Explain the problem as you see it
I have to manually create every meeting that I have scheduled - it would be awesome if Tana was able to pull and automatically populate from google calendar (or, Exchange, which I use for work, but there are workarounds to do via Google).
Why is this a problem for you?
Time it takes to manually set up meetings to take notes.
Suggest a solution
Pull meetings automatically from Google calendar.
14 Comments
These 2 ideas are powerful universal ways of achieving the same + 1000s more integrations. Recommend to vote for them:
https://ideas.tana.inc/posts/30-sync-with-external-tools-ifttt-for-apple-calendar-reminders-zapier-for-notion-fibery
https://ideas.tana.inc/posts/21-expand-possibilities-of-adding-content-via-api
I must say that I find this integration to be more powerful the other way arround.
Tana should be where information is created, as its data model allows you to link every node (in this case, tasks and events) in a very powerful way.
When you create an event, you will want to connect it to other nodes in Tana (like a project the event is part of), otherwise, why would you need the integration in the first place (you could just have event in google calendar and other things in Tana).
I think it makes much more sense to create events from Tana and have them sync to Google calendar than the other way around. Since we can agree that if you want to sync an event to Tana, you also want to connect it to other nodes in Tana, the proccess of creating an event will be as followed:
When we reverse the integration, the proccess is as followed:
And thats it. The event will be synced to google calendar and you will be able to see it from the google calendar app.
This way, you can capture all the relevant information without even leaving the Tana app, and take advantage of the superior UI of google calendar to view the events in a comfortable way.
.+ 1 for iCloud calendar
Are there any workarounds at the moment?
Just as a raw idea to start you can take a look at Dynalist that has a google calendar integration (one way only)
There are multiple community created tools that will get your Google calendar, Apple Calendar and even Microsoft Outlook (if you’re on a Mac) into Tana.
I would suggest to broaden the idea here.
What I would look for is an abstraction that would allow us to bring in objects from outside Tana in a “managed” supertag. One example is a Readwise integration, which could fully sync (two-way) with the Readwise API. I just don't see why it should be limited to Readwise. The same abstraction is useful for todo lists like Todoist, for calendar entries say on Google Calendar, for encrypted notes stored elsewhere. The possibilities are truly endless.
For me, what resonated with Tana is the treatment of queries as “first class citizens”. I'm hopeful data integrations to Readwise, Todoist, Google Calendar, etc., could be too!
The Twos app has a very nice method of applying the calendar integration on your daily page that would also be perfect in Tana. Read more (point 2).
Akiflow is also a fantastic reference for a proper 2-way calendar integration.
For Mac users, the easiest work around is using EventLink
It would be great if the calendar (Google / Outlook /Apple) could be synced to a node in Tana.
In the other direction, I'd like tana to be able to publish a node as an internet calendar subsription or export as an ical file.
Please share links to where to find these workarounds.
see https://tanacommunity.slack.com/archives/C03MU8E2PC2/p1707148672739539?thread_ts=1705008754.573189&cid=C03MU8E2PC2 for a good solution by Jake Singer.
I am interested in having a two-way connection between Tana and Google Calendar. First priority would be to be able to send FROM Tana to Google Calendar, via tasks and meetings (supertags) that have dates and/or times.
This should be done by Tana - I'm not interested in having to trust another person or organization with a connection between important services, or to trust that the developer of the add-on keeps up with whatever stuff Tana and Google would do.
It seems to me that the ability of "an intelligent all-in-one workspace built for fast-moving startups and professionals, to get more done faster." to connect to its users calendar services would be pretty much table stakes for the app developers.