Shortcuts - Get Event - not working when specific date given

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Shortcuts - Get Event - not working when specific date given

If I use the Get Event from the Calendar app and select "Today" from a specific calendar that has no events today, it correctly returns no events.

However instead of using "Today" I actually pass a given date (which I want to pass from user input, but for testing I set specifically to "today's" date) the next event on the given calendar regardless of which day is returned, which is not what I expect. If the specific date passed is "today" why does it act different then "Today" being selected.

The same result happens if I try "Tomorrow" and set the specific date to tomorrow.

It seems that there is a bug that if you use a "specific" date it always returns an event even if it is not on the specified date.

What am I missing?

Posted on Dec 17, 2023 5:45 PM

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Answer 1

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HeyAndy Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 23, 2023 6:57 PM in response to Recycleur

Thanks for the suggestion. The one "quirk" that I have with that approach is that if I just give an "is exactly" for a given date for an "all day" event, it isn't found that way.

What I did get to work, which is a bit more "long" winded is I format two dates, a "StartDateTime" that has the time hard corded to "00:00:00" and a "EndDateTime" that has the time hard coded to "23:59:59" and then use "is between", that seems to work.

I haven't tried lots of examples, but so far it seems to work.

So for now this works as I really do want to use this "sub script" in a couple other Shortcuts...

Would still be easier if the "Get Event" worked consistently between a specific date/time and "today"... But for now, I have a working solution.

Again, thanks!

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Answer 2

Recycleur

Level 4

1,651 points

Dec 23, 2023 8:31 PM in response to HeyAndy

I think the issue is that "today" creates a date that starts at midnight, whereas a specific date is by default set at noon if you don't set the time. Since an all-day event starts at midnight it's easily bypassed by a specific date.

Here's a cleaner variation of what you did. I learned with practice that it's not necessary to create specific variables as magic variables are usually sufficient.

In testing, I also found out that many Calendar actions are buggy (in Sonoma 14.1.2 at least). For example, Get Upcoming Events may ignore events that are not set to all-day. Some all-day events are also ignored sometimes. So it's not reliable at all.

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Answer 3

Recycleur

Level 4

1,651 points

Dec 18, 2023 1:13 PM in response to HeyAndy

Yes, that's strange. A workaround is to use Find Calendar Events instead of Get Upcoming Events

like this

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