- Category
- New Feature
- Published on
Syncing Discord Events to Google Calendar
- Authors
- Name
- Gordon Smith
After a very long development phase, our number one user-requested feature is finally here!
As of today, you can now use Chronicle Bot to sync your Discord Events out to Google Calendar. We experimented with several methods for implementing this functionality and settled on making a whole new Chronicle Bot feature called Event Feeds.
What is an Event Feed?
An Event Feed is a sync connection from Discord out to an external calendar. This lets you create, update, and cancel events within Discord and sync those changes to your Google Calendar in real time.
We've also heard requests to sync Discord events to other calendar services such as Outlook, Twitch, Asana, and others. Rest assured; we built this in such a way that adding more services is possible in the future!
Why not add this functionality to Notifiers?
We almost did, but we found that there were a few complications. For example, where do the events sync when you connect more than one Google Calendar? Should it sync to both external calendars or only one, and if so, which one?
In the end, we went this route for simplicity and flexibility. The solution is simple because the roles are well defined: Event Feeds will be for copying events out of Discord, and Notifier will continue to be for bringing events into Discord. It's flexible because you can use Event Feeds separately or combined with Notifiers based on your needs.
2-way Event Sync
Speaking of combining Event Feeds and Notifier, we spent a lot of time ensuring they work together to accomplish a 2-way sync. To create a 2-way sync with Google Calendar, simply set up a Notifier and an Event Feed — both connected to the same Google Calendar.
Discord server members with the correct permissions can create events in Discord, which will appear in Google Calendar. An owner or editor of the Google Calendar can make a change there, and the edit syncs back down to Discord within seconds.
Event Feeds work with External, Voice Channel, and Stage Discord events. And for our advanced users, you'll find that Event Feeds even preserve your Front Matter between syncs.
User Interface Updates
This update also contains various UI improvements. Adding Event Feeds drove some of these, but we also tried to improve other interface components that haven't seen much love in a while.
Trying out Event Feeds
Event Feeds are now live as a Beta Feature, which means our users with a premium license have access to start using it immediately. Please stop by our Discord server to share how it's working for you. We look forward to your feedback and seeing what exciting things you do with Chronicle Bot Notifiers and Event Feeds!
We hope you enjoy these updates and as always, if you have any questions or feedback feel free to reach out to us on Discord, Mastodon, or Twitter.