I’m working on an OSX app where I want to create calendar events, add some attendees, add the event to the user Calendar, and send an invitation to the attendees. First I thought I could use the Eventkit framework, but for some reason you can’t add attendees to an event created by Eventkit. Instead I create an .ics file (see example below). I can add the .ics file to the Calendar and send it as an attachment in a mail as an invitation. The attendee can add it to his own Calendar and select accept in the rsvp section. However, the organizer never receives his acceptance. I have no idea how to get this to work and haven’t been able to locate any examples. Is this simply not possible or what am I doing wrong.
Any help is appreciated
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Org//App//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:20120920T150350Z-70#http://localhost/www/
CREATED:20140920T150350Z
DTSTAMP:20140921T080800Z
DTSTART:20140921T080800Z
DTEND:20140922T060800Z
DESCRIPTION:Attend this meeting
SUMMARY:Meeting invitation
LOCATION:The office
ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEED-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE:mailto:attendee#mail.com
ORGANIZER;CN=organizerName:mailto:organizer#mail.com
LAST-MODIFIED:20140921T080800Z
PRIORITY:1
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
I too had the same issue. And now i found the solution.
This can be fixed by the line RSVP=TRUE,it seems you already added that.
So remove that ROLE and PARTSTAT in ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEED-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE:mailto:attendee#mail.com and make it as below.
ATTENDEE;RSVP=TRUE:mailto:attendee#mail.com
The above line is enough.
Your problem is due to a simple typo. You need ; instead of : between the parts.
Change:
RSVP=TRUE:mailto:attendee#mail.com
to
RSVP=TRUE;mailto:attendee#mail.com
Related
I am creating ics file with 2 attendee and a organizer.
Event is properly creating for both attendees and response is also received when they accept/reject the event. I am sending same invite to organizer as well. On organizer end, event is not adding into their calendar (accept/reject buttons are grayed out). Following two messages are showing:
At the meeting organizer, you do not need to respond to the meeting.
Meeting cannot be found in the Calendar.
How I can change the event so that it also create in organizer calendar?
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Appointment Confirmation Event//EN
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20200506T190000Z
DTEND:20200506T200000Z
DTSTAMP:20200506T190000Z
ORGANIZER:mailto:test1#test.com
UID:Interview_47461#sterlinghoffman.com
ATTENDEE;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;ROLE=REQ_PARTICIPANT;RSVP=TRUE:mailto:test2#test.com
ATTENDEE;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;ROLE=REQ_PARTICIPANT;RSVP=TRUE:mailto:test3#test.com
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-OWNERAPPTID:-486846808
CREATED:20200504T130737Z
DESCRIPTION:
LOCATION:at 3423
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:Phone Meeting
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
I tried with adding organizer as attendee but it not works.
ATTENDEE;PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED;ROLE=CHAIR;RSVP=TRUE;mailto:test1#test.com
Since it sounds like the ics file is not being generated by the organisers outlook calendar, then two possible solutions suggest themselves:
1) On the assumption that it would be redundant / duplication to add an event to organisers calendar (who would be assumed by the application to have already created the event in itself) possibly the more robust solution for across calendar applications: add a sent-by, as per https://icalendar.org/iCalendar-RFC-5545/3-8-4-3-organizer.html
ORGANIZER;SENT-BY="mailto:jane_doe#example.com":
mailto:jsmith#example.com
2) This might be an outlook bug. A quick search come up with same error messages https://developermessaging.azurewebsites.net/2011/09/30/accepting-ical-appts-in-outlook-when-you-are-the-organiser/ and indicates a hotfix. See also How can I add an ICS meeting automatically to the Organizer's calendar?
See also:
iCalendar does not create an event for organizer
ics not updating organizer calendar,
Sending iCalendar to an user who's also the organizer of the event (the last comment to answer about redundancy to add to organiser
Your iCalendar data has an error in organizer, that's why he is not being added to the calendar. As your organizer doesn't have any parameters and only has a cal-address it needs to be separated with colon : not semicolon ;. Correct organizer property:
ORGANIZER:mailto:test1#test.com
For more about this property (and iCalendar) you can read here.
RFC 5545 specification of organizer:
organizer = "ORGANIZER" orgparam ":" cal-address CRLF
If this is not only about the organizer showing up in the calendar, then you can find more answers to an actual Outlook error in this SO question.
Finally I found the issue. It was bug in Outlook. I followed the instruction given in following article and it works.
https://developermessaging.azurewebsites.net/2011/09/30/accepting-ical-appts-in-outlook-when-you-are-the-organiser/
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/940403/a-new-meeting-request-is-not-saved-to-your-calendar-folder-after-you-c
Thank you #anmari
I am attempting to send out .ics calendar event files which can be downloaded by users and saved to their Outlook calendars. The calendar event needs to appear as “Free” in Outlook. Below is a sample of the .ics event currently being sent out:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:http://company.ical.cls
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20180425
SUMMARY:PTO for Babcock, Michael (22.5hrs)
DTEND:20180428
FREEBUSY:FREE
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
When an Outlook for Windows user downloads the above file and opens it in their Outlook calendar, the event appears correctly as Free time.
When an Outlook for Mac user downloads the above file it creates a new email with the .ics file attached.
To try to correct the problem for Mac users, I edited the FREEBUSY keyword several times to appear as:
FBTYPE:FREE:20180425T000000Z/20180428T000000Z
FBTYPE:20180426T000000Z/20180429T000000Z
FREEBUSY;FBTYPE=FREE:20180416T133000Z/20180429T170000Z
Outlook for Mac users could download the file with one of those new FreeBusy keywords and open it in their calendar, but it always appears as Busy. The strange thing is, if they open the file with the modified keyword on a Windows computer first, then the appointment appears as free on both Windows and Mac Outlook.
Has anyone found a FreeBusy keyword that allows Outlook for Mac users to see .ics calendar appointments as Free?
The 'Freebusy' component is VFREEBUSY, not VEVENT. Please see the RFC5545 specification. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5545#section-3.6.4
VFREEBUSY cannot be nested under VEVENT. Also it does NOT say that FREEBUSY property can be used in VEVENT. The spec at https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5545#section-3.8.2.6 says:
FREEBUSY..... Conformance: The property can be specified in a
"VFREEBUSY" calendar
component.
...
The following is an example of a "VFREEBUSY" calendar component
used to publish busy time information:
BEGIN:VFREEBUSY
UID:19970901T115957Z-76A912#example.com
DTSTAMP:19970901T120000Z
ORGANIZER:jsmith#example.com
DTSTART:19980313T141711Z
DTEND:19980410T141711Z
FREEBUSY:19980314T233000Z/19980315T003000Z
FREEBUSY:19980316T153000Z/19980316T163000Z
FREEBUSY:19980318T030000Z/19980318T040000Z
URL:http://www.example.com/calendar/busytime/jsmith.ifb
END:VFREEBUSY
FREEBUSY is for requesting/responding/publishing availability windows.
To make the event appear in the calendar with the Free/Busy flag set to Free, use TRANSP:TRANSPARENT and X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:FREE
For example:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:http://company.ical.cls
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20180425
SUMMARY:PTO for Babcock, Michael (22.5hrs)
DTEND:20180428
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:FREE
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
I would like to be able to create an ICS file with multiple events that user will be able to import in their default Exchange Calendar. I need to support Outlook desktop client, Office 365 web interface and Apple iPhone Mail/Calendar.
Note that issue only occurs with ICS files that contain multiple events. Single event ICS works as expected.
Following multi-event ICS file:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//bobbin v0.1//NONSGML iCal Writer//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20180327T080000Z
DTEND:20180327T110000Z
DTSTAMP:20091130T213238Z
UID:1285935469767a7c7c1a9b3f0df8003a#yourserver.com
CREATED:20091130T213238Z
DESCRIPTION:Example event 1
LAST-MODIFIED:20091130T213238Z
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Example event 1
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20180328T120000Z
DTEND:20180328T130000Z
DTSTAMP:20091130T213238Z
UID:1285935469767a7c7c1a9b3f0df8003b#yourserver.com
CREATED:20091130T213238Z
DESCRIPTION:Example event 2
LAST-MODIFIED:20091130T213238Z
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Example event 2
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
works fine in Office 365 web interface and Apple iPhone Mail/Calendar. However, when it is imported in Outlook 2016 it creates a new "Untitled" Calendar and puts events in it instead of default user calendar.
This seems to be a known issue referenced previously on SO:
ICal import creates new calendar When Open the ics file
Have ICS file with multiple events save to my Calendar, not Other Calendars
Answers range from "it cannot be done" to the opposite.
One of the posts in the first link mentions removing X-WR-CALNAME from ICS fixes the problem. I never had this in ICS to begin with.
Another post on the same page mentions that adding X-WR-RELCALID:XXXXXX fixes it. I tried putting it in and it makes no difference at all. I am not sure if value for X-WR-RELCALID should be set to something specific - I just set it to some GUID.
If someone successfully resolved it - can you post an ICS sample and what version of Outlook did it work with?
I am generating .ics calendar invitation with the node package ical-generator and sending the attachment in an email via mandrill.
The .ics calendar invite contains information for one event at a specific time and date.
example generated file:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//sebbo.net//ical-generator//EN
METHOD:REQUEST
NAME: xxxx Events
X-WR-CALNAME: xxxxx
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:5wzd#xxx.com
SEQUENCE:0
DTSTAMP:20180318T202459Z
DTSTART:20180330T230000Z
DTEND:20180330T230000Z
SUMMARY:test
LOCATION:test
DESCRIPTION:test
ORGANIZER;CN="info":mailto:info#xxxx.com
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
Right now, the user receives the calendar invitation as an attachment in the email and is able to add the event to their calendar if they open up the attachment and click on "add to calendar" (in outlook).
What changes do I need to make so that the calendar invite is automatically parsed by the mail client and added to the user's calendar (similar functionality is found in email confirmation from sites like meetup and eventbrite).
Not sure I have the context knowledge around how email clients, calendar systems or .ics files work to have a framework of how to approach this problem
Any suggestions or pointers to resources is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
You need to consider three points in order to add events automatically:
Email Header
iCalendar Method
ATTENDEE information the "VEVENT" calendar component
Email Header
In order to get the email client to parse correctly the attached .ics file, you should add the scheduling method and MIME information to the email headers. This is specified by the iCalendar Message-Based Interoperability Protocol (RFC 2447).
For this reason, your header should include Content-Type,
Content-Transfer-Encoding and Content-Disposition as specified in the following example:
Content-Type: text/calendar; charset=utf-8; method=REQUEST; name=invite.ics'
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=invite.ics
iCalendar Method
When used in a MIME message entity, the value of "METHOD" must be the same as the Content-Type "method". This can only appear once within the iCalendar object. The value of this field is defined by the iCalendar Transport-Independent Interoperability Protocol (iTIP) (RFC 5546).
In order to request for a meeting, the value should be "REQUEST".
METHOD:REQUEST
ATTENDEE information the "VEVENT" calendar component
This property is the state of a particular "Attendee" relative to an event. It is used for scheduling and is defined by the "PARTSTAT" parameter in the "ATTENDEE" property for each attendee.
ATTENDEE;PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED;CN="Jane
Doe";EMAIL=jdoe#gmail.com:MAILTO:jdoe#gmailcom
Here is an example of a minimal .ics file:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:<unique-id>#<site>.com
DTSTAMP:20210605T073803Z
DTSTART;TZID=America/Guayaquil:20210614T030000
DTEND;TZID=America/Guayaquil:20210614T040000
SUMMARY:My Event
ORGANIZER;CN="Juan Perez":mailto:jperez#organizer.com
ATTENDEE;PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED;CN="Jane
Doe";EMAIL=jdoe#gmail.com:MAILTO:jdoe#gmailcom
URL;VALUE=URI:https://<site>.com/event/5960492994476830083
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
For more details, please take a look at my gist.
You need two things to get this working:
1) The correct encoding of the attachment in your email, see this email headers:
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename=meeting.ics
Content-class: urn:content-classes:calendarmessage
Content-Type: text/calendar;
name="meeting.ics";
component="VEVENT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
2) The correct format for the ics file. If you work in PHP to generate the ICS file you should use the library provided from icalendar.org
Try to use this event to test if working and use the validator present in the site mentioned above.
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ZContent.net//ZapCalLib 1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Simple Event
DTSTART:20200101T120000
DTEND:20200101T130000
UID:2020-02-12-11-02-23#demo.icalendar.org
DTSTAMP:20200212T100223
Description:This is a simple event\, using the Zap Calendar PHP library. Vi
sit http://icalendar.org to validate icalendar files.
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
The best you can do is ensure that the ics file is well setup, with the text/calendar header etc.
The providing system cannot force on the users device how the file is dealt with, it is entirely within the control of the receiver and their device setup.
For example I have my windows pc set to open ics files in a text editor, while my iphone will try to do an add to calendar (the icloud one), but I actually use google calendar. And Gmail used to not automatically add invites unless they'd been sent to the gmail address, whereas I use other domains for personal/family vs work, which all go to gmail. I'm not sure whether that is still a problem. I don't want the auto added.
Depending on the sort of system you developing for, You might want to consider having the recipients subscribe once to a personal ics url, rather than sending individual invites all the time. If subscribed, then future events/classes etc will automatically show up. I love it when systems do that, but too often they don't. EG: classes that one signs up individually for.
This question relates to a question I asked previously (Importing .ics into Calendar on Mac (El Capitan) breaks connection to Exchange Server). I have written a Python script to generate an .ics file that can be used to transfer calendar events into an Exchange calendar in the Calendar app on MacOSX (El Capitan). The .ics file produced validates using http://severinghaus.org/projects/icv/. The events are imported into a separate calendar rather than into the default Exchange calendar and appear in Calendar as expected. However, after importing the events, Calendar is unable to sync the events to Exchange Server. This is particularly noticeable if I try to add an invitee; immediately, I get an error message saying that:
Calendar can’t save the event “event name” to the Exchange server.
There was an error attempting to send your changes to the exchange server.
After lots of faffing around, it seems that including a LOCATION field in the .ics file stops Calendar communicating with Exchange Server.
So, for example, the following .ics file will import an event into an Exchange calendar (perhaps called 'tempcal') in the Calendar app but the event isn't synced with the Exchange server and I can't then add an invitee:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Python iCalendar timetable//
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:COURSE XYZ 2016-17 LECTURE 1
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20161011T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20161011T170000
DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20160923T021716Z
UID:20161011160000/Introduction to my course#example.com
LOCATION:TBA
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
...whereas the following .ics file works fine:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Python iCalendar timetable//
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:COURSE XYZ 2016-17 LECTURE 1
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20161011T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20161011T170000
DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20160923T021716Z
UID:20161011160000/Introduction to my course#example.com
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
This seems like utter madness from where I'm standing. Can anyone offer an explanation of what's going on? Perhaps more importantly, is there anything I can do to sort this out at my end (i.e. on the Mac) or do I need to get IT Support to sort is out at the Exchange Server end (and, if so, what should they do?)
Not sure if this will help, but the validator at http://icalendar.org/validator.html complains about an invalid TZID value. The "Europe/London" timezone needs to be defined in a VTIMEZONE section.
The other thing to verify is at the end of every line has a CR LF, which is a requirement for the icalendar standard.