Google Calendars API - Insert Event - Notify organizer by email - google-api

Question

Using Google Calendars API /events/insert, I create an event in a user's calendar on their behalf and set them as the organizer. I also invite one guest.
I want the organizer to receive an email notification similar to what a guest might receive. I tried using the sendUpdates parameter but it only notifies guests.
Is there a way to notify the organizer that an event was created in their calendar on their behalf?

Answer 1

That is outside of what even Google Calendar can do. So this problem is unrelated to the API itself. Google calendar assumes that the organizer is the one creating the event so already knows it is being created so there is no reason to notify them.
You have access via Oauth2, there is no way the api knows that this is not the user themselves as your application has permission to preform actions on behalf of the user. So google calendar thinks you are the user so no reason to notify you.
Here's a work around I have used in the past.
As you already have write access on the calendar you should have access to see who the owner is by doing an acl.list this will get you their email address.
You could then have your application email them.
You can also invite them using an allies email address, however i have found some clients don't like this solution as they then appear twice.

Answer 2

One work around you can do is to add a another version of the owners email to the attendees. For example, if their normal email is test#gmail.com you can convert it to test+1#gmail.com. They'll receive an invite at their normal email. Keep in mind this will add an additional attendee to the event. When they click accept in the email it will mark their original email as accepted, not the one with +1 appended to it.
See this basic function for adding a +1 the email in JS:
function changeEmail(email) {
let splitEmail = email.split('#');
return splitEmail[0] + '+1#' + splitEmail[1];
}
Note you can add any text after the email. It doesn't have to be +1.

Answer 3

Answer:
As DaImTo has said, the API will not provide an email to the user who has created the event, which is exactly what your application is doing via OAuth2.
You can however take the event information from the response and manually send the user an Email using the Gmail API.
Example Code:
I do not know what language you are using, but as a python example, after getting the Gmail service with your service account credentials:
subject = "email#example.com"
delegated_credentials = service_account.Credentials.from_service_account_file(key_file_location, scopes=scopes, subject=subject)
gmail_service = discovery.build(api_name, api_version, credentials=delegated_credentials)
You can use the Sending Email tutorial to create and send an email on behalf of the user that created the event:
# Copyright 2020 Google LLC.
# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
def create_message(sender, to, subject, message_text):
message = MIMEText(message_text)
message['to'] = to
message['from'] = sender
message['subject'] = subject
return {'raw': base64.urlsafe_b64encode(message.as_string())}
def send_message(service, user_id, message):
try:
message = (service.users().messages().send(userId=user_id, body=message)
.execute())
print 'Message Id: %s' % message['id']
return message
except errors.HttpError, error:
print 'An error occurred: %s' % error
And then simply send the information to the user via email using the data already defined for the event insert call:
emailText = "Title: " + summary + "\nStart: " + startTime + "\nEnd: " + endTime
msg = create_message(subject, # the sub for the service account
subject, #to and from are the same
"A Calendar Event has been created on your behalf",
emailText)
send_message(gmail_service, calendar_response['creator']['email']
References:
Sending Email | Gmail API | Google Developers