Send a calendar appointment

[lgrupido]

I want to send a calendar appointment from Alpha, presumably using an email, but I'm not sure how to go about it. I've seen some links on the message board, but most of them are very old.

Is anyone doing this?

[peteconway]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

Type email in the video finder - it's easy to do.

[lgrupido]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

I looked in the video finder at the email videos. I see 3 categories of videos and none of them mentions sending a calendar appointment. Do you have a specific video in mind?

[Progytech]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

Hi Larry,
Calendar appointments are just text files with an extension .ico in general. If you are creating appointments with a calendar control then you need to export the ico files or create the files yourself then add then to your email to send it.

[Garry Flanigan]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

File extensions are more typically ics or vcs. Do a google search for "ics file format". Note that ics replaced vcs but there is some helpful info out there for vcs.

[Progytech]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

Thanks Garry, you are right ics, I don't know what was I thinking about when I typed ico twice

[Garry Flanigan]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

I'm just glad that it is not only me that has these brain fades. When you get an idea in your head, it is hard to dislodge. I have at times misread a post or skipped over an important piece and gone off in the complete wrong direction. Embarrassing but nonetheless human.

[lgrupido]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

I see the ICS file stuff and yes, I can look that up and I did just now ... but ... I was really hoping someone had a template built already with the xbasic to do things like convert the date to the proper format and with all the proper tags setup.

Or even a SQL statement that does the same thing.

[Progytech]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

Larry, you should be more specific on what you are asking
If you are using the JQ Calendar Connector from Jim Coltz, then the calendar will export any appointments into ics file with a great flexibility for you, if you are not using any calendar, then you will have to manually create the ics files with the sections you want to support based on their specifications. I did that for one of my .Net applications, but haven't have the need to do it in AA, so I cannot share any code, but it is very simple, just play with it and create couple of them manually then test them with Outlook or any other application that can read ics files.

[peteconway]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

I was replying to this part of your question,

presumably using an email, but I'm not sure how to go about it.

[workaholic06]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

Hi Larry,

Sorry this might be a little late, but see below:

FUNCTION createIcal AS P (startDate as T, endDate as T, eventID as C, title as C, description as C, fileName as C)
	dim output as C = ""
	dim ret as P
	
	'.ics file defination
	dim file_path as C = "C:\temp\mycalendar"
	dim file_name as C = "interview_schedule"
	dim file_ext as C = ".ics"
	
	'For create event in .ics file
	dim ical_UID as C = ""
	dim ical_summary as C = ""
	dim ical_description as C = ""
	dim ical_dtStart as C = ""
	dim ical_dtEnd as C = ""
	dim ical_eventString as C = ""
	
	'Get system setting for calendar file path
	dim setting_file_path as C = ""
	if setting_file_path <> "" then
		file_path = setting_file_path
	end if
	
	if fileName <> "" then
		file_name = fileName
	end if

	ret.icalFile = filename_decode(file_path + "\\" + file_name + file_ext)

	'create the calendar file's contents
	dim calendarHeader as C = "BEGIN:VCALENDAR" + crlf() +\
								"VERSION:2.0" + crlf() +\
								"PRODID:-//Calendar Labs//Calendar 1.0//EN" + crlf() +\
								"CALSCALE:GREGORIAN" + crlf() +\
								"METHOD:PUBLISH" + crlf()
								"BEGIN:VTIMEZONE" + crlf() +\
								"TZID:Eastern_Time" + crlf() +\
								"X-LIC-LOCATION:Eastern_Time" + crlf() +\
								"BEGIN:DAYLIGHT" + crlf() +\
								"TZOFFSETFROM:-0500" + crlf() +\
								"TZOFFSETTO:-0400" + crlf() +\
								"TZNAME:EDT" + crlf() +\
								"DTSTART:19700308T020000" + crlf() +\
								"RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3" + crlf() +\
								"END:DAYLIGHT" + crlf() +\
								"BEGIN:STANDARD" + crlf() +\
								"TZOFFSETFROM:-0400" + crlf() +\
								"TZOFFSETTO:-0500" + crlf() +\
								"TZNAME:EST" + crlf() +\
								"DTSTART:19701101T020000" + crlf() +\
								"RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=11" + crlf() +\
								"END:STANDARD" + crlf() +\
								"END:VTIMEZONE"

	output = calendarHeader + crlf()
	
	ical_UID = eventID
	ical_summary = stritran(stritran(title,"\\","\\\"),",","\,")
	ical_summary = stritran(title,";","\;") 'this didn't work when added to line above for some reason
	ical_description = stritran(stritran(description,"\\","\\\"),",","\,")
	ical_description = stritran(description,";","\;")
	ical_dtStart = "DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:" + time("yyyyMMdd", startDate) + "T" + time("0h0m0s", startDate)
	ical_dtEnd = "DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:" + time("yyyyMMdd", endDate) + "T" + time("0h0m0s", endDate)
	eventString = "BEGIN:VEVENT" + crlf() + "UID:" + ical_UID + crlf() + "SUMMARY:" + ical_summary + crlf() + "DESCRIPTION:" + ical_description + crlf() +\
					ical_dtStart + crlf() + ical_dtEnd + crlf() + "TRANSP:OPAQUE" + crlf() + "STATUS:CONFIRMED" + crlf() + "END:VEVENT"

	output = output + eventString + crlf()
	output = output + "END:VCALENDAR"

	if file.exists(file_path) == .f. then
		if dir_create_recurse(file_path) == .f. then
			ret.error = .t.
			ret.error_msg = "[Could not create calendar file [Fail to create folder \"" + file_path + "\"]"
			return
		end if
	end if

	if file.exists(file_path) then
		if save_to_file(output, ret.icalFile, .f.) then
			'file created
		else
			ret.error = .t.
			ret.error_msg = "Could not create calendar file [Fail to save to file]"
		end if
	end if
		
	createIcal = ret
	
END FUNCTION

[Progytech]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

Hi Robert,
This is very nice, thanks for sharing!!!

[lgrupido]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

Not late at all! Thank you.

[peteconway]

Re: Send a calendar appointment

Nice work Robert.