squidharth / aion

Google Appscript functions to manipulate the Calendar

Aion

INTRODUCTION

Are you part of the corporate drone-force who is inundated with recurring meetings? Do you use Google Calendar as your scheduling tool? Are you looking to unblock your time in your calendar for meetings that you have no intention to attend? Read on.

Project Aion provides utility functions that extend Google Calendar capabilities to help you regain control of your calendar.

The programs are written in Google Appscript.

UTILITIES

All of the functions are stored in the file named Code.gs. There are no additional dependencies.

setMeetingTimeAsAvailable

This function sets time as "Free" for a set of recurring meetings to allow team members to better understand availability and to have greater choice to schedule single instance (and hopefully more productive) meetings. The default visibility status in Google Calendar is "Busy". The web interface allows a user to change it to "Free" but it has be done manually for each instance. There are no settings that allow you to set the default visibility for meetings to "Free". This function helps to overcome this limitation by setting the visibility for a set of meetings. Users can schedule this function to run on a recurring basis using Timers in the Google Workspace.

SETUP

1. Create a project

   1. Navigate to the AppScript dashboard
   2. Select "New project"
   3. Rename the project to "Aion" (or any other name of your choice)

2. Copy all of the source code

   1. Select all of the contents in Code.gs and copy it to the file with the same name in your project.

3. Set a schedule for recurring execution

   1. Expand the navigation menu on the left and select "Triggers"
   2. Select "Add Trigger"
   3. Make sure the value for the field "Choose which function to run" is set to "setMeetingTimeAsAvailable"
   4. Set the appropriate interval values based on your preference
   5. Select "Save"

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why is this project named "Aion"?

Aion (Greek: Αἰών) is a Hellenistic deity associated with time. See Aion (deity).

Are there other utilities that are planned?

Not at this time. But check back periodically.