iCAL export issues

[jberanek]

Good morning. Firstly, I'd like to thank you all for providing the open source community with a fantastic product. We are using MRBS as a room booking & timetabling system and it works really well. One issue we have come across is an issue with exporting to iCAL. If you create a report with multiple bookings and export to iCAL, it is only exporting the first booking in the report and not the rest. Is this a known issue? Or are we doing something wrong? Any advice, fixes or information on config changes that are needed will be gratefully received.

Reported by: *anonymous

Original Ticket: mrbs/bugs/313

[jberanek]

I've just tried this on 1.4.11 and everything seems to work OK. What version of MRBS are you using?

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

Are your multiple bookings part of a series? In which case only one VEVENT will be created, but it should have a recurrence rule (RRULE).

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

Hi Campbell,

Thanks for the prompt response. I can confirm we are using version 1.4.11. Some are part of a series and others are not. Our staff generally export a date range across multiple rooms and are attempting to import them into their Outlook calendars. I hope this information is of use.

Vinny.

Original comment by: *anonymous

[jberanek]

If you produce an HTML report before you produce the iCal report can you see the multiple bookings? Can you post the iCal file here if it is not confidential?

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

Yes, the HTML report shows multiple bookings. I have DM'd you with a link to the files you asked for.

Original comment by: *anonymous

[jberanek]

Thanks. I've got the files and everything looks OK to me. I can see 14 entries in the .ics file which match the HTML entries. I assume you are importing into Outlook using the "Open as New" option. I've just tried this and indeed you only get the first entry. However if you use the "Import" option you get all 14 entries. I can only assume this is some quirk of Outlook. I've tried validating the .ics file with http://severinghaus.org/projects/icv/ and it validates OK.

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

PS I was using Outlook 2013

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

I use Outlook 2013 as well and have tested this on Outlook 2010, which behaves in the same way. Thanks for your time on looking into this issue.

Original comment by: *anonymous

[jberanek]

I haven't given up on this. I've just found that if in Outlook Calendar you do File -> Save Calendar then Outlook will then re-import successfully the resultant .ics file. So all I need to do is to find the magic difference between their .ics file and the MRBS .ics file and it should be possible to make MRBS produce files that Outlook likes (assuming of course that they're still liked by other calendar apps).

I'll have a look into this later.

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

I can see what the problem is. Am working on a fix.

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

The problem is caused by the fact that the METHOD being used in the iCalendar file was REQUEST when it should be PUBLISH. However simply changing the METHOD to REQUEST does not solve the problem for series where members of the series have been deleted or changed. The export_icalendar() function needs to be rewritten. I've started working on a fix but it'll be a few days before it can be ready due to other commitments.

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

I have now fixed this in Rev 2868. If you are using MRBS 1.4.11 you can patch your system by replacing functions_ical.inc with the latest version which is attached here.

Original comment by: campbell-m

Attachments: https://sourceforge.net/p/mrbs/bugs/_discuss/thread/0fa9bbe3/5de3/attachment/functions_ical.inc

[jberanek]

That is great, thank you for looking into this so quickly. I was happy enough with the previous workaround but this will be ideal.

Many thanks.

Original comment by: *anonymous

[jberanek]

I experienced the exact same problem using Outlook 2007, which is how I got to this thread. Trying out the fix above from Campbell Morrison, Rev 2868, I'm still experiencing issues. When exporting an ical of a report with multiple bookings, and opening it straight into Outlook, it creates a second agenda next to mine. I'm not sure if it's supposed to do this... or if it's related to me having my mail and calendar on an Exchange server... See attachment. When exporting and .ics of one booking and importing it in outlook it just behaves normally (toggles a window to save the calendar item and then shows up in my own calendar).

Original comment by: blaaat1

Attachments: https://sourceforge.net/p/mrbs/bugs/_discuss/thread/0fa9bbe3/f89e/attachment/second%20calendar.png

[jberanek]

How are you opening the file? Are you using Open or Import? If I use Import (I am using Outlook 2013, no Exchange server) then I get a dialog box asking me whether I want to "Open as New" or "Import"? "Open as New" gives the result you were getting. "Import" gives the result you were wanting, ie merging the events into my existing calendar.

If I use Open from the File menu, then Opening a single event .ics file produces a new calendar (as in your screenshot), and opening a multi-event .ics file seems to do nothing. Not quite sure why that is though - it doesn't seem right. Searching the web I think "Open" is supposed to behave as you were seeing, whereas "Import" is what you need to use (unless you are using it already).

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

Ah - I understand why Opening didn't work. There's a bug in the latest version of MRBS in the trunk resulting in a malformed .ics file. I'll fix it later.

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

I've now fixed that bug in Rev 2980. Outlook 2013 (no Exchange Server) now behaves as follows:

• Open (single event) - inserts event into existing calendar
• Open (multi-event) - opens as a new calendar
• Import - offers option to "Open as New" or "Import". Import does what you'd expect, ie merge into your existing calendar. Open as New will open a single event, if the file is a single event, or a new calendar, if it's a multi-event.

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

For me it behaved as you just described.

I don't really agree with the standard behaviour of when you open a multi-event .ical file that per default it opens in a new calendar... whereas for a single event this is not default behavior... It seems more logical that events would be added to your existing calender at once... Anyway, since you googled it and you found that it should behave like this, then I guess this is how it's gonna be ;-).

Original comment by: blaaat1

[jberanek]

My guess is that the reason it is done this way is that quite a few people probably operate more than one calendar, eg work and home calendars, so Outlook won't know which one to add the event(s) to.

You could always check that it's nothing to do with MRBS by exporting events from another system, eg Google Calendar, and see what happens then. You could also check whether other calendar applications behave the same way as Outlook.

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

Hello All,

i am having the same problem with outlook 2013

i have replaced the functions_ical.inc with the one above, and i can see $method is publish

however the opening the attachments received in the email in notepad they are still METHOD:REQUEST

do i need to do any other file modifications to get this to work?

running MRBS 1.4.11

Original comment by: *anonymous

[jberanek]

Can you just confirm which problem you are seeing please? And are you using an Exchange server?

Original comment by: campbell-m

[jberanek]

ps we are using an exchange server

Original comment by: *anonymous

[jberanek]

sure so the problem is we have recently updated to office 365, since the migration i now just get two attachments

company_name.ics and not supported calendar message.ics

we are using an exchange server but all worked well prior to the upgrade from 2007 to 365

Original comment by: *anonymous