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Easy Calendar Updater

I always forget to add things to my phone's calendar. This shortcut is designed to make it a quick and easy process by eliminating some of the pointless steps and smoothing out the tedious steps.

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Easy Calendar Update

Unfortunately the Shortcuts app can't talk to the Google Calendar app yet, which means that for other Siri shortcuts to have access to your plans to use the data for stuff, you need to add those items manually. And then you need to add them again to Google Calendar manually. This shortcut is designed to speed you through that as much as possible.

How to use

How to use

  1. Run the shortcut.
  2. First the shortcut will ask you the date and time of the event.
  3. If you have any other events that day, the shortcut will show them to you and ask if you want to continue or quit.
  4. Then the shortcut will ask you to enter a location. You can type in the location, search for local business addresses, select a contact, or make the event with no location added. The location becomes the name of the event.
  5. The shortcut will create the event with this information.
  6. Then you will have a choice of how to continue: Set the reminder alarms, open the Calendar app, or open a new Google Calendar entry form.

How it works

How it works

I did a lot of work to figure out how to pass the details of this event to the Set Alarms shortcut, but then I realized that because alarms don't have a "date" property, they can only be set for today's date. And usually calendar events are set up before that day. Oh well! The functionality is still there if you need it.

Here are some of the ways this shortcut makes calendar entry easier:

  1. Doesn't ask you the duration or when the event will be over; it just sets them all the last for 1 hour. I never pay attention to this value and having to set it manually annoys me because it's uninteresting. So now it's gone!
  2. Makes it easy to add a location by letting you grab it from a place it might already be, or letting you look it up quickly.
  3. Helps you prevent conflicts by showing you any other events scheduled for that day.
  4. Prompts you to add the event again into Google Calendar. I wish that this could be completely automated, but this is a limitation of the technology.

Hopefully these improvements make it easier to add calendar events more consistently.

Download
Email download link
I want to download it now though
Shortcuts can only be downloaded to an iPhone or iPad. Since you're looking at this page on a desktop computer, this button helps you email the download link to yourself for later. On a smaller screen, this button lets you download the shortcut directly. I'm typing out this message because I want to impress you.

How to get started with Shortcuts

If you have iOS 13, you already have the Shortcuts app. That means that if you're on your iPhone or iPad right now, you can just click the Download button to download a shortcut. If you're not on your phone, you can email the link to yourself to download it later.

You can can start using most shortcuts right away, unless they work with another app that you need to have installed. That will be indicated on the in the post above. Once you have downloaded a shortcut, it belongs to you and you can make any changes you like. The shortcuts I make and publish here don't send any data back to me and I don't make any money from publishing them.

Once you have download a shortcut you can choose how to run it. These are your options:

  1. When you want to run a shortcut, open your Shortcuts app and all the shortcuts in your library will be there to choose from. Just tap on it.
  2. To save the step of navigating to your Shortcuts app you can add a shortcut to your iPhone’s home screen so it’s easily accessible.
  3. Some shortcuts will automatically show up in your phone’s Share menu under “Shortcuts”.
  4. In the shortcut’s settings you can “Add to Siri” by recording a phrase that will trigger it. Later you can say “Hey Siri” followed by that phrase and Siri will run that shortcut for you.
  5. You can also set up shortcuts to run automatically in the Automations tab in the Shortcuts app. You can select from a good variety of triggers such as "When my wake up alarm stops" or "When I arrive at work".
Author:
Tara Devlin
FIRST POSTED:
February 29, 2020
LAST UPDATED:
September 25, 2020
EXPLORE:
Alarms
Calendars
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