Determining private changes to an event in the Google Calendar API

Question

Within Google calendar, attendees without "modify event" permission can make private changes to their copy of the event. These changes are only reflected in their calendar.

In the below example, a creator has invited me to an event and I've changed the start time to 45 minutes later:

This is reflected in the Google Calendar API response.

Creator's event response:

{
  "kind": "calendar#event",
  "etag": "\"123\"",
  "id": "abc",
  "status": "confirmed",
  "htmlLink": "https://www.google.com/calendar/event?eid=abc",
  "created": "2020-06-14T11:49:54.000Z",
  "updated": "2020-06-14T12:43:41.896Z",
  "summary": "Non Creator changes start_time and saves",
  "creator": {
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "self": true
  },
  "organizer": {
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "self": true
  },
  "start": {
    "dateTime": "2020-06-14T11:00:00+01:00"
  },
  "end": {
    "dateTime": "2020-06-14T12:00:00+01:00"
  },
  "iCalUID": "[email protected]",
  "sequence": 0,
  "attendees": [
    {
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "organizer": true,
      "self": true,
      "responseStatus": "accepted"
    },
    {
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "responseStatus": "accepted"
    }
  ],
  "hangoutLink": "https://meet.google.com/abc",
  "conferenceData": {
      ...
  },
  "reminders": {
    "useDefault": true
  }
}

Attendee's event response:

{
  "kind": "calendar#event",
  "etag": "\"123\"",
  "id": "abc",
  "status": "confirmed",
  "htmlLink": "https://www.google.com/calendar/event?eid=abc",
  "created": "2020-06-14T11:49:54.000Z",
  "updated": "2020-06-15T12:19:25.966Z",
  "summary": "Non Creator changes start_time and saves",
  "creator": {
    "email": "[email protected]"
  },
  "organizer": {
    "email": "[email protected]"
  },
  "start": {
    "dateTime": "2020-06-14T11:45:00+01:00"
  },
  "end": {
    "dateTime": "2020-06-14T12:30:00+01:00"
  },
  "iCalUID": "[email protected]",
  "sequence": 0,
  "attendees": [
    {
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "organizer": true,
      "responseStatus": "accepted"
    },
    {
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "self": true,
      "responseStatus": "accepted"
    }
  ],
  "hangoutLink": "https://meet.google.com/abc",
  "conferenceData": {
    ...
  },
  "reminders": {
    "useDefault": true
  }
}

The issue this now presents is determining the canonical version of the event from the attendee's request. In the above response there's no flag to state it contains private changes.

Is there such a method to determine private changes to an event in the Google Calendar API?

Answer 1

Unfortunately so far there isn't

But there is a feature request for it on Google's Public Issue Tracker.

Users affected by the issue should "star" it to increase visibility. It is important to show to Google that this is a feature that users need.