Troubleshooting Your Automation: Solving Common Date Formatting and Permission Errors | From Spreadsheet to Schedule: Creating Google Calendar Events from Google Sheets Rows | First Steps with Google Workspace Studio: AI Workflow Development Course Connecting Gmail, Calendar and Spreadsheets

Building upon the foundational knowledge and resources from the previous discussion, you're likely eager to see your automation come to life. You've written the script, meticulously prepared your Google Sheet, and you hit "Run." But instead of a beautifully populated calendar, you're met with a cryptic error message, or worse, complete silence. The events simply don't appear.

This moment of frustration is a rite of passage for every workflow developer. The good news is that nearly all initial failures in a Sheets-to-Calendar script boil down to two predictable culprits: misunderstood date formats and incorrect permissions. In this section, we'll dissect these common stumbling blocks so you can diagnose and fix them in minutes, not hours.

First, let's tackle the most frequent offender: date and time formatting. Humans are flexible with dates. We understand "Next Tuesday at 2pm" or "10/11/12." A computer, specifically the Google Calendar API, is not. It requires a precise, unambiguous data type: a JavaScript Date object. When your Google Sheet contains a column of dates that look right to you, Apps Script might be reading them as plain text strings, not as the structured Date objects Google Calendar needs.

Imagine your script pulls the value "12/25/2024 09:00 AM" from a cell. If you pass this string directly to the createEvent() function, it will likely fail. You must first convert this string into a proper Date object. The most direct way to do this in Google Apps Script is by using the new Date() constructor.

function fixDateAndCreateEvent() {
  const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName('Events');
  // Assume cell B2 contains "12/25/2024 09:00 AM"
  const eventDateString = sheet.getRange('B2').getValue(); 

  // This is the crucial step: convert the string to a Date object.
  const startDate = new Date(eventDateString);

  // Check if the date is valid. If the string was unreadable, this will be 'Invalid Date'.
  if (isNaN(startDate.getTime())) {
    Logger.log('Error: Could not parse the date from cell B2.');
    return; // Stop the script
  }

  // Now you can safely use the 'startDate' object.
  // Note: For simplicity, the end time is set one hour after the start.
  const endDate = new Date(startDate.getTime() + 60 * 60 * 1000);
  const eventTitle = sheet.getRange('A2').getValue();

  CalendarApp.getDefaultCalendar().createEvent(eventTitle, startDate, endDate);
  Logger.log('Event created successfully!');
}

To solve date formatting problems, follow this mental checklist:

Check Your Sheet's Formatting: Ensure your date and time columns are consistently formatted (e.g., MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS). Inconsistent formats can cause the new Date() conversion to fail on certain rows.
Verify the Date Object: Always wrap your raw cell value in new Date(). Use Logger.log() to print the variable and see what Apps Script is actually working with before you send it to the Calendar API.
Mind the Time Zone: Be aware that Google Sheets, your Apps Script project, and your Google Calendar can all have different time zone settings. While we cover this advanced topic in detail later, a common quick fix is to ensure all three are set to your primary time zone.

The second major hurdle is permissions. If your script runs but the Execution Log shows an error like "Exception: You do not have permission to call CalendarApp.createEvent," you're hitting an authorization wall. Google Workspace is built on a robust security model. Your script cannot access your calendar (or email, or files) unless you explicitly grant it permission to do so.

These permissions are called "scopes." When you first run a script, Google prompts you with an authorization screen listing everything the script wants to access. If you later add new functionality—for instance, adding CalendarApp to a script that previously only used SpreadsheetApp—you must re-authorize it to grant the new permissions. The script won't automatically ask again; it will simply fail.

Here's your troubleshooting checklist for permission errors:

Run Manually from the Editor: The easiest way to trigger the authorization prompt is to select your main function from the dropdown in the Apps Script editor and click "Run." This will initiate the authorization flow if any new scopes are needed.
Review Requested Scopes: When the permission box appears, review it carefully. It should explicitly mention viewing and managing your calendars. If it doesn't, there might be an issue in your script or project settings.
Check the Manifest File: For more advanced control, you can view the appsscript.json manifest file in your project. This file explicitly lists the OAuth scopes your project requires. Ensuring the correct calendar scope is listed here can solve obscure permission issues.

By systematically checking for these two common issues—first confirming your data is in a machine-readable format, and second, ensuring your script has the digital permission slip it needs—you can overcome the vast majority of initial automation roadblocks. Getting comfortable with this troubleshooting process is a key step toward building more complex and reliable workflows.

Now that you know how to fix things when they break, we can shift our focus to a more proactive approach. In the next section, we'll explore how to build resilience directly into your code using try...catch blocks and how to create a custom logging system that writes errors right back into your spreadsheet for easy review.

References

Google for Developers. (2023). Troubleshooting - Apps Script. Retrieved from developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/support/troubleshooting.
Mozilla Developer Network (MDN). (2024). Date - JavaScript | MDN. Retrieved from developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date.
Flanagan, D. (2020). JavaScript: The Definitive Guide (7th ed.). O'Reilly Media.
Google for Developers. (2023). Authorization Scopes. Retrieved from developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/services/authorization.
Meyer, E. (2018). Effective TypeScript: 62 Specific Ways to Improve Your TypeScript. O'Reilly Media. [Note: While for TypeScript, its principles on data types are highly relevant to handling dates in Apps Script.]

function fixDateAndCreateEvent() { const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName('Events'); // Assume cell B2 contains "12/25/2024 09:00 AM" const eventDateString = sheet.getRange('B2').getValue(); // This is the crucial step: convert the string to a Date object. const startDate = new Date(eventDateString); // Check if the date is valid. If the string was unreadable, this will be 'Invalid Date'. if (isNaN(startDate.getTime())) { Logger.log('Error: Could not parse the date from cell B2.'); return; // Stop the script } // Now you can safely use the 'startDate' object. // Note: For simplicity, the end time is set one hour after the start. const endDate = new Date(startDate.getTime() + 60 * 60 * 1000); const eventTitle = sheet.getRange('A2').getValue(); CalendarApp.getDefaultCalendar().createEvent(eventTitle, startDate, endDate); Logger.log('Event created successfully!'); }