[Feature Request] - Ability to export Terrain calendar without logging in to Terrain

[acsand]

The "Subscribe to Calendar" function in Terrain is a valuable, but little used function. The problem is that it requires parents to log into Terrain to generated the URL for the calendar export. It would be good if we could create a way of distributing this link to parents without requiring them to know their child's password and log in to Terrain. We were thinking the ability to generate a QR code that could be placed on a hall noticeboard, or sent out in communications, that they could retrieve the Terrain calendar and import into their own digital calendar.

[suggestion raised at Scouts Victoria quarterly Program meeting]

[pete-mc]

Great idea, unfortunately that would require changing things on the terrain server which I don't have any access too. There is an alternative way I could achieve a similar result using an integration with Office 365 (which most states are using for their email system) to send out the calendar subscription to parents without a login requirement. This is something I am looking at for other features as well like sending alerts and subscribing to periodic reports.

The second unfortunately is that the office 365 integration is quite complex and will probably take on the order of 80 to 120 hours to write and my focus at the moment is on making the tool more stable and tick of some more of the low hanging fruit. I will leave this open but it might be closer to the end of the year before I can start working on this.

[acsand]

Thanks Peter. As it turns out, I'm managing the O365 rollout in Victoria at the moment. If there is something I can do to aid with some prototyping of a solution, please let me know. I have a Microsoft expert in my volunteer team, and I may be able to get some capacity out of the Scouts Vic IT team to assist.

[pete-mc]

The high-level plan I have is to allow users to setup a Power Automate flow in their Office 365 account by clicking a button within Summit. It can then call any of the terrain APIs as that user and the power automate flow can then send out alerts, messages, or in this case provide a calendar feed.

The beauty of this method is that user's terrain token will be stored agaist the same user's office 365 account so it will maintain the correct access levels, and nothing will be stored or executed outside of the scouts.

Happy to go through the plan with anyone who want to help and we can do a proof of concept at some stage.

[bwhite001]

@acsand I have Checked and the event link is publicly available to share.

Given that the link is public and available, generating a QR code to download the .ics file sounds like a practical solution. This way, parents can easily scan the code and import the calendar into their digital calendars without the need for a Terrain login.

If you think it would be beneficial, we could also explore the possibility of providing a publicly viewable calendar for parents who prefer that option. However, I believe the QR code solution would be more straightforward and convenient for most users.

[acsand]

@bwhite001 Generation of a QR code sounds like a good idea. As an FYI - I tried generating the URL via two Terrain logins. The URL's generated were different - not sure if that makes a difference.