Exporting from the new LDS Calendar

[wholder]

Hi Forum
I really really need the export feature that was present with the previous (Classic?) calendar brought back?

Can I request this please?

Thanks
Warwick Holder
redstake.execsec@gmail.com

[mwgrover]

What are you trying to export to? You can sync the new calendar to Outlook, iCal, and Google calendar. Not sure what else you might be asking for.

[aebrown]

What are you trying to export to? You can sync the new calendar to Outlook, iCal, and Google calendar. Not sure what else you might be asking for.

Note also that you can use the Sync URL and paste it into a browser's address bar. That will generate an iCal file (.ics) that you can save to your computer. If you have Outlook, another option is to sync to it and then it has more export format options.

[russellhltn]

And if you paste the URL into your browser, you get an iCal file. Seems like an export to me.

[kisaac]

What are you trying to export to? You can sync the new calendar to Outlook, iCal, and Google calendar. Not sure what else you might be asking for.

Welcome wholder. Is it the CSV export you miss? Me, too!

I'd certainly vote to see the CSV export option brought back from "Classic Calendar." Many of us used that to transfer events from CLASSIC calendar to the ward council agenda and sacrament bulletins. We also used it to generate a "new events" listing. The current "sync" options, Ical, outlook, google, and even "grabbing" the ical sync data (by pasting into url line in browser) is useless for this.

CSV let me modify/sort the output in a spreadsheet and make detailed reports on various calendar data as needed. I put it once into a database as well. Again, ical (google, outlook) format isn't a helpful option unless you need to read that format, so it doesn't help here. Since I don't have OUTLOOK, I don't know if I could do what I need from it, and that's not an option for me anyway.

Can I request this please?

As you know, many of us are users like yourself, and we can discuss these here and get workaround ideas, but to request it from the calendar developers, the only "official" way to request anything is to do so via a "feedback" form on LDS.org. Please tell them what will help you!

[aebrown]

Is it the CSV export you miss? Me, too!

There are a variety of ways to turn the iCal file from the sync feed into a CSV. It's a bit of extra work, but not too bad.

• iCal2CSV - a site someone threw together that will take your Sync URL and with one button click download for you a CSV file. For this site you're entering your Sync URL and giving your entire calendar to someone you don't have any reason to trust. I really doubt that there are any reasons to be concerned because I don't see why the developer would bother to save any of the data, but thought I'd mention it.
• Félix Chénier's Linux iCal to CSV converter - this one is only on Linux and is not for the faint of heart, but might be helpful.
• Mozilla Sunbird - For those who don't have Outlook, Sunbird is an application that will support an iCal sync, and also has a CSV export. I haven't tried this myself, but I found a blog post that describes the process.

I think Sunbird (or the newer Lightning add-on if you use Thunderbird) is your best bet at this point for usability and security.

[ross.rick]

I've been using Mozilla Thunderbird w/Lightning extension for the calendar as a means to get CSV output for a few weeks now. It works very well. Here are the basic steps.
1) obviously, you need to have thunderbird and the lightning extension installed
2) on the new calendar, go to sync, then copy the url for apple ical
3) paste that url in your browser--it should ask you if you want to save the file, so do it (this is the ical file mentioned above.)
4) in thunderbird lightning, create a new calendar and name it
5) in thunderbird lightning, go to events and task, and choose 'import', then point to the .ics file you downloaded in step 3
6) now you should see your new calendar in thunderbird
7) now to exort csv, go evetns and tasks, select export, pick which calendar you want to export, then specify you want .csv format, and give it a name. Thats it.

I did find that a few days after the upgrade to 2.0 when I tried this, the export function seemed to have a bug, and 'all-day' events were shifted a day early. But as of yesterday when I tried it again, that seems to have been fixed.

[drepouille]

I use Outlook 2003. I really didn't want to import all events from the stake calendars into my personal Outlook calendar, just so I could export them to Excel, and then copy them into my agenda documents. I suppose I could use Sunbird, but gosh, it seems like it would be so easy for the developers to add a CSV export.
Dana in Omaha

[kisaac]

it seems like it would be so easy for the developers to add a CSV export.

Well then, that makes two votes for the CSV export to return!:)
(but thanks for the Work-arounds posted so far....)

[ebean]

...but, how does one go about exporting an iCal file for my stake and ward calendar? I can't find anything on lds.org that looks like a way to do that.