The Saturday garden workday moved to Sunday because of rain. Someone on your team changed it in Google Calendar from their phone, and it took them ten seconds.
Your website still says Saturday.
Nothing is broken. Your events page just keeps its own copy of the schedule, and a copy only changes when somebody remembers to change it. So every moved date or new session is two jobs, one in Google Calendar, where your team actually plans, and one on the website, which is what visitors see.
Meet Google Calendar sync
Sugar Calendar Events now connects to your Google account. You pick one of your Google calendars, choose which way changes should flow, and from then on the two stay in sync. Add an event on your website and it shows up in Google Calendar. Add or change one in Google Calendar and your events page follows.
The same connection brings Google Meet to the event editor too, so an online event can get its meeting link in one click.
Change it in Google, and your events page follows
With Sync both ways (the default) or Sync from Google Calendar to Sugar Calendar, events you create in the Google calendar come over as published events on your site, in the calendar you’ve set as your default. Edit one in Google, and the change comes over too.
We handle deletes carefully. If an event is deleted in Google Calendar, Sugar Calendar Events moves it to the Trash on your site rather than removing it for good, so a slip of the thumb is easy to undo.
One tip before you connect: pick a Google calendar that you use for public events. Everything added to that calendar ends up on your website, so a personal calendar with dentist appointments is the wrong one to sync.
Add it on your site, and it’s on Google Calendar too
It works the other way as well. When you publish an event in Sugar Calendar Events, or update one later, it appears in your Google calendar with its title, date, time and description. The description keeps its formatting, so lists, bold text and links still look right in Google.
Drafts stay off Google until you publish them. Moving an event to the Trash leaves the Google copy alone, in case you change your mind, and deleting it permanently removes it from Google Calendar as well.
What syncs is the part of an event both calendars understand: the title, description, date and time, the time zone, all-day events, repeat patterns and the Google Meet link. Venues, tickets, RSVPs, speakers and images stay on your website, where they’re used.
Weekly classes stay a series
Repeating events come across as repeating events. Set up a class every Monday in Google Calendar, and it arrives on your site as one weekly event with all its dates. Create a weekly series in Sugar Calendar Events, and Google shows it as a single event that repeats, the same way it would if you’d made it there.
That works with any paid license, which includes recurring events. On the free Lite version, a repeating Google event is saved as a single event on its first date, and the Google Calendar settings tell you so.
Give online events a Google Meet link
Once your Google account is connected, Google Meet sits next to Zoom in the event editor. Choose it under Online on the Location tab, click Create Google Meet Meeting, and the event has a join link.
You choose who sees the link with Show to. Only Attendees keeps it for people with a ticket or RSVP and is where new meetings start. Everyone puts it right on the event page for any visitor.
If you also sync with Google Calendar, the meeting travels with the event. The Google copy gets a Join with Google Meet button, and an event you create in Google with a Meet attached arrives on your site with that meeting already set as its online location. Because the meeting is created by Sugar Calendar Events, Google notes on the event that its code was added from outside, which means Meet’s own notes and recordings won’t attach to that calendar entry.
You don’t have to sync calendars to use Meet, either. Choose Don’t Sync Events in the settings, and Google Meet stays available in the editor on its own.
What this looks like for a community garden
Picture a community garden run by volunteers. The coordinators share a Google calendar for workdays, plot tours and the monthly members’ call, and the garden’s website has an events page that members check before they come.
Before, someone had to copy each date onto the website, then remember to change it again whenever plans moved. Now the coordinators keep planning in Google Calendar like they always have. When rain pushes a workday to Sunday, they move it in Google and the website follows. The monthly members’ call gets a Google Meet link with Show to set to Everyone, so members find it right on the events page.
Who this is for
- Clubs, churches and nonprofits whose volunteers already plan in a shared Google calendar, from Sunday services to monthly book club meetings, and who’d rather not retype every date for the website.
- Studios and teachers running weekly classes, like yoga or pottery, who move sessions around in Google Calendar and teach some of them online.
- Workshop and meetup organizers who host online sessions and want the Google Meet link on the event page instead of in a separate email thread.
- Agencies building event sites for clients, where the client’s staff work in Google Calendar and the website needs to keep up without a support ticket.
Switching from The Events Calendar’s Event Aggregator?
If your site runs The Events Calendar, you may be pulling a Google calendar in with Event Aggregator. According to its product page, Event Aggregator “does not send data to other services; it only pulls it in,” and it needs an annual license with a daily import limit.
Sugar Calendar’s Google Calendar sync can work in both directions, so an event you fix on the website gets fixed in Google too. It comes with every plan, including the free Lite version, and uses the integration credits your plan includes (more on that below).
Moving over doesn’t mean retyping your events, either. Sugar Calendar’s one-click migration from The Events Calendar brings your existing events across first. Then connect Google: new events and changes sync from there, and each migrated event goes to Google the next time you edit it.
Set it up in a few minutes
1. Update and open the Google settings. Update Sugar Calendar Events to the latest version and check that your site’s time zone is set under Events » Settings » General, so event times land in Google correctly. Then go to Events » Settings » Integrations and select Google Calendar / Meets.
2. Connect your Google account. Click Connect with Google, choose your account, and approve all the permissions on Google’s screen. The calendar permissions handle the sync, and the Meet permissions let Sugar Calendar Events create meetings.
3. Pick a calendar and a direction, then save. Choose your Google calendar under Sync Events On and how changes should flow under Sync Settings, then click Save Settings. Syncing starts once you save.
4. Add Google Meet to an online event (optional). In any event, open the Location tab, choose Google Meet under Online, and click Create Google Meet Meeting, as in the Location tab screenshot above.
Connecting doesn’t copy over events that were already in either calendar. New events and changes sync from the moment you save, and an event already on your site goes to Google the next time you edit it. If you’d like your existing events in both places, every paid plan can publish a calendar feed that Google Calendar subscribes to (it shows up there as its own calendar), and bring existing Google events onto your site with an ICS import.
For every option, see our guide to using the Google Calendar integration.
What you need to use it
Google Calendar sync and Google Meet are on every plan, including the free Lite version, from Sugar Calendar Events 3.16. You need a Google account and a live WordPress site with HTTPS, because the connection runs through our integration service.
Syncing events and creating Meet links use integration credits, the same allowance Zoom uses. Every plan includes some. The free Lite version comes with a one-time allowance to get you started, and paid plans get a monthly allowance that resets on the 1st, with bigger plans including more. You can keep an eye on your usage under Events » Settings » License & Usage.
A paid license also keeps repeating Google events as full series, and adds calendar feeds and the ICS import for getting existing events into both places. The Events pricing page has the plans, and every one comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Why this matters
If your team plans in Google Calendar, that’s where the real work of running your events happens. The website is where people find out about it.
When those two places agree on their own, keeping the events page current stops being a separate job. You plan in the calendar that suits the moment, on your laptop or on your phone, and the version your visitors see keeps up.
Try it this week
My suggestion: connect the Google calendar you use for events management, then add a new event in Google Calendar and look for it on your events page. It’s the quickest way to see it working on your own schedule.
Google Calendar sync is one of the features you’ve asked us for most, so thank you to everyone who wrote in and told us how you plan your events. If there’s something you’d like it to do next, let us know.
Gregor Capuder
Product Manager
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Google Calendar sync and Google Meet are on every plan, including Lite. On Lite, a repeating Google event comes over as a single event on its first date; any paid license keeps the whole series.
The title, description, date, time, time zone, all-day setting, repeat pattern and the Google Meet link. Venues, calendars, tickets, RSVPs, speakers and images stay on your website.
They stay where they are. Connecting syncs new events and changes from then on, and an event already on your site goes to Google the next time you edit it. To get existing events into both places, every paid plan can use calendar feeds and the ICS import.
Deleting an event in Google Calendar moves it to the Trash on your site, so you can restore it. On your site, moving an event to the Trash leaves the Google copy in place, and deleting it permanently removes it from Google Calendar too.
Yes. Under Sync Settings, choose Sync from Sugar Calendar to Google Calendar to send your website’s events to Google, or Sync from Google Calendar to Sugar Calendar to bring Google events to your site.
Yes. Choose Don’t Sync Events under Sync Events On and save. Google Meet stays available in the event editor.
Check the event’s Show to setting on the Location tab. Only Attendees shows the link only to people with a ticket or RSVP. Choose Everyone to show it on the event page, for anyone to see.
Yes. Syncing and creating Meet links use integration credits, the same allowance as Zoom. Every plan includes some, and paid plans get a monthly allowance. See integration credits and limits for how they work.
The settings connect one Google calendar to your site.
