Preparing a Leave Tracking System in less than 30 minutes with Google Apps

Once we have the new leave information added on the spreadsheet, a call is made to the calendar API to add the leave there.

Let us look at some code now for the app script. As you would observe that we have set up the trigger for executing the onEdit() function whenever there is a form submit.

Next, the onEdit() function is executed.

var ADDED = "Added";
var BASE_SPREADSHEET = SpreadsheetApp.openById("tKjgRu1IdJ8uRMUBFF0W9wY");
var LEAVE_SHEET = SpreadsheetApp.openById("tKjgRu1IdJ8uRMUBFF0W9wY").getSheetByName("records");
var START_ROW = 2; //This is the row where the data starts (2 since there is a header row)

function onEdit(){
  var dataRange = LEAVE_SHEET.getRange(2, 1, LEAVE_SHEET.getMaxRows() + 1, 10);

  // Create one JavaScript object per row of data.
  objects = getRowsData(LEAVE_SHEET, dataRange, 1);

  // For every leave record, check if it needs to go the calendar
  for (var i = 0; i < objects.length; i++) {
     var row = objects[i];

    //  Browser.msgBox("value of row.added = " + row.added );
    if (row.added != ADDED) {
      LEAVE_SHEET.getRange(START_ROW + i, 9).setValue(ADDED);
      addLeaveToTheCalendar(row.date)
    }
  }
}

function addLeaveToTheCalendar(date){
   // write add to calendar API
   var cal = CalendarApp.getCalendarById("inphina.com_67n7c5adhbnauaf06jcae7kjgg@group.calendar.google.com");
   cal.createAllDayEvent("Leave Record", new Date(date), {location:'Nap room'});
}

The logic is simple, on the addition of a new leave, we scan the records to see the rows which have not been added to the calendar. Then using the Calendar API, these rows are added to the calendar as events and the row is marked as added in the spreadsheet.

Fortunately for us, our accountant has access to our calendar and can easily track the leaves during the month for our payroll generation.

Thus using the power of Google Apps we quickly built the leave tracking system which works for us. Of course, you could enhance the functionality more if you like and build in an approval process too, but for now this works for us.

If you would like to get a copy of our leave record spreadsheet send us a mail at googleapps@inphina.com