How to create an ics file programatically using VB 2005 1

[Sprowler]

Hello everyone,

I want to create an ics file programatically from VB 2005. The reason is so that an appointment created in my app can be exported to an iCalendar supported email system such as iCal or Exchange. My app is a CRM system that creates appointments for specified people, and I would like to place the appointment into a calendar.

I would also like to be able to look up free\busy info for a particular calendar. I have looked at using WebDAV for this bur can't seem to get any good code samples.

Forgive me if my question is not clear but I am a newbie to this and searched the net and tek-tips but can't find any real info. If you can provide code samples or links I will be very grateful to you.

Can anyone please help as I am anxious to find a solution and will be very grateful. I have already posted this question in the VB.Net forum, but maybe someone here can help?

Thank you in advance.

 

[probichaux]

There's a JavaScript example at

http://www.pratie.com/playground/play/icalendar/;

shouldn't be too hard to turn that into VBScript. You might also find the iCalendar spec itself to be useful (

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt).

Outlook2ical might also help:

http://outlook2ical.sourceforge.net/.

Free-busy is another kettle of fish. Take a look at Henning Krause's code sample at

http://www.infinitec.de/articles/exchange/getfreebusydata.aspx.

Cheers,
-Paul

 

[Sprowler]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

The first link is helpful and I'd (eventually) found a MS KB article to show how to get the appointment into Outlook via a ics file and the code is very similar.

While I was researching yesterday I found a third party scheduling component from Gravitybox (called Scheduler) which allows an Outlook style view of appointment slots. For the purposes of the first part of my requirement this may be an easier option as the idea is to give customers an "at a glance" summary of who is where doing what. Therefore, on reflection using Exchange to store the schedules is probably adding a tier unnecessarily. I am currently evaluating Gravitybox Scheduler.

From my system an email notification can be sent to the assigned person, so it may be simpler to just create a ics file and attach it to the email, so giving the individual the option to store the appointment in their Outlook calendar.

Your thoughts are welcomed.

Thanks again for your help I will look deeper into the other links you sent.

Regards