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I've just signed up for If This Then That and I'm trying to compose a recipe for the following situation.

My kids don't have their own Google Calendar accounts; we use the family account for appointments for them. For instance, "play date Kid A at classmate's place". Since I've added the location, I'll get a reminder from Google Now when I need to leave to drop him off. But I'd like a reminder when I need to leave to pick him up again.

For that, I'd like to automatically add a second appointment at the end of the first one, at the same location, that has a duration of five or ten minutes.

So what I had in mind, is something like

IF
    I have an event in my calendar with the name of one of my kids
    AND
    it has a location
    AND
    the event has started
THEN
    add an event to my calendar:
        for that location
        starting when the original event ends
        for a duration of X minutes

But I don't know how to read the location of an event, nor how to read its from and to times.

Of course, this doesn't have to be done with IFTTT. Similar apps are okay.

I've also explored the options for Google Calendar's reminders, to have a reminder after the start of an event, but I couldn't get that to work. Also, it's not so much the reminders of the event I'm after, but rather Google Now's "leave now for X" reminders, which take your travel time into account.

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  • Or do I expect way too much from IFTTT?
    – SQB
    Jul 13, 2016 at 10:43
  • How about creating two events, with the same location, one for the drop-off time and one for the pick-up time? To save yourself some trouble, you could use the "copy to my calendar" feature and then just change the calendar in the dropdown. Let me know if you want a screenshot of that last sentence. A picture is worth a thousand words.
    – aparente001
    Nov 17, 2016 at 20:22
  • @aparente001 yes, that's indeed what I want, as indicated by my pseudo-code. The thing is that I want to it automatically, with IFTTT for instance.
    – SQB
    Nov 17, 2016 at 20:48
  • In other words, you want to create ONE event manually, and then have the second event be created by itself? With a default playdate length? (I'm concerned about that, since playdate length in our family is not always the same.) Would IFTTT create a second event based on creation of the first?
    – aparente001
    Nov 17, 2016 at 20:50
  • @aparente001 ideally, yes. IFTTT should read when the main event ends and then add a second event for just five minutes, "pick up kid" at that location.
    – SQB
    Nov 17, 2016 at 20:52

1 Answer 1

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I think IFTTT can do what you're looking for. You'll need 2 Applets and a Gmail account which will serve as your "filter" to only create the "pick up" event when it has a kid's name in it.

  1. The first Applet will use the Google Calendar trigger "Any new event added" and will perform the Gmail action "send an email". You'll send an email to yourself with the details of the event. You can use the "Ingredients" feature to include the event details in the subject line of the email. I'd suggest this: {{Ends}} Pick-Up from {{Title}} at {{Where}}

  2. Your second Applet will use the Gmail trigger "New email in inbox from search" - the search should specify that the email is from IFTTT and has your kid's name in it. This Applet will trigger the Google Calendar action "Quick Add Event" using the subject line of the email as the Quick Add text.

    In this second Applet, make sure to add some special text to the Quick Add text - and in your Gmail "new email" search, make sure that special text isn't present. Otherwise, your new Pick-Up event will trigger its own Pick-Up event and you'll end up with an infinite loop that keeps creating appointments with no end.

By starting the quick add text with {{Ends}}, the new event will end at the time that the original event began. Unfortunately it won't be 5 minutes, it will always be 1 hour long (the automatic length for quick-add events). Hopefully that's not a problem.

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