I’m building a platform where users can create events and participate in events made by others. Users have the option to connect their Google Calendar accounts to the app.
The problem I’m facing is with synchronization. When users make changes through my application, everything works perfectly. However, when they modify events directly in their Google Calendar, my app doesn’t get updated with those changes.
I need to figure out how to keep my application in sync when users edit events directly from their Google Calendar interface.
I’m considering this approach but I’m not sure if it’s feasible:
- Set up a Service Account with a dedicated email (something like [email protected])
- When events are created in my platform, automatically invite the service account email
- This way, when the event creator makes changes (time, venue, or cancellation), the service account would receive notifications through email with updated ICS files
- My backend could then process these notifications and update the corresponding events in my database
Can this method actually work? I know there are alternatives like building a Chrome extension or Google Calendar add-on, but this approach seems like it could also work with other calendar systems like Outlook in the future.
Any guidance would be appreciated.