do nothing - we just want to avoid the exception when event doesn't exist
}
if (!event) {
//cal.createEvent(title, new Date("March 3, 2010 08:00:00"), new Date("March 3, 2010 09:00:00"), {description:desc,location:loc});
var newEvent = cal.createEvent(title, tstart, tstop, {description:desc,location:loc}).getId();
row[6] = newEvent; // Update the data array with event ID
}
else {
event.setTitle(title);
event.setDescription(desc);
event.setLocation(loc);
// event.setTime(tstart, tstop); // cannot setTime on eventSeries.
// ... but we CAN set recurrence!
var recurrence = CalendarApp.newRecurrence().addDailyRule().times(1);
event.setRecurrence(recurrence, tstart, tstop);
}
debugger;
}
// Record all event IDs to spreadsheet
range.setValues(data);

Answer 1

Ok, this was again something interesting... The code above needed a few modification to do what you wanted :
Since newly created events are not series (or else they must be created as eventSeries but this would make the conditions more complicated...) when we create a new event we dont use that object but get it using getEventSeriesById() which implicitly changes its nature without needing to define a recurrence.
This trick works just fine and makes the code simpler.
The other issue was about setting time and dates : your code took the hour/minutes value from a date object without year (that's normal when reading a SS) but it means that the Javascript Date has a date value in January (month 0) and January is in winter (as you know XD) so we had a problem with daylight savings and all time values were 1 hour later because setting month and date afterwards didn't change hour value (this is unclear I'm afraid...but you could check it using your code these days)
I had to invert the process and set time value to the date object instead, this gives the right result.
Since it's a bit more code to write I created a small function to do the job : it helps to keep the main code "cleaner".
Below it the full code, I added also a 'PER WEEK' recurrence to test the idea... keep it or leave it if you don't need it .
// Date | Title | Start Time | End Time | Location | Description | Type | Recurring | EventID
function onOpen() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
var entries = [{
name : "Export Events",
functionName : "exportEvents"
}];
sheet.addMenu("Calendar Actions", entries);
};
/**
* Export events from spreadsheet to calendar
*/
function exportEvents() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var headerRows = 1; // Number of rows of header info (to skip)
var range = sheet.getDataRange();
var data = range.getValues();
var calId = CalendarApp.getDefaultCalendar().getId();// use default claendar for tests
var cal = CalendarApp.getCalendarById(calId);
for (i in data) {
if (i < headerRows) continue; // Skip header row(s)
var row = data[i];
var date = new Date(row[0]); // First column
var title = row[1]; // Second column
var tstart = setTimeToDate(date,row[2]);
var tstop = setTimeToDate(date,row[3]);
Logger.log('date = '+date+'tstart = '+tstart+' tstop = '+tstop);
var loc = row[4];
var desc = row[5];
var type = row[6];
var times = row[7]
var id = row[8];
// Check if event already exists, update it if it does
try {
var event = cal.getEventSeriesById(id);
event.setTitle('got you');// this is to "force error" if the event does not exist, il will never show for real ;-)
}catch(e){
var newEvent = cal.createEvent(title, tstart, tstop, {description:desc,location:loc}); // create a "normal" event
row[8] = newEvent.getId(); // Update the data array with event ID
Logger.log('event created');// while debugging
var event = cal.getEventSeriesById(row[8]);// make it an event Serie
}
event.setTitle(title);
event.setDescription(desc);
event.setLocation(loc);
if(type=='PM'){
var recurrence = CalendarApp.newRecurrence().addMonthlyRule().times(times)
event.setRecurrence(recurrence, tstart, tstop);// we need to keep start and stop otherwise it becomes an AllDayEvent if only start is used
}else if(type=='PW'){
var recurrence = CalendarApp.newRecurrence().addWeeklyRule().times(times)
event.setRecurrence(recurrence, tstart, tstop);
}
data[i] = row ;
}
range.setValues(data);
}
function setTimeToDate(date,time){
var t = new Date(time);
var hour = t.getHours();
var min = t.getMinutes();
var sec = t.getSeconds();
var dateMod = new Date(date.setHours(hour,min,sec,0))
return dateMod;
}
test sheet here in view only

Answer 2

If you want to display a recurring event on specific intervals, the .interval function allows you to do that under the recurrence method.
In the above example, changing the appropriate code to
var recurrence = CalendarApp.newRecurrence().addMonthlyRule().interval(times)
does that.
This means if for one event, times = 3, this event will appear on your calendar every 3 months.