Question

iCalendar all-day events in Notes and Outlook

Asked by: Shift-3

I am trying to write an iCalendar file (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar) which will create an all-day event in either Outlook or Lotus Notes.

I can write ones to make timed appointments with no problem, but if I try to create an all-day event like the sample below, Outlook handles it correctly but Notes 7 imports it as a meeting beginning at 12:01 pm one day and ending at 12:01 pm the next day.

Is there any way to create an ics file which will schedule an all-day event correctly in either program?

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Company Name//NONSGML FOO//EN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20071214T153000
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20090901
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20090902
TRANSP:OPAQUE
UID:FOO
SUMMARY:Vacation
DESCRIPTION: All day vacation entry.
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

                                  
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Asked On
2009-09-04 at 12:52:49ID24708750
Tags

outlook lotus notes icalendar ics calendar schedule

Topics

Lotus Notes

,

Outlook Groupware Software

,

Miscellaneous Programming

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: sjef_bosmanPosted on 2009-09-04 at 15:44:43ID: 25263968

Here's what Notes generates for an all-day event:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
X-LOTUS-CHARSET:UTF-8
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Lotus Development Corporation//NONSGML Notes//EN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Romance
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:19501029T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMINUTE=0;BYHOUR=2;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:19500326T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMINUTE=0;BYHOUR=2;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID="Romance":20090906T040000
DTEND;TZID="Romance":20090906T200000
TRANSP:OPAQUE
DTSTAMP:20090904T224209Z
CLASS:PUBLIC
SUMMARY:testing...
UID:BE9A30AA4E33535FC1257627007C9875-Lotus_Notes_Generated
X-LOTUS-UPDATE-SEQ:1
X-LOTUS-UPDATE-WISL:$S:1;$L:1;$B:1;$R:1;$E:1;$W:1;$O:1;$M:1
X-LOTUS-NOTESVERSION:2
X-LOTUS-APPTTYPE:2
X-LOTUS-CHILD_UID:BE9A30AA4E33535FC1257627007C9875
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Note the timezone information...

 

by: Shift-3Posted on 2009-09-08 at 07:09:07ID: 25282012

Notes 7.0.1 interprets this as a meeting beginning at 9:00 pm on 9/5/09 and ending at 1:00 pm on 9/6/09.

Maybe this version of Notes just can't do it.

 

by: Shift-3Posted on 2009-09-08 at 07:12:04ID: 25282030

What version of Notes are you using, and how does it interpret the .ics file from my initial post?

 

by: sjef_bosmanPosted on 2009-09-08 at 08:08:59ID: 25282670

This is a R8.5 client. I could try it in R7.0.3, maybe later today.

When I import your ics-file, it generates an all-day Vacation event for the 1st of September.

Time to upgrade apparently...  :-S

 

by: sjef_bosmanPosted on 2009-09-08 at 08:22:59ID: 25282815

Just tested, all-day event is correctly created.

 

by: Shift-3Posted on 2009-09-08 at 08:51:22ID: 25283164

Great, thanks for the information.  I agree with your conclusion.

 

by: sjef_bosmanPosted on 2009-09-08 at 14:10:43ID: 25286206

Skip the 7.0.2 release, 7.0.3 works fine, and 7.0.4 has some nasty errors...

Thanks!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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