Use work locations with the Calendar API in apps and workflows

Posted by: Developer Advocate, Chanel Greco

Enabling Google Workspace users to set their work location and hours in Google Calendar was an important step in helping our customers adapt to a hybrid world. Sending a chat message saying “Are you in the office tomorrow?” Everyone could now share when and where they would be working within their calendars, which quickly became obsolete.

To improve the hybrid working experience, many organizations are turning to third-party or in-house tools to enable tasks like booking a hot desk or scheduling an office day. Until recently, there was no way to programmatically sync your calendared work location with such tools.

Robin displays the work location from Google Calendar in the application and updates the user’s Google Calendar when the user books a desk with Robin.

Reading and writing the working location programmatically

We’ve updated the Calendar API to take advantage of Work Locations, and we’re excited to announce that this additional feature is now generally available (this feature is only available in eligible Workspace editions). This allows a developer to programmatically read and write her Google Workspace user’s work location. This is particularly useful in his three use cases that came up in discussions with customers. Let’s consider these together.

Enhancements to the Calendar API allow developers to sync users’ work locations with third-party tools like Robin and Comeen. For example, some companies provide employees with desk reservation tools that allow employees to reserve a workspace in advance on the days they will be onsite. Human resources tools for employees to request and set “work from home” days are also common. In both situations, the user had to set up her work location in two separate tools: a desk booking tool, an HR management system, and Google Calendar.

Thanks to access to work locations through the Calendar API, this duplication of effort is no longer necessary because users’ work locations can be set programmatically. And what if the user’s calendar is the only source of truth? In that case, you can use an API to read the work location from the user’s calendar and write it to an authorized third-party tool. .

Comeen’s Google Workspace add-on syncs a user’s work location every time they update their work location in Google Calendar or the Comeen add-on

APIs allow other tools to see where users are working, creating interesting opportunities. For example, some of our customers are looking for ways to better organize their office workday. Imagine that you are going to the office tomorrow. Who else from your team will be participating? Who from the neighboring team might be on-site for a coffee chat?

The Calendar API allows you to display a user’s work location in tools like directories and hybrid work schedule tools. The goal is to make a user’s work location available in systems that are relevant to the customer.

A third use case that emerged from our discussions with customers is analyzing work location patterns. Many of our customers have adopted hybrid working styles, so it’s important to understand their working patterns better. For example, how many days does a location reach its maximum legal capacity? Or when do on-campus restaurants have to prepare more meals for on-site employees?

APIs answer these questions and more, allowing facility managers to adapt resources to employee needs.

how to start

Now that you understand the possibilities created by the updated Calendar API, let’s talk about how to start using it.

Check the developer documentation for information on reading and writing user work locations.

Watch the announcement video on the Google Workspace developers YouTube channel.

For a list of all Google Workspace plans that have access to this feature, check out the original post on Getting started with Work Locations.