2-way Google Calendar sync

Hello folks,

It’s been a while since the recent release - and here is news about the coming one.

We’re going to improve one of the not so usable things for our PRO customers - Google Calendar integration.

Till now, such integration was implemented as one-way daily sync using an iCal URL provided by Checkvist. Given that there was no good way to force such synchronization, such integration was rather inconvenient (related uservoice issue).

Now, you will be able to integrate Checkvist with Google Calendar directly, so your updates in Checkvist appear in Google Calendar within a minute. Moreover, updates for events made in Google Calendar, including newly created events, will appear in Checkvist (within an hour at most).

To do all that, Checkvist creates its own calendar named “Checkvist” in your Google Calendar account, and syncs due tasks into this calendar. Your other calendars are not read/touched - but Checkvist requires a “do-anything” global permission to access all your calendars to create its own.

Our integration with Google Calendar is not yet approved as “safe” by Google, so when you start integrating from Due page, there will be a warning like this:

Screenshot 2020-06-21 at 22.58.24

To pass it, press “Advanced” link at the bottom and you’ll see this:

Screenshot 2020-06-21 at 22.58.34

See “Go to checkvist.com (unsafe)” link at the bottom - it will allow proceeding.

We’ve started testing this feature on https://beta.checkvist.com. The help for it is on the way.

The initial sync with the calendar may take several minutes, subsequent updates should faster.

If you set event time in the Google Calendar, this time should not be overridden on subsequent syncs. If you change the event date in Google Calendar, the corresponding due should be set in Checkvist.

Hope this sounds interesting for you, we’d really appreciate your comments and feedback!

Best,
KIR

4 Likes

Works great, included a ton of old tasks I’d tagged as (^ASAP) but managed to get rid of them by excluding archived lists

1 Like

Great!

Would it be an idea to open source the Google integration considering it needs full permission?

@saurabhg9 I’m afraid this is too much work with a little benefit. We’re going to update our Terms/Privacy policy to reflect the change, but probably this is it. For customers, there is always a way to get calendar integration via iCal link, if they don’t trust us. And sharing source code won’t give more confidence, given that they don’t know for sure which exact code is running on our servers anyway.

Cheers,
KIR

1 Like

Agree, I also realised this after my comment, but great to hear your thoughts on this topic for everyone’s benefit.

Thanks for the update ! I will try it very soon !

1 Like

New Pro user, and overall enjoying the Google Calendar sync.
However, I have a lot of ASAP tasks, and I would like the option to not sync ASAP tasks.

Hello @Brian_Cohen,

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for the suggestion. It is quite reasonable, looks like ASAP tasks were on the way of @patent_cournflour as well.

We’ve added the corresponding option, already at https://beta.checkvist.com, please check it out.

All the best and thanks again,

Oh, forgot to mention - the feature is live on production: https://blog.checkvist.com/post/622914158825013248/new-2-way-integration-with-google-calendar

Thanks everyone for testing and for the feedback!

1 Like

Thank you for the excellent feature!

However, the one option is required.

The ability to choose the list for synchronization.

Hi @Lyubvic, thanks for the suggestion! Please vote for https://checkvist.uservoice.com/forums/2121-checkvist-web/suggestions/6239632-ical-feed-for-specific-lists-branches-nodes, hope we’ll implement it eventually.

Best,