Tech Forum Archive

Exporting from the new LDS Calendar

19 postsstarted by wholder 7,561 viewsoriginal topic

wholder
New Member
#1
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
Member
#2
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
Community Administrator
#3
mwgrover wrote: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.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
#4
And if you paste the URL into your browser, you get an iCal file. Seems like an export to me.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
kisaac
Community Moderators
#5

Bring back the CSV export from classic!

mwgrover wrote: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.
wholder wrote: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!
"A soft answer turneth away wrath" works great on LDSTech forum boards!
aebrown
Community Administrator
#6
kisaac wrote: 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.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
ross.rick
New Member
#7

Thunderbird/Lightning has been working well for me

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
Senior Member
#8
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
Dana Repouille, Plattsmouth, Nebraska
kisaac
Community Moderators
#9
drepouille wrote: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....)
"A soft answer turneth away wrath" works great on LDSTech forum boards!
ebean
New Member
#10

Maybe I'm just not the brightest light in the harbor...

...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.
aebrown
Community Administrator
#11
ebean wrote:...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.
It's explained in this post.

And there are now more detailed steps on the wiki at Export an iCal file.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
ross.rick
New Member
#12

basic instructions to sync the calendar

So here are some pointers for the novice exporter, from a mostly novice exporter.

First, it is only a one-way sync, exporting your LDS calendar to some other application or file.

I believe that the export function will export the combined details of all the calendars you are subscribed to, without regard to which of those you might have checked to view at the time you export. If I am wrong, someone please clarify.

From the calendar page, select 'settings', then 'Sync'.

Then you'll have three options: Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and Apple iCal.
Since I think you were asking about iCal, select that one. That will yield a URL something like this:

http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... xxxxxxxxxx

(where the x's are digits.)

Now, if you want to get the actual iCal file, paste the URL in the address bar of your browser, and your browser should help you download the file.

But the file alone is not so useful as it is encoded. You need to put it into some kind of calendar application, perhaps using that application's 'import' function.

Some calendar applications have a sync function where you can enter the URL right into the application, and it will download and populate its calendar with the info from the URL.

I hope this helps.
ross.rick
New Member
#13
Having read your question more closely, it seems like you want to export from your iCal application, INTO the stake/ward calendar....That functionality has not, to my knowledge been provided. I kind of doubt that it will be. The church seems to like us to have to manually enter everything the calendar via the web interface. You know, spending the time to do that helps us feel like we are magnifying our calling! Actually, I suppose that there are good practical reasons for avoiding the import capability...not least of which would be people exploding their stake/ward calendars with all sorts of stuff (someone might think it a good idea to sync their favorite public calendar of some sort to the church calendar, filling it wtih all sorts of things that are at best irrelevant, or at worst inappropriate.)
aebrown
Community Administrator
#14
ross.rick wrote:Having read your question more closely, it seems like you want to export from your iCal application, INTO the stake/ward calendar....That functionality has not, to my knowledge been provided. I kind of doubt that it will be.

That's not how I read it -- and as I reread it, I still think the question is about exporting from the lds.org calendar to an iCal file, although I could see how it might be interpreted the other way.

But in any case, there is indeed a provision for importing an iCal file. It can only be done by calendar administrators, but the procedure is explained in the help system at Importing and migrating calendars. I agree that syncing into the lds.org calendar is fraught with all sorts of risks, and that's probably why the sync is only one direction. But a manual import performed by an administrator is indeed useful -- and available now.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
michaeldnash
New Member
#15

.CSV export

Yes, I agree the export-to-csv functionality should be added to the new version. I used the feature extensively to de-conflict our stake calendar, and to provide the presidency with a compact view of specific event categories so they could plan together.

The current version limits our ability to consolidate around our objectives.

I have provided feedback through the lds.org page, but note there is not a specific category for calendar so the feedback was provided under the "other" category.

Would be interesting to hear from Dr. Covey on this topic, eh?

Mike
aebrown
Community Administrator
#16
michaeldnash wrote:Yes, I agree the export-to-csv functionality should be added to the new version. I used the feature extensively to de-conflict our stake calendar, and to provide the presidency with a compact view of specific event categories so they could plan together.

The current version limits our ability to consolidate around our objectives.
There are techniques for creating a CSV export described in this post and elsewhere on the forum. They're not as straightforward as we might hope, but if it's important to you, it definitely can be done.
michaeldnash wrote:I have provided feedback through the lds.org page, but note there is not a specific category for calendar so the feedback was provided under the "other" category.
A better choice in the Feedback page is to choose "Local Unit Websites" (the umbrella term for calendar, directory, etc.), but your feedback will eventually get to the Calendar team even if you used the "other" category.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
mikefr
New Member
#17

Issues with new LDS Calendar v2.0 and Google Calendar

I really like many of the new changes in the LDS.Org v2.0 Calendar. However, we'd like to access the LDS Stake and Ward calendars from our smart phones and tablets using the Google calendar app rather than using an embedded web browser.

To this end we've been trying to either sync or import the LDS.org calendar for our Stake into a dedicated Google Calendar. We've been trying this for several weeks now and still no joy. We're unable to get Google Calendar to import or sync the calendar from LDS.org v2.0 calendar. I've reviewed the LDS Tech entries on this topic, but didn't find any resolution to either of these issues, other than the new v2.0 version should have resolved most problems. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case for me.

Could you tell me if there may be a different options we can try or if perhaps there is further work is being done to resolve these apparent conflicts or would we be best suited to simply recreate our calendar in Google?

When attempting to import our Ward calendar (.iCal) into Google's Calender I receive:


Import calendar
Processed zero events.
Failed to import events: Unable to process your iCal/CSV file..
Error at line 6133: Expected [VEVENT], read [VCALENDAR]

For the sync option in Google, I receive this message immediately after pasting in the URL address for our Ward calendar into Google's Add calendar by URL:
"Oops, we couldn't load your events, please try again in a few minutes"

Also included the iCal file exported from LDS.org for review.
Thanks for your insights.
📎 0c3cbd05aade44d1bbf89d1c502514c2.zip (27.33 KiB)
aebrown
Community Administrator
#18
mikefr wrote:Could you tell me if there may be a different options we can try or if perhaps there is further work is being done to resolve these apparent conflicts or would we be best suited to simply recreate our calendar in Google?

The problem is with four events, all of which seem to contain text pasted from another source. They each have descriptions that contain line breaks, which are not valid in iCal format, except at the end of fields.

Code: 

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20120108T205142Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20121031
DTEND;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20121101
SUMMARY:HALLOWEEN
UID:000000000000000000000000000000000000003620802@calendarws.lds.org
DESCRIPTION:Halloween is an annual holiday observed on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday All Saints' Day\, but is today largely a secular celebration.  The word Halloween or "All Hallows Eve" is the night before All Hallows Day or All Saints' Day (in the Roman Catholic Church officially the Solemnity of All Saints and also called All Hallows or Hallowmas.  It is a solemn celebration on 1 November in Western Christianity in honour of all the saints\, known and unknown.) 

The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain\, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home while harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks. Their purpose was to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm.
END:VEVENT

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20120108T205143Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20130902
DTEND;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20130903
SUMMARY:LABOR DAY
UID:000000000000000000000000000000000000003620231@calendarws.lds.org
DESCRIPTION:Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 6 in 2010).  The first Labor Day in the United States was observed on September 5\, 1878\, in Boston\, by the Central Labor Union of New York\, the nation's first integrated major trade union. It became a federal holiday in 1894\, when\, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike\, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with the labor movement as a top political priority. 

In U.S. sports\, Labor Day marks the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons. NCAA teams usually play their first games the week before Labor Day\, with the NFL traditionally playing their first game the Thursday following Labor Day.
END:VEVENT

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20120108T205143Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20121122
DTEND;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20121123
SUMMARY:THANKSGIVING
UID:000000000000000000000000000000000000003621493@calendarws.lds.org
DESCRIPTION:Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day\, currently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November\, has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863. Thanksgiving was historically a religious observation to give thanks to God.

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated to give thanks to God for helping the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony survive the brutal winter. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans. The feast consisted of fowl\, venison\, fish\, lobster\, clams\, berries\, fruit\, pumpkin\, and squash. William Bradford's note that\, "besides waterfowl\, there was great store of wild turkeys\, of which they took many\," probably gave rise to the American tradition of turkey at Thanksgiving.
END:VEVENT

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20120108T205143Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20120903
DTEND;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20120904
SUMMARY:LABOR DAY
UID:000000000000000000000000000000000000003620230@calendarws.lds.org
DESCRIPTION:Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 6 in 2010).  The first Labor Day in the United States was observed on September 5\, 1878\, in Boston\, by the Central Labor Union of New York\, the nation's first integrated major trade union. It became a federal holiday in 1894\, when\, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike\, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with the labor movement as a top political priority. 

In U.S. sports\, Labor Day marks the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons. NCAA teams usually play their first games the week before Labor Day\, with the NFL traditionally playing their first game the Thursday following Labor Day.
END:VEVENT
Find those four events in your Calendar, and remove the line breaks from each descriptions. Then you should be able to sync.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
craiggsmith
Senior Member
#19
My wish for an export is also to review and "de-conflict" events. I tried Google and Outlook but only the main location information comes over; I need to see the individual rooms. So I think there still is a need for an export function, or simply another view that lets you see the events in a list format.
Craig
Saint George, UT