Integrating Google Calendar API in WordPress Plugin

Posted on 21st June 2023

Google Calendar API is a set of programming instructions that allow software developers to access Google Calendar data. It enables developers to build plugins and other applications that interact with Google Calendar. In this article, we will show you how to integrate Google Calendar API in a WordPress plugin.

First, you will need to create a Google Developer account and register your plugin with Google. Once you have registered your plugin, you will need to generate an API key. This key will be used to authenticate your plugin with Google.

Next, you will need to install the Google Calendar API plugin. This plugin will add a new menu item to your WordPress dashboard called “Google Calendar API”.

Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will need to visit the settings page and enter your API key. After you have entered your API key, you will need to select the type of data that you want to sync. For example, you can choose to sync events, contacts, or both.

Finally, you will need to choose a WordPress user who will have access to the Google Calendar data. This user will be able to add, edit, and delete events from your Google Calendar.

Once you have configured the plugin, you will be able to access your Google Calendar data from your WordPress dashboard. You can also add the Google Calendar widget to your WordPress site so that your visitors can see your upcoming events.

As we have seen in the previous article, the Google Calendar API can be easily integrated into a WordPress plugin. In this article, we will see how to use the Google Calendar API to add events to a WordPress site.

To add events to a WordPress site, we will first need to create a new Google Calendar. To do this, go to the Google Calendar website and click on the “Create new calendar” button.

Enter a name for your calendar and choose a time zone. Then click on the “Create Calendar” button.

Once your calendar has been created, you will need to obtain a Google Calendar API key. To do this, go to the Google Developers Console and create a new project.

Click on the “Enable and manage APIs” link and then select the “Calendar API” from the list of APIs.

Click on the “Enable API” button to enable the Calendar API for your project.

Once the API has been enabled, click on the “Credentials” link in the left-hand menu.

Click on the “Create credentials” button and select “OAuth client ID” from the list of options.

Select “Web application” as the application type and enter a name for your application.

In the “Authorized redirect URIs” field, enter the URL of your WordPress site.

Click on the “Create” button to create your OAuth client ID.

Once your OAuth client ID has been created, you will be presented with a client ID and a client secret. Copy these values and paste them into your WordPress plugin.

Next, we will need to write some code to authenticate with the Google Calendar API. We will do this by creating a new file in our WordPress plugin and adding the following code:

setApplicationName(‘My WordPress Plugin’);

$client->setClientId(‘YOUR_CLIENT_ID’);

$client->setClientSecret(‘YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET’);

$client->setRedirectUri(‘YOUR_REDIRECT_URI’);

$client->addScope(‘https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar’);

$authUrl = $client->createAuthUrl();

header(‘Location: ‘ . $authUrl);

exit;

?>

In the code above, we are including the Google API PHP Client Library and the OAuth2 class. We are then creating a new Google_Client object and setting the application name, client ID, client secret and redirect URI. We are also adding the Calendar API scope so that we can access the Calendar API.

Finally, we are redirecting the user to the Google Calendar authentication URL so that they can grant our plugin access to their calendar.

Once the user has granted our plugin access to their calendar, they will be redirected back to our WordPress site. We can then complete the authentication process by adding the following code to our plugin:

setApplicationName(‘My WordPress Plugin’);

$client->setClientId(‘YOUR_CLIENT_ID’);

$client->setClientSecret(‘YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET’);

$client->setRedirectUri(‘YOUR_REDIRECT_URI’);

$client->addScope(‘https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar’);

$client->authenticate($_GET[‘code’]);

$accessToken = $client->getAccessToken();

?>

In the code above, we are including the Google API PHP Client Library and the OAuth2 class. We are then creating a new Google_Client object and setting the application name, client ID, client secret and redirect URI. We are also adding the Calendar API scope so that we can access the Calendar API.

Next, we are calling the authenticate() method of the Google_Client object and passing in the code parameter from the URL. This will exchange the code for an access token.

Finally, we are calling the getAccessToken() method to get the access token. We will need to use this access token when making requests to the Calendar API.

Now that we have authenticated with the Calendar API, we can start adding events to our WordPress site. To do this, we will add the following code to our plugin:

setApplicationName(‘My WordPress Plugin’);

$client->setClientId(‘YOUR_CLIENT_ID’);

$client->setClientSecret(‘YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET’);

$client->setRedirectUri(‘YOUR_REDIRECT_URI’);

$client->addScope(‘https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar’);

$client->setAccessToken($accessToken);

$calendarId = ‘YOUR_CALENDAR_ID’;

$event = new Google_Service_Calendar_Event();

$event->setSummary(‘My Event’);

$event->setLocation(‘My Location’);

$event->setDescription(‘My Description’);

$start = new Google_Service_Calendar_EventDateTime();

$start->setDateTime(‘2016-01-01T09:00:00.000-05:00’);

$start->setTimeZone(‘America/New_York’);

$event->setStart($start);

$end = new Google_Service_Calendar_EventDateTime();

$end->setDateTime(‘2016-01-01T17:00:00.000-05:00’);

$end->setTimeZone(‘America/New_York’);

$event->setEnd($end);

$attendee1 = new Google_Service_Calendar_EventAttendee();

$attendee1->setEmail(‘attendee1@example.com’);

$attendees = array($attendee1);

$event->setAttendees($attendees);

$createdEvent = $service->events->insert($calendarId, $event);

?>

In the code above, we are including the Google API PHP Client Library and the OAuth2 class. We are then creating a new Google_Client object and setting the application name, client ID, client secret and redirect URI. We are also adding the Calendar API scope so that we can access the Calendar API.

Next, we are setting the access token and calendar ID. We are then creating a new Google_Service_Calendar_Event object and setting the summary, location, description, start and end date/time.

We are also adding an attendee and setting the email address.

Finally, we are calling the insert() method of the Google_Service_Calendar_Events object to insert the event into the calendar.

And that’s it! You should now have a working WordPress plugin that can add events to a Google Calendar.