Using Discord Bots : DisCal
Discord bots are automated users that spice up the discord usage experience. There are a lot of bots available out there. Today we’ll talk about DisCal.
DisCal is a powerful Discord bot allowing you to connect Google Calendar to Discord in a seamless fashion. With superior support and features such as custom calendars, events, automated announcements, RSVPs and more, DisCal is the ultimate calendar bot. (https://www.discalbot.com/)
How to use DisCal discord bot 101:
Adding the bot to your server:
- Invite the bot to your server from the bot webpage(https://www.discalbot.com/setup).
- Give it all the necessary permission that it asks.
- In no time the bot will be added to your server.
Using the bot:
There are certain commands that have to be used to communicate to this bot. The complete list of commands can be found on the official website(https://www.discalbot.com/commands).
The first step in running this bot is adding a calendar, follow these steps. It is only required the first time to add this to your server.
!cal create name_of_calendar
!cal description description_of_calendar
!cal timezone your_timezone
!cal confirm- Give any name and write the description of the calendar like what will be put on it etc.
- Enter your time zone. If you don’t know the exact string for your time zone that this bot is expecting. Simply add anything. It will take you to a website. From there you can copy paste the exact time zone string for your time zone. Finally confirm.
- Next step is adding the events. Events are Google Calendar events. When you create an event the members of the channel will be able to copy the events on their google calendar. Whats the Use case? Lets says you have a channel with 1000 users and you’re planning a stream the next weekend. So you will create an event and a message will be posted on the channel. The users can thus add this event to their Google Calendar by tapping on the top of that message. To add an event follow these steps.
!event create myevent1
!event description Dummy text 1
!event start 2018/03/21–14:30:00
!event end 2018/03/21–15:30:00
!event confirmEnter the time the event will start and end. Note that this time had to be entered in military format. Mentioning the end time is not necessary, If you don’t know the ending time this step can be skipped. Finally confirm the event. This confirms the event and adds a new message to the channel. After this you will get an event confirmation message. Notice that there is an id associated with every event.
Now as the event has been created, you might want that your users be reminded some time before the event. This bot offers those features too. Follow these steps to add a announcement.
!a create
!a type specific
!a channel general
!a hours no_of_hours
!a minutes no_of_minutes
!a event asdfa34
!a confirm- First create a new announcement and mention the type of the announcement. Then write the name of the channel who want the announcement to be put in. Now mention the number of hours and minutes before the announcement that you want the users to be reminded. Then add the event of the event this announcement is being created. Finally confirm the changes. Notice that there is an id associated with this announcement.
- Now an announcement has been created. The bot will put a message in the mentioned channel at the time configured. But what if we want it to @ mention certain users. (When you @mention someone they get a notification irrespective of them muting the channel). To add people to the announcement:
!a sub dfsda32 everyoneMention the announcement id and the group of people you want to tag. You can also use other specifiers like admin and names of specific people like @prateekmishra etc.
That’s all for today. There are a lot of other commands that you must refer in order to make yourself comfortable with this bot. Thanks for reading. If you liked this show some ❤
About Me :
I am an enthusiastic developer who finds technology fascinating. Presently, I am trying my hands at competitive programming :)
