new.lds.org - Calendars - Import iCal Events

Options -> Import iCal Events -> Import iCal File

Does anyone know where I can find details of the format supported by this functionality?

dkjorgi wrote:Options -> Import iCal Events -> Import iCal File

Does anyone know where I can find details of the format supported by this functionality?

You can find the spec and some more details about iCal at this Wikipedia link. Right now the church calendar supports importing iCal files from Outlook and Google Calendar. For a future release we are testing the import of iCal files from the legacy church calendar.

I've been trying to import some ical files from Google today and they keep failing with the message:

We encountered an error with your ICS file. You may need to create a new ICS file, or try again later.

This has been happening even if I trim down the ical file to a single event.

Is this a known problem?

This sure seems like a bug. I checked the Wiki and followed the information. I have tried a Google and Outlook 2007 calendar ical file to import for our stake calendar. Just as silid, I scaled down to 1 item. The tool won't import a file created from the calendar -- the one used for one-way sync.

This could save me a ton of time if it were working. As it is, I am spending a little over an hour for each month entering items on the calendar. The repeating function seems better than the old calendar, but I still have to double check because sometimes the dates float due to conflicts.

Here is sample file that I am trying to import. What am I doing wrong?

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20101201T152728Z
DTSTART:20110101
SUMMARY:News Year's Day
UID:629958A
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

mzundel wrote:Here is sample file that I am trying to import. What am I doing wrong?

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20101201T152728Z
DTSTART:20110101
SUMMARY:News Year's Day
UID:629958A
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

I don't know that you're doing anything wrong. But this issue does sound reminiscent of a problem reported with the LUWS calendar, as described here. For that issue, the absence of a DTEND element was a problem. Just for troubleshooting, you might try manually adding a DTEND and see if it makes a difference.

kyleq wrote:You can find the spec and some more details about iCal at this Wikipedia link. Right now the church calendar supports importing iCal files from Outlook and Google Calendar. For a future release we are testing the import of iCal files from the legacy church calendar.

No matter what I've tried, even a new google test calendar with a single event, I can't get my google calendar import to work. Has anyone?

If you've made it work, detail it!

mzundel wrote:Here is sample file that I am trying to import. What am I doing wrong?

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20101201T152728Z
DTSTART:20110101
SUMMARY:News Year's Day
UID:629958A
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Well, I did some experimenting, and found that your test file imports just fine -- after I make one change. I changed the DTSTART value to have a time; instead of simply 20110101 I made it 20110101T070000Z. (My previous suggestion about adding a DTEND turns out to be irrelevant.)

Of course, that doesn't sound like an appropriate limitation for all-day events. But perhaps it gives you a means to do some manual editing (hopefully with an editor that does smart search&replace using regular expressions) so that you can fix up your iCal file before you import it.

I think the issue with that particular event as Alan_Brown noted is with the DTSTART field. According to the spec that field needs to either have a date & time or if it's just the date it should be formatted like:
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20101020

Did that event come from google or outlook? I've had success importing from both, didn't have to do anything special (other than fiddling with outlook to get the events that I wanted exported correctly).

As for the old calendar events, there's a couple of problems with the ical file it creates, so I don't know if it will ever work with the new ical import. There is the calendar setup wizard that was added in the last month or so that should allow you to convert all the old calendar events (that doesn't rely on the ical export from the old calendar). I think you have to be a stake or ward admin to have access to it, but I'm not sure exactly how the privileges work on that.

mstauff wrote:I think the issue with that particular event as Alan_Brown noted is with the DTSTART field. According to the spec that field needs to either have a date & time or if it's just the date it should be formatted like:
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20101020

Thanks for the tip. Indeed, that format does make the import work correctly.

The event I posted came from an export of the calendar at new.lds.org. We entered our stake calendar into a google calendar and then exported it. I then tried to import it into new.lds.org which failed. I then thought there was something wrong with the file so I tried to import it into outlook (2010) which worked just fine. I then exported from outlook to import -- which failed as well. That is when I decided to get to a basic file. I do not think it is very feasible as I would be spending the same if not more time "fixing" the file rather than manually adding each calendar item.

It still seems like the import function is missing something from the iCal standard.

This is an export form Google Calendar, which does not work either:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20111231
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20120101
DTSTAMP:20101203T161522Z
UID:CSVConvert32ded60d050733c54c1d1a109ab1fb9a
CREATED:20101128T151621Z
DESCRIPTION:
LAST-MODIFIED:20101128T151621Z
LOCATION:United States
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:New Year's Eve
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

mzundel wrote:It still seems like the import function is missing something from the iCal standard.

This is an export form Google Calendar, which does not work either:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20111231
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20120101
DTSTAMP:20101203T161522Z
UID:CSVConvert32ded60d050733c54c1d1a109ab1fb9a
CREATED:20101128T151621Z
DESCRIPTION:
LAST-MODIFIED:20101128T151621Z
LOCATION:United States
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:New Year's Eve
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

hmm. It worked fine for me. I simply copied and pasted that exact text into a text file called test.ics and imported it. I was told that it imported successfully, and indeed the New Year's Eve 2011 event was on the calendar.

What leads you to say it didn't work? Did you get an error message, or did the event simply not appear?

The error that I receive is:
"We encountered an error with your ICS file. You may need to create a new ICS file, or try again later."

Also of note is that the importer throws an error when using the one-way sync files it generates.

Granted this shouldn't be used much/at all (Our stake isn't using the calendar yet, so I created all of the stake events in a ward-level calendar and was then trying to make a copy to push to stake level. I want a copy just so my work isn't "lost" and we fly blind again )

Specific error message:
"There was an error while trying to parse your ICS file. We currently support ICAL files created by Google Calendar or Outlook. If you are importing from one of these applications please report the issues to customer service."

For me it would be helpful to know which event in the ICS file had an error/what the error is so I can correct it. In order to keep it user friendly perhaps the prompt could operate like the Windows Vista (& 7?) copy dialog where there's the general message and then a "more information" describing the technical aspects.

I tried to repair the files using regular expression replacements in Notepad++
find replace with which successfully implemented mstauff's suggestion, but was given the same error message.

mzundel wrote:The error that I receive is:
"We encountered an error with your ICS file. You may need to create a new ICS file, or try again later."

What browser(s) have you tried it in? I think I saw that error in chrome, but then tried it in FF and IE and it worked in both of them. I realize it's a long shot that that would be the issue, but at least worth considering since that event imported for Alan_Brown.

I tried the above mentioned date changing and it still doesn't import for me with that same error message "We encountered an error with your ICS file. You may need to create a new ICS file, or try again later."

My sample file:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20101231T152728Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20110101
SUMMARY:News Year's Day
UID:629958A
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

nerenberg wrote:I tried the above mentioned date changing and it still doesn't import for me with that same error message "We encountered an error with your ICS file. You may need to create a new ICS file, or try again later."

My sample file:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20101231T152728Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20110101
SUMMARY:News Year's Day
UID:629958A
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

I saved your sample data as test.ics and imported it into our stake's calendar on lds.org/church-calendar using Options > Import iCal Events. It worked exactly as expected -- the event was imported on 1 Jan 2011.

Are you a calendar administrator ("approver") for your unit? Are you an editor for the calendar you are trying to import this event into? Is it a regular public calendar, or a private calendar?

I had this problem, well sort of. Instead of getting an error, the dialog box just kept spinning like it was importing 45 billion events. I opened the ICS in Notepad++ and did and EOL conversion to Linux/Unix style and the ICS imported in the twinkle of an eye.

This is a problem with the importer code. It should either recognize that some people use Windows (so EOL characters are \r\n) or convert EOL characters to \r\n.

By the way, I used this tool to create my iCal.