Calendar sync with v2

[marmat]

Just tested the LDS.org Calendar version 2.0 with the Google Calendar sync and it works! Woohoo... great job. Nice to have it back. Thanks to those who had the workaround for a period of time, but its great to have it back in the 'native' format.

[kentedman]

I synced the new calendar to my Google Calendar successfully back when it was on new.lds.org. This morning I subscribed to the calendar now that it is on lds.org. That also worked just fine.

I don't know that I have any great insights to offer. I copied the URL from the Sync page in my new calendar. Then I went to my Google Calendar, and under Other Calendars I chose Add > Add by URL, pasted the URL I had copied, and about a minute later it was imported and the events were all visible. It just worked exactly as I expected.

Was the timezone correct? i can sync the calendar to google calendar but it shows as GMT +00:00 so all the times are 7 hours off -?

[jdlessley]

Was the timezone correct? i can sync the calendar to google calendar but it shows as GMT +00:00 so all the times are 7 hours off -?

This may be related to the time zone feature of calendar v2. Read about it here. Have your stake administrators reactivated the locations and set the time zone?

[ernieblodgett]

For whatever reason, when pasting the URL into Google Calendar, it doesn't allow us to specify the time zone - and the feed coming from LDS.ORG is missing whatever parameter it expectes so the time zone defaults to GMT - so all the times are many hours off. About the only thing I can think of to work around it is to change my google calendar to GMT, but that may cause other issues.

HELP!

[aebrown]

For whatever reason, when pasting the URL into Google Calendar, it doesn't allow us to specify the time zone - and the feed coming from LDS.ORG is missing whatever parameter it expectes so the time zone defaults to GMT - so all the times are many hours off. About the only thing I can think of to work around it is to change my google calendar to GMT, but that may cause other issues.

I examined the iCal feed and indeed, it has no time zone information. So I did the following as an experiment:

1. Used my sync URL to capture the iCal feed, and saved it with an .ics extension.
2. Edited the file in a text editor and added timezone information.
3. Created a google calendar and imported the modified .ics file
4. All the dates and times were correct.

But if I used the original .ics file, all times were interpreted as UTC/GMT, and so they were off by several hours. The times in the feed are all specified in my time zone, but without any timezone information in the file, they are treated as UTC.

For those who are curious, the timezone information I pasted was the following. I copied it from an old .ics file extracted from the v1 calendar. I pasted it right before the first "BEGIN:VEVENT":

Code: Select all

BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:US/Mountain
LAST-MODIFIED:20060203
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:19671029T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:MST
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:19870405T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=4
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:MDT
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE

So if the developers would just make a similar adjustment to the feed, I think it would start working for more people. I imagine it works pretty well for people along the Prime Meridian, except perhaps with Daylight Saving Time issues.

Note: I moved the posts that relate to sync under v2 to a new thread from the exceedingly long thread Calendar sync issues.

[marmat]

Ahh, now that I went back into Google Calendar, I am indeed seeing the times are way off from my time zone. Had a similar issue at one time with Basecamp calendar and reported the issue and they were able to fix it relatively quickly. I think it is a matter of specifying time-zones in the iCal feed.

[RichPhillips]

Glad to have the sync with google calendar working. However, the sync only includes subscribed calendars, and does not include events at the selected location. As a building scheduler, I need to see all the events at my building on the sync'd calendar whether I am subscried to those calendars or not, or the calendar is of no value.

Also, as a side note. When you select print for just the events for a selected location (no subscribed calendars selected) the calendar will show the events, but the print report is blank.

[jdcr256]

The timezone issue should be fixed now.

I'd also like to note, we had no expectation that the Google Sync would work with this release. We have tried to get a response from Google to get this working again, but have never heard anything. I mention that because it is very possible that it may stop working again, without us doing anything.

Glad to have the sync with google calendar working. However, the sync only includes subscribed calendars, and does not include events at the selected location.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that this will be included in the sync in the near future. I'll add it on the backlog for consideration.

[russellhltn]

As a building scheduler, I need to see all the events at my building on the sync'd calendar whether I am subscried to those calendars or not, or the calendar is of no value.

I don't know as many schedulers want to see the building calendar on their personal calendar. Either this should be a separate subscription, or done in LDS tools. Putting it in tools would offer a better chance of being able to update it at a future time.

[dgoehring]

I'm confused. When I enter an event in the calendar that is an all day event ( for example -thanksgiving). It shows up fine on LDS.ORG but if I sync to outlook or iPad it comes over as the prior day event ( for example -Wednesday). I have to give it a time (which does not make sense for a holiday ). Is this correct or am I missing something? In the old calendar these events came over correctly.