Searching for events

Activechat’s powerful Google Calendar integration makes it easy to check the availability of a specific time interval or search for existing events within that interval.

ℹ️ Do not forget to connect your Google account to make calendars available!

GC-SEARCH block helps you check for specific time intervals for events.

GC-SEARCH block settings (click to enlarge)

There is a number of sections in GC-GALLERY block editor settings, let’s walk them through one by one.

Calendar selection

Choose your calendar here. Do not forget to connect your Google account first!

Minimum and maximum date

This will be the date range within which the GC-SEARCH block will look for avilable slots, for example, from 2022/03/10 to 2022/03/12.

Minimum and maximum time

Same as with the date, this will be the time range within which the GC-SEARCH block will look for available slots, for example, from 10:30 to 12:30.

Please note that both the minimum and the maximum time and date values have to be recorded separately, as individual attributes.

Time zone

Here you can select your calendar's time zone, for example, "2" for GMT+2 or "-3" for GMT-3.

Setup

Start by gathering search values using Text and Listen blocks. Store each new value under a separate attribute, for example, $start_date and $end_date, $start_time and $end_time.

TEXT and LISTEN blocks collecting time and date

Use the gathered data to set up the GC-SEARCH block.

GC-SEARCH block with custom attributes

Following the GC-SEARCH block, you will want to check the result of the search by checking the $_gc_free system attribute through the Switch block. If the search was successful, meaning there are no events in your calendar for the selected time and date, the value of the $_gc_free attribute will be "true".

GC-SEARCH search result check

If the slot is free, you can move on to the GC-CREATE block to create and schedule a new event; if, on the other hand, the slot is already full, you can suggest changing the time and/or date and check another slot or use the GC-UPDATE block to edit the existing event.