iCal Patch - How Does it Work?

[JeffPGMT]

Currently running CE 656 and may move to 659, hosted on a Mac mini server.

We'd like to be able to have appointment information pushed to the Google Calendar for staff in the field to access via iPhone.

What initiates calendar information in SugarCRM to go to Google Calendar?

Perhaps I've missed it in this link SugarForge: iCal Patch: Project Info, that appears to assume that I would know more than I do.

Any link(s) that describe how the iCal patch functions & what is required for Google Calendar are appreciated.

[jmertic]

This is already a part of Sugar 6.5

SugarCRM Developer Blog » Blog Archive » New in Sugar 6.5 – iCal support for Calendar

[JeffPGMT]

Sorry John, I should have included that link too. Does SugarCRM 6.5 not require the iCal Patch or do we use these together?

What I was searching for was something along the lines of; pseudo description... "As of SugarCRM 6.5 we've included Ray Gauss II's options and now by simply entering the URL's generated in the user's Advanced tab into Google Calendar's <what'cha'macall'it?> a users calendar will be pushed from SugarCRM to their Google Calendar for read [only,write]? ...end pseudo description.

Further, the page is somewhat confusing if you don't know what the elements are. For example put the URL on you[r] client of of choice, does that mean copy the URL generated here in the User/Edit/Advanced tab, Calendar Options into the client of choice? When I went here I wasn't sure if I was supposed to edit these or copy & paste into the client. I suppose that if I knew the answer it would seem obvious, but with all the offerings on the Google-Net to integrate SugarCRM & Google I was sure that it wouldn't be this easy. I also assumed that it would require that somehow there would be intervals that cause one's calendar to refresh in Google or other features & controls for things like sharing calendars?

[jmertic]

The iCal Patch is included with SugarCRM, so you don't need it seperately. All documentation for using the functionality should be in the User's Guide.

As for your specific questions...

- Yes, access in read-only ( same as before )
- Copy the URL specified in that page to the iCal client of your choice as the location of the calendar; it will prompt you for a username and password. Updates are done automatically at the intervals that you specify in your client.

[JeffPGMT]

Thanks for the additional information, I'm still not finding any requirements and I'm getting an error in Google calendar.

On my Google calendar, side bar, Other calendars, Add by URL, paste in my iCal URL from SugarCRM

http://localhost/sugardev656/ical_se...il=megmail.com
dialog, title: Settings Error, msg: Count not fetch the url., Ok

I was suspect as to how Google calender would fetch the calendar and perhaps I'm missing a prerequisite for enacting a push to Google rather than trying to pull? If this isn't available, perhaps I can find a small web service, that will push cal info to Google calendar. https://developers.google.com/google-apps/calendar/

[jmertic]

http://localhost/sugardev656/ical_se...il=megmail.com
dialog, title: Settings Error, msg: Count not fetch the url., Ok

This is because the URL you have is not routeable to Google, as it's your local machine.

[JeffPGMT]

Okay, I've added an instance visible from the interweb and I'm trying to setup the iCal on a Mac desktop

I enter the url into the browser (chrome) and an ics file is downloaded and if clicked I'm prompted to add the calendar to iCal (static ics file)

So, I would think that the link I'm pasting into the browser is working and should work in iCal, however I'm prompted to enter a username & password. I assume that it's the SugarCRM user Id and key as password, so I enter those and I'm again prompted as it it failed.

I tried entering the key=mykey&user_name=mysugarCElogin and when prompted enter those again when prompted for login name & password.

Are there any diagnostics?

[JeffPGMT]

At one point iCal became unresponsive so I force-quit iCal on the Mac desktop and then restarted and re-entered the URL and viola it was working!

I also was able to get iCal working in Outlook Internet Calendar & Google, but vCal never responded in either.

A bit odd that Google Calendar allowed me to add the vCal subscription, which means at some level it was getting a handshake; because if a purposefully malformed URL was entered the calendar subscription would not be added.

[outlookhater]

Thanks for the additional information, I'm still not finding any requirements and I'm getting an error in Google calendar.

On my Google calendar, side bar, Other calendars, Add by URL, paste in my iCal URL from SugarCRM

http://localhost/sugardev656/ical_se...il=megmail.com
dialog, title: Settings Error, msg: Count not fetch the url., Ok

I was suspect as to how Google calender would fetch the calendar and perhaps I'm missing a prerequisite for enacting a push to Google rather than trying to pull? If this isn't available, perhaps I can find a small web service, that will push cal info to Google calendar. https://developers.google.com/google-apps/calendar/

I think I may have had a similar problem to yours. In my case I want to sync my SugarCRM calendar with my Google calendar--except in my case I manage my calendar with Thunderbird w/Lightning calendar Add-on on a Windows 7 PC, (rather than iCalendar on a Mac.) I got the same outcome you did, a request for a username and password that won't go away no matter what username or password you enter (SugarCRM user, SugarCRM Admin, Google, etc.)

The problem I discovered is that the "iCal integration URL" listed in my SugarCRM CE 6.5.9 IS WRONG!!! Like what you posted, mine also ends with "...&email=<SugarCRM user email address>.com like this:

http://YOURSERVER/sugar/ical_server....email=%MYEMAIL


Well, it should actually be formatted to end with "...&user_name=<SugarCRM username>" as specified here:

http://YOURSERVER/sugar/ical_server....me=%MYUSERNAME

After trying in vain for hours, I came across this recent blog post spelling the whole thing out here:

SugarCRM Developer Blog » Blog Archive » New in Sugar 6.5 – iCal support for Calendar

Reformatting my SugarCRM calendar iCal address worked immediately once I tried subscribing to it in Google via Firefox, and also in Thunderbird/Lightning.

In your Google calendar:
1. click the drop down menu on "Other calendars" (on the left below your existing calendar(s))
2. select "Add by URL"
3. in the URL text box enter your reformatted SugarCRM calendar iCal URL (ending with "&user_name=<SugarCRM username>")
4. click "Add Calendar"
5. Done. No username/password request to deal with whatsoever

I suppose there's a similar procedure for subscribing to your SugarCRM calendar in iCalendar on your Mac. Maybe you could share it with other poor souls with the same problem who might happen to stumble upon this message thread.

Good luck. Hopefully you still have some hair left you haven't pulled out yet!

[JeffPGMT]

I think we both could agree that a hint as to how & where to diagnose would be welcome; I don't like tools that have no handles. As noted, I found for all three, that iCal works well, but wasn't able to get vCal working in OL or gCal.

I did see & tried replacing email with user_name=me, but that was during the failure period. I would think that because I started that session with iCal on the Mac desktop, that it somehow locked my server Sugar instance, but I did a restart of Apache which didn't cure, but honestly, my testing isolation & control of process was not well documented. I was in shotgun mode, trying everything & anything, which is a bad practice for an admin.

So, it's not "wrong" to use email=myemail@myco.com, it's a choice.

Also as noted, I have added two subscriptions in iCal, identical except that one uses 404 - Not Found... (not the actual port used), the router resolves this to port 80.

Further, the instance is using an alias service Managed DNS | Outsourced DNS | Anycast DNS and odd port works, so those are not suspects if you're using these and having problems.

iCal - choose on the menu, Calendar, Subscription, enter the URL, give it a Name, if it connects, it will add it under the Calendars button, no password was needed for my two successes in iCal on Mac as well the default email= worked.

Google Calendar - I found that if successful, the calendar name shows the SugarCRM user_full_name followed by (SugarCRM), e.g. "Don Juan (SugarCRM)", however if the connection is accepted in Google, in other words it was able to reach the URL, not receiving any calendar events is not an error in gCal, it will leave the URL (http://...) as the Name of the Calendar and most likely will not return any events, and I assume that no further events will be retrieved; so if the user full name and (SugarCRM) moniker appear that's a sign of a full & viable connection.

Lastly, this is unverified, but suspect, which is to be sure that the email address you're setting up calendar for has only one instance in your SugarCRM. For example, I'd used contact@myco.com as a group user (no login to SugarCRM) "Office Admins" email address being a bucket account at our mail host, and also as my first attempt setting up the user Admin's calendar, which may have confused ical_server.php, returning more than one user Id to query calendar with? Anyway, reduce your suspects and don't do it.