I have a problem with date formatting in my automation setup.
I’m trying to sync calendar appointments to my Notion workspace automatically through Zapier. The integration works but there’s a major issue with how dates are being processed.
When I create an appointment for February 15th at 10:30 AM in my calendar, it shows up in Notion as January 19th at 7:30 PM instead. The date and time are completely wrong.
This seems like a timezone or date format conversion problem but I can’t figure out what’s causing it. Has anyone experienced similar issues with automated calendar syncing? How can I fix the date mapping between these platforms?
Dealing with timezone discrepancies can indeed be tricky when automating tasks between different platforms. It’s crucial to ensure that both your calendar and Notion workspace are set to the same timezone. If one system is set to UTC and the other is using local time, date mismatches will occur. Additionally, reviewing the Zap setup for any date formatting steps is important. I recommend adding a formatter step in your Zap where you can adjust the time to a consistent timezone before it reaches Notion. This method has worked for many users experiencing the same date synchronization issues.
Had this exact problem last month. The issue was Zapier grabbing the wrong date field from my calendar trigger. Your calendar sends multiple timestamps - created date, modified date, start time, etc. I was mapping the wrong one to Notion without knowing it. Check which specific date field you’re pulling in that trigger step. Some calendar apps also send dates in epoch format, and Zapier converts it terribly. I added a formatter step to convert it properly before hitting Notion - fixed all the timing issues. Don’t assume you’re using the right date fields. Be specific about which ones you actually need.
I’ve hit this same nightmare at work multiple times. It’s not just timezone settings - Zapier butchers date parsing when converting between API formats.
Calendar apps send dates in ISO format with timezone data, but Notion wants something specific. Zapier screws up the conversion, especially with daylight saving time changes.
I switched to platforms with better data transformation control. You can set custom date parsing rules and handle timezone conversions without playing guessing games.
Latenode works way better for calendar sync automation - you can actually see and tweak how dates get processed at each step. No more mystery conversions turning February into January.
The visual workflow lets you drop date formatting nodes wherever you need them. You can test with real data to make sure everything maps right.
yeah, I’ve run into this zapier issue too. often it’s about the date formatting – your calendar could be mm/dd/yyyy while notion prefers dd/mm/yyyy. and make sure zapier ain’t pulling a timezone field you didn’t realize existed.