Issue with Date Return in Make.com using Voiceflow

[Jamie_Greene]

What is your goal?

Return Google Calendar (GC) events for a single day or date range based on the user’s request in Voiceflow.

What is the problem & what have you tried?

When I test in Voiceflow for a single date it outputs events from the first date on the calendar (when the calendar was first created). I have a filter for single date and one for date range. The GC module output shows all events ever created. In addition, the wrong date is being outputted in the Make webhook. I set up a text aggregator to see what date is being returned and it’s incorrect i.e. the request in Voiceflow is for today and what is outputted is a random day in the past. I am not a developer so I have been relying on Voiceflow’s chatbot support and Make.

Screenshots (scenario flow, module settings, errors)

[samliew]

Welcome to the Make community!

Those variables look like a text string (type).

To convert them into date types, you can use the built-in function:

• parseDate
  parseDate(text; format; [timezone])

This function may have also been covered in the Make Academy tutorials — refer to the Make Academy Course Overview to learn more.

Here’s an example of how you can use this function:

{{ parseDate(1.userStartDate; "YYYY-MM-DD") }}
_{(Special Make Markup: Copy-paste the above into the field, including start/end curly brackets for it to import as intended)}

Hope this helps! If you are still having trouble, please provide more details.

— @samliew
_{P.S.: investing some effort into the tutorials in the Make Academy will save you lots of time and frustration using Make!}

[Jamie_Greene]

Hi @samliew
Thanks for replying. I tried that function and still got back an erroneous date. I then tried the function shown in the screenshot for single date and date range. I’m still getting the wrong date(s). It keeps returning the a date in 2024. I have a filter set up for each path but I don’t think that is impacting the date returned. The LLM instructions in Voiceflow specifically state to only return the exact date(s) requested. Voiceflow references today in the output but is using the date provided in Make/Google to base it’s answer off of i.e. I have a meeting on my calendar for today, Voiceflow outputs that I don’t have any calendar events for today because Make/Google is returning the incorrect date. What do you suggest?

[samliew]

You do not need formatDate. Your parseDate format must match the format I shown you above.

For more information, see Date Format links below.

Here are some useful links and guides you can use to learn more on how to use the Make platform, apps, and app modules. I found these useful when I was learning Make, and hope they might benefit you too —

Learn Make

• Help Centre | Tutorials – Make’s “manual” - search for help here first
• Make Academy – Basics 101: Learn Make properly to get your money’s worth
• Mapping – What is mapping? What can I map?
• Mapping with arrays – How to map items in an array
• Date Format: tokens for parseDate | tokens for formatDate
• HTTP modules – Make a request, Get (download) a file
• Webhooks – Error Handling, Responding to webhooks

How-Tos

• Router Magic Formula - YouTube
• Error Handlers in Make - YouTube playlist
• Aggregate an array for mapping complex fields
• Getting started with OpenAI - How to setup and use OpenAI in Make
• Text Parser module - Use pattern matching to extract the text you want
• Webhooks – Make Academy - tutorial on how to use Webhooks

Hope this helps! If you are still having trouble, please provide more details.

— @samliew