Sync Project Task Assignments with External Calendars

Depending on the configuration you can create project task assignments from the available pages in PSA. To sync PTAs with the external calendar, must complete the following steps.

Creating PTA Calendar Events

  1. Ensure that the authentication flow is completed and the required External Calendar Events Settings custom settings are enabled. For more information, contact your administrator.
  2. Ensure that the PTA has a resource assigned.
  3. By default, the calendar events are created for the email address specified in the Email field of the Contact object. If the Contact object Email field is empty, then the email is fetched from the user’s email on the Salesforce User lookup field.
  4. You can override the default email behavior by specifying the API name of the field from the Contact object containing the resource’s email address in the Resource Calendar Id Field of External Calendar Events Settings. For more information, contact your administrator.
Note: When the resource’s Email field, user’s email on the Salesforce User lookup, or the field specified in the Resource Calendar Id Field of External Calendar Events Settings are empty or blank, in that case, no calendar events can be created as an email is required to create calendar events.
  1. Create a PTA and save. The PTA event is created in the calendar for the specified start and end dates.
  2. Navigate to the calendar and check the event details.
    1. The default fields are Project Name, PTA, Start Date, End Date, and Estimated Hours. The start date and end date include time in the GMT time zone.
    2. You can customize the description that you want to show using the PTA Event Description Fieldset in External Calendar Events Settings. For more information, contact your administrator.
    3. To customize the calendar event title you can use the PTA Calendar Event Title field in the External Calendar Events Settings. If the field specified in PTA Calendar Event Title is empty, then Null is displayed as the calendar event title. The default event title is PTA Name.
Notes:
  • You must have the resource’s calendar access with the Make changes to Events permission to create, edit, and delete events for that resource in Google Calendar.
  • Similarly, for Microsoft Outlook you must have the resource’s calendar access with the Can Edit permission to create, edit, and delete calendar events for that resource.
  • When the field specified in the Resource Calendar Id Field in External Calendar Events Settings does not exist on the Contact object, no calendar events can be created.
  • When the start date and end date are not specified for a project task, no calendar events can be created.

App Logs are created to cover scenarios when an error occurs while synchronizing PTAs with an external calendar.

  1. From the App Launcher, search App Logs.
  2. Select App Logs.
  3. Check the App Logs with Origin PsaCalendarSync. These app logs contain the errors and messages.
Tip:
If the API usage limit per minute per user is exceeded because of too many requests for event creation, it is recommended to wait and try again with a lower number of requests.
If the problem continues, contact your administrator or IT team to increase your per-user quota limits with either Google or Microsoft Outlook, depending on which calendar you are using for event creation.

Updating Calendar Events

To sync the calendar events with the PTAs whenever a change is made to the project tasks or PTAs, you must start the update flow by selecting the Action: Sync with External Calendar checkbox in the Details section of the PTA.

The update flow starts automatically, when:

  • The start date and end date on the project task are updated.
  • The resource and estimated hours on the PTAs are updated. When the resource on a PTA is updated, the events are created in the newly updated resources calendar and the events from the previous resources calendar will be deleted.

Excluding Events Creation from External Calendars

You can exclude the creation of PTA events in the external calendars using the Exclude from External Calendar Sync checkbox. Once you select this checkbox for a PTA, no events will be created for that particular PTA in the future.

If the excluded PTA was previously synced with an external calendar, all the existing events are deleted for that PTA.

Note:
If a project task has the Exclude from External Calendar Sync checkbox selected, all the previously created events for the PTAs related to that project task are deleted and no events will be created in the future for those PTAs.