HCL Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition Forum - Do all .ics attachments generated by 3rd party save as appointments?

Feb 9, 2015, 9:55 PM

23 Posts

Are you running FP1 or later?

Amy,

Are you running 9.0.1 FP1 or later? There is an issue tracked in SPR CSYL9DG26X that is similar to this and was fixed in 9.0.1 FP1. If you are not running FP1 or later (client), try applying the latest fix pack and see if this is still reproducible.

~James Preresaskioden

Feb 12, 2015, 8:45 PM

34 Posts

Yes (mostly)

Generally an attached .ICS file is not a true iCalendar workflow message that you normally get when doing meeting scheduling with non-Notes users. Usually they do not have a METHOD property and when they do you will likely find it to be a METHOD:PUBLISH. ICS files typically are just meant to be entries that get added to your calendar for reference and not part of any workflow between you and the sender (or you and others). Without a METHOD its difficult to cleanly map to a Notes equivalent other than Appointment. A METHOD:PUBLISH is more like a Broadcast invite but often there is simply not enough data in the ICS file to properly generate a real meeting (or meeting invite). All this is why ICS files get imported as Appointments.

Importing as a Meeting might be possible in some cases but not in all. You would become the Chair but you do not necessarily "control" that event (e.g. the airlines really decides if you have a ticket or not, the hotel decides if you get a room or not, etc) which can be lead to problems. Imagine the mess to sort out if if you were to later process an update to the entry after you had made changes; you could loose changes or not actually import the updates from the sender.

A well designed system that wants to send you the reminder should send it as a properly formatted iCalendar message that we could convert on delivery into a meeting invite or a Broadcast invite. Most though simply it to an email for you to extract and use or not.

Why do you want the imported entry to be a meeting? Do you want to let others know about it as well or is it something more?

Bruce
IBM

~Fred Lopgerotexakol

Feb 25, 2015, 1:28 AM

2 Posts

Purpose of Meeting vs Appt

Hi.

We are running Notes 9.0.1FP2 HF384.

We want the .ics files to come in as meetings, for the purpose of adding "invitees" so the itineraries (flights) will show up on other calendars at the designated time. We use calendars as Group Calendars, so example: all VP level meetings, conferences, travel, etc "invite" the VP GroupCal, so can be seen on the central calendar.

Scenario: Our 3rd party travel app (Concur) sends to me an .ics for my departure flight, and an .ics for my return flight. I add them to my calendar. I then want to turn around, edit the calendar entry and invite the IT GroupCal to the entries.

I cannot do that now, as when I save the .ics, it saves as an appointment.

Sounds like I need to go to our vendor, and make sure they configure the .ics to "send it as a properly formatted iCalendar message that we could convert on delivery into a meeting invite or a Broadcast invite" - correct?