Forum Discussion

JenniferJuhasz's avatar
JenniferJuhasz
Qrew Cadet
2 years ago

Pipeline to create a Google task?

Hi All,

I know we can pull data from Google 'sheets' and .CSVs; but I'm wondering if anyone has built a system that can push a 'task' from Quickbase to Google tasks?

I'm going to re-vamp an internal process that's a bit out of date, currently using Google Forms and involving 6 different spreadsheets to track the different tasks and actions (for me, not counting others in our organization). I really want to simplify the whole, very complicated process.  I love Google tasks because they're in my inbox, in my calendar, in my phone - I can't ignore them at all.  So - I was just curious if anyone has ever built a form in Quickbase that essentially ignites a project that's loaded with tasks that all have sub-tasks, that auto-assign to the appropriate staff member...  and then also populated something like Google tasks?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Jen



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Jennifer Juhasz
FamilySmart
BC, Canada
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  • joevandervest's avatar
    joevandervest
    Qrew Cadet
    2 years ago

    Jenn:

    I saw no one else responded to this, so I thought I'd humbly submit one possible perspective on a solution. 

    I checked and there is no specific Pipeline channel to access the tasks api. Tasks are not part of the Calendar channel in pipelines either.  And as you are likely aware, google has been making significant changes to how some of their apps work with tasks.  So here's how I'd likely approach a problem similar to the one you portrayed.. I would use these  components for this:  QB, Pipelines, and Zapier.

    Setup:

    • Make sure you adjust your QB tables and fields so that you can store items you may want related to the task. For the purpose of editing the TASK or even deleting it or reassigning it in the future from your app you will certainly want to store the TaskID (object ID) that google assigns it when you create it. You'll need that for future Modify-task or delete-task or mark-complete tasks you may want to push from QB to google. 
    • Create a webhook in Zapier that will accept a properly formatted and secured web request from Pipelines. You can then use Zapier's support for Google Tasks and the Google API to push task create, modify, delete functions as you desire. 
    • Create a Pipeline that is triggered under approriate data conditions then add the web request from the web request channel to call Zapier and Pass it the appropriate data. IF you get really fancy you can probably figure out how to do this with update FILES and do parsing within zapier as well. 
    • Assuming a low volume of incidences; modeling it on a change by change basis will at least get you started. 

    General App Flow

    • Data CHANGE triggers Pipeline. 
    • Triggered Pipeline send web-request to target Hook at zapier. 
    • Zapier zap is fired, takes the data you give it and starts working. 
    • Zapier Google Task zap access your google account and updates/modifies as appropriate (you could use branching in the zap to handle different types of requests)
    • The Google API returns data from the call - e.g. TaskID which Zapier gets back. 
    • The zap then updates the source (record or records) with the newly minted TaskID. 
    • done

    I've not used the Task zap myself, but it's likely got the majority of actions covered. While you're in there you could probably do something with a calendar event too if you needed to. 

    Maybe that helps. 



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    joe vandervest
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