Attached ICS Calendar does not create an event in the calendar

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
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1

Hello, everyone!

I created a template for ICS with the code below. The problem is that it sends the invitation to the ATTENDEES but does not create the invitation in the active user’s calendar using the app.
The event is triggered by a change in a table record.
From the email attributes, I only fill the “To” field with a list of emails, excluding the email of the active user using the app.
In the invitation received by the ATTENDEES, the logged-in user’s email appears as the organizer.
If I try to remove the ORGANIZER parameter or set the active user as an ATTENDEE, I get an error stating that it is not possible to modify the ORGANIZER.
I also tried fixing the ICS script without variables, and the problem remains the same.
In the monitor, the bot processes it normally.
Has anyone experienced this problem?
I wish you all a prosperous 2025.
Thank you very much for your help.

Here is the template:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//AppSheet Inc//AppSheet
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Sao_Paulo
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:20240101T000000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0300
TZOFFSETTO:-0300
TZNAME:BRT
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Kickoff do projeto <<[Titulo]>>
UID:7c22491d-71cd-4c60-ae2e-3ffba6d89a5c
DTSTART;TZID=America/Sao_Paulo:<<TEXT([Kickoff], “YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS”)>>
DTEND;TZID=America/Sao_Paulo:<<TEXT([Kickoff] + “001:30:00”, “YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS”)>>
DESCRIPTION:Nossa reunião de kickoff do evento <<[Titulo]>>
DTSTAMP:<<TEXT(NOW(), “YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ”)>>
ORGANIZER;CN=<<USERNAME()>>:MAILTO:<<USEREMAIL()>>
<<Start:SELECT(Membros[ROW ID], AND(IN([Row ID], SELECT(Equipes[Intgrante], [Evento]=[_THISROW].[Row ID])), [email]<>USEREMAIL()))>>
ATTENDEE;CN=<<[Nome]>> <<[Sobrenome]>>;RSVP=TRUE:MAILTO:<<[email]>> <>
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

This is the executed ICS that arrives in the ATTENDEES’ email:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//AppSheet Inc//AppSheet
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Sao_Paulo
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:20240101T000000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0300
TZOFFSETTO:-0300
TZNAME:BRT
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Kickoff do projeto Evento com Kickoff
UID:7c22491d-71cd-4c60-ae2e-3ffba6d89a5c
DTSTART;TZID=America/Sao_Paulo:20250102T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Sao_Paulo:20250102T163000
DESCRIPTION:Nossa reunião de kickoff do evento Evento com Kickoff
DTSTAMP:20241229T121258Z
ORGANIZER;CN=:MAILTO:andre
ATTENDEE;CN=Ricardo Cancela Duarte;RSVP=TRUE:MAILTO:alassef@gmail.com
ATTENDEE;CN=Carlos Brandão;RSVP=TRUE:MAILTO:andre@go-bbx.com
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

2

A calendar event attachment does not and never has automatically added the event to the recipient’s calendar.

3

Thank you very much for your response, Steve.
Could you please indicate the correct practice for creating an invite through the Bot, with the active user as the event organizer? Despite reading all the documentation and community posts, I haven’t been able to make the invitation appear on the organizer’s calendar. Most likely, I misunderstood something about the concept.

I appreciate your help in advance.

4

I’ve never done so myself and have no suggestions to offer.

5

Thank you once again, Steve.
It’s certainly something simple that I’m missing. Feel free to count on me whenever you need.

If any other community member can help me, I’d greatly appreciate it in advance.

6

Please clarify what your desired behavior is? What do you want to happen, specifically?

1 Like
7

Without a doubt!
When a date is assigned to a field in a table (the project kickoff), a Bot I created, with an event to respond to this change, should send an invite to selected emails from a second table (Teams).
In other words, it should send an invite from the organizer (the active user) to a group of people listed in the Teams table.
I’ve done every type of test I could, but without a positive result. I really believe I didn’t fully understand the concept of the ics sending feature.
Thank you once again.

1 Like
8

Thanks for the clarification!

An ICS file is a description of a calendar event. It’s up to the recipient of the file to “import” the file into their own calendar. There’s no way you can inject an event into someone else’s calendar.

As an alternative, you could use the app to manage a Google Calendar calendar and share that calendar with all potential participants.

1 Like
9

Yes, Steve. It makes perfect sense that there isn’t a way to inject an invite into another person’s calendar.
I’ve managed to get quite far because, with the template I posted, all attendees receive the email with the ICS file in the standard invite format, as if I had sent it from my calendar.
The problem is that I can’t find a way, as the active user operating the app, to make the same invite go to my calendar.

I created a script, published it on Google Apps Script, and tested it locally—it works perfectly. It creates the event on my calendar and sends the invites. I did encounter some issues, but they were related to using OAuth. That’s a topic for another discussion. If anyone is interested in it, feel free to reply here.

Thanks again for your attention!

1 Like