Outlook 365 to Google Calendar - All Day Events

[sshafer]

I implemented the Outlook 365 to Google Calendar Flow. It works well for appointments, but all day events show up on extra days. The reason is that the event is imported into Flow with a time of midnight, Coordinated Universal Time (i.e., GMT). When it is converted into Pacific Time, it becomes 5 PM on the previous day, prompting the event to show up a day early. This has been documented for years. 

This forum (and others) have suggested that the start time be converted to a different time zone. This is easy to do. In my case, I first added a test for whether the event was an all day event.

If it is, I corrected the time zone on the start time:

The problem is that the "Start Time" created by this doesn't get posted when the calendar event is written to Google. Here is the output of an actual event. 

Looks perfect! The time zone has been set to midnight on Friday, August 31st, GMT.

That is exactly what should happen. However, let's see what actually got inserted as the start time:

The problem is that the start time isn't the one calculated previously, but the original start time. According to the document, I would need to add "Converted Time" to the Event Creation text. However, Converted Time isn't an option:

I can only access the Start and End Time. If I could figure out how to get the converted time into this step, then this should work correctly.

I will also share that it is disappointing that this isn't part fo the flow routine for Outlook to Google Calendar. One would think that the Flow routine would be smart enough to recognize that when the "All Day Event?" flag is set to TRUE, then the time zone needs to reflect midnight for the destination time zone. Instead, I get the all day event starting at "midnight" GMT, which is 5 pm in the Pacific Time Zone. None of the posted corrections for adjusting the time zone work for me. I believe the reason is that they they don't propogate the results (e.g., "Converted Time) to the final step where the event is written. 

[v-yuazh-msft]

Hi @sshafer,

Have you take a try to use the "addHours()" expression to add the time difference caused by the time zone?

Best regards,

Alice

[sshafer]

Alice:

Thank you for replying. Yes, but I could not get the syntax correct. I would like to place the following expression in the "Start time" field during Create Google Calendar Event:

addHours(EndTime, -12).

In other words, I want the start time to be 12 hours earlier than the End Time. That will fix the problem. If you could guide me on the syntax, I would be quite appreciative.

Also, I'm happy to share the working solution. I abandoned the "convert time zone" approach entirely. Instead, I added a test of "Is All Day Event" right before Flow creates a Google Calendar Event. If it is not an All Day Event, then I just use a cloned version of the original code. However, if it is an all day event, then I substituted the End Time for the Start Time. That gives me a small box of time, but at least it shows up on the correct day! If I could instead use "addHours(Endtime, -12)" then the routine would be nearly perfect. I just can't get the syntax right.

Here is the "create event" where I am trying to modify the Start Time:

If I can put a Start Time that is 12 hours earlier than the End Time, then the problem is solved.

Thanks again,

Steve

[yseleah]

Steve,

I know it's been over a month since you posted this, but I was finally able to solve this by having Flow perform a check for an all-day event in O365 as you suggested, with the additional step of then creating the event in Google Calendar as an all-day event. Doing this seems to have completely side-stepped the time zone issue, as Google Calendar essentially ignores start and end times for all-day events (so it just shows up on the day it was set for).

I have included more explanation and a screenshot of my flow here: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/General-Flow-Discussion/Create-an-all-day-event-in-google-when-a...

It was through your post that I first discovered "Is All Day Event" check, so thank you!

Leah