Which Shared Calendar Package Would You Use?

Bob McCown asks: "I manage several websites, both internally and externally accessible. Many of them have event calendars or schedulers. We'd like the ability to have these calendars shared, with the ability to modify them by both a web interface, and at the application level (via Sunbird, an Outlook plugin, or something similar). The web side of our system uses an Enterprise Linux distribution that runs Apache. Ideally, the web side would be written in PHP to minimize time to integrate with the rest of the sites. What's out there that can do this? What have you used before?"

Comments

Where everyone could see it, of course.

[Bromskloss]

Writing on the surface of the Moon.

Thoughts on Zimbra, Sunbird, Exchange clones, etc.

[overbored]

Zimbra is a nice collaboration server with (web-based) email and calendaring. It's written in Java and has AJAX. I'm not sure how important it is to you to modify the calendar at the application level, but I'm sure you can at least export a (read-only) iCal feed from Zimbra.

Sunbird's goal is to support reading and writing of iCal via CalDAV, but Sunbird is very immature and highly unstable.

I haven't used these, but with Exchange server clones like Open-Xchange, you should be able to use Outlook. Not sure what Web interfaces they export, or what Web-based Exchange calendaring clients exist.

Of course, make sure you didn't dismiss Google Calendar prematurely. This should suffice if you don't need too many bells/whistles, and it relieves you of many burdens. If you really want an application to use, you can use CalGoo, but this (very early-in-development) program has always been excrutiatingly slow for me (and I tried their latest beta draft).

Hive

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a _very_ large software studio, and here we use The Borg Hive(TM).

Wrong question.

[mrthoughtful]

The question you should be asking is - which shared calendar protocol should we choose?
Then you don't need to worry about choosing a package, as long as it can manage the correct protocol. The decision will depend upon your environment, budget and beliefs; but as a general rule, going for an open standard isn't such a bad idea. RFC 2445 (aka iCalendar - based on the earlier vCalendar standard) should be a safe bet. You will be able to engineer solutions - not just for desktops, but also for some handhelds.

RFC 2445 is implemented/supported by a large number of products, including 30 Boxes, Apple's iCal application, Darwin Calendar Server, Contactizer and iPod, Chandler, Drupal with its event module, Citadel, Facebook, FirstClass, Google Calendar, Jalios JCMS, KOrganizer, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Entourage, Mozilla Calendar (including Mozilla Sunbird), Mulberry, Novell Evolution, Novell GroupWise, Nuvvo, Simple Groupware, Upcoming.org, Windows Calendar, Webical, Zimbra Collaboration Suite, and Microsoft Outlook (see below). Notably missing from this list is the Palm Desktop and Palm (PDA). Blackberry, Internet edition, does not recognize iCalendar, although in concert with the Blackberry Server, iCalendar invites can be sent and received.

Our company chose this route for a similar issue, using a WebDav server as a backend.

So.. unless you have wild environment, budget or beliefs - there isn't much choice!

Re:Wrong question.

[metamatic]

Just a note:

You should be aware that Lotus Notes' support for iCalendar is very incomplete.

(Opinions mine, not IBM's.)

below -- iCalendar support on Outlook

[mrthoughtful]

Microsoft Outlook supports iCalendar, though there are some known problems with its support (many of which can be fixed by installing patches); in particular, Outlook 2000 users cannot process iCalendar files created by Outlook 2002 without patching because Outlook 2000 has an error in its iCalendar implementation. Users of Outlook must configure their mail program to use open Internet standards instead of Microsoft's proprietary specifications. Users of Microsoft Outlook 2003 can install RemoteCalendars. in order to subscribe, delete and reload a generic iCalendar through the web.

Outlook 2007 is now fully compatible with iCalendar. Users can add calendars under Account Options and set how often they should be updated. Individual calendars are shown as a list of checkboxes so you can view or hide a calendar without unsubscribing and they can be viewed as separate tabs or overlaid into a single calendar.

iCalendar support includes support for VTODO, VJOURNAL, etc. and Outlook 2007 still cannot import these objects.

Windows Calendar, found in the newly released Windows Vista also supports iCalendar.

None

[arivanov]

I do not see a point in a shared calendar if it does not tie up straight into project management and work time allocation. None of the packages on the market at the moment does.

As a result any shared calendar deployment usually descends into meetingitus: a well known corporate debilitating disease where people spend more time in meetings about meetings about meetings instead of doing work. In addition to that if you do not have meetings booked your time is considered a fair game and booking time "to do work" is considered very bad manners.

Now, if your calendar ties up straight into your into the project manager view of how much resource was spent on which part of the project as well as salary, overtime and performance management the shared calendar becomes a completely different ball game. Unfortunately I have yet to see such integration in any calendar package.

Re:None

[mmurphy000]

I do not see a point in a shared calendar if it does not tie up straight into project management and work time allocation.

I'll get to business use of shared calendars later. Bear in mind that there are many other scenarios, outside of businesses, where shared calendars can be useful, such as:

• Municipalities publishing their board meeting schedules plus other events of note
• Sports leagues (e.g., Little League(R) baseball) publishing their league schedules
• Churches (and synagogues and mosques and...) publishing their scheduled services, including the extra services held in conjunction with religious holidays

None of those require "project management and work time allocation". Particularly since the OP didn't say these were corporate shared calendars, it's not safe for you to assume that's the only place they'd be used.

As a result any shared calendar deployment usually descends into meetingitus: a well known corporate debilitating disease where people spend more time in meetings about meetings about meetings instead of doing work.

Agreed, but not all businesses are created equal. I suspect there's some sort of heuristic where the odds of "meetingitus" increases with the square of the number of employees per office, or some such. In other words, all else being equal, smaller businesses don't necessarily over-meeting themselves (though PHBs can increase meeting frequency in businesses of any size, etc.). While having a shared calendar that tied into project management would be nice, I wouldn't "throw out the baby with the bath water" and eschew shared calendars outright without corporate-wide project management tools.

Re:None

[Overzeetop]

Your examples are of publishing - the OP was concerned about mutual shared scheduling, a very different beast.

As for the meetingitus, each person who works in management or higher staff positions understands that people/projects/items get allocated time on a sliding scale. You keep that heirarchy in mind when you get a meeting request and use that to determine when your schedule is "free" and when you just need to get work done. That is true for non-business appointments, too.

I do agree that publishing can have benefits, as can calendar sharing (for schedulers and assistants), but usually the result is just messy. It only takes one or two tech-control freaks in management to tie you up without any hope of getting work done.

Re:None

[cenonce]

As much as you can have meetings about meetings, that is not a solution a calendar program (whether it includes project and time management) can deal with. That is a corporate management problem... software that nobody is trained on and knows how to use is not going to help that, no matter how programmable and slick you can integrate it.

I have used expensive all-in-one packages for lawyers like this one and this one, and frankly, they are bloatware with 50 or 60 features you don't need and don't work very well, 5 or 10 features you need and don't work very well, and 5 or 10 features you need and they don't have at all.

I have used WebEx's Web Office, which worked well with Outlook, except it wouldn't automatically sync and you have to pay 60, 70, 80 bucks a month for the service.

I currently run a two person office. We use Mac OS X and Google calendar. Google calendar works well, but it lacks features such as I can't sync my "shared" calendar with my Treo 650, you have to edit the calendar using the web, not iCal (which is really iCal's fault, not Google calendar's), and I can't import my Mac Address Book into Google's contacts. Of course, Address book has its own problems since I can share my address book using .Mac, but my assistant can't change it.

I am excited about the features of Leopard, but I have given up on a total package solution that works well and integrates with other software easily, even in OS X where iSync "should" let software sync easily. You just have to be happy with a decent calendar program, and right now, for me, that is Google Calendar.

Frankly, I know old-time lawyers who have been using a paper system incorporating two day planners, one they take with them and one they leave in the office. The come back from a meeting or court, and they drop the DayPlanner on their secretary's desk, the secretary syncs the books, and gives it back to them. These guys get more done in a day than most people do in three days, because they don't futz around trying to get software to work... or spend time posting on Slashdot either! :)

If slashdot was a cooking forum...

[xtracto]

How can I prepare a boiled egg?

I am afraid you are asking the wrong question, you should not prepare a boiled egg, you should not EAT eggs beacuse they are bad for cholesterol. You'd better eat chicken, chicken is good for your health. But be aware of eating Free (as in wild) chicken and not those non-free chicken produced by Bachocco or any other vil corporation.

PhpiCalendar

[sticky_charris]

The open source solution is phpicalendar. It truly is the poor man's calendaring system. It runs on php (duh) and apache no problem. It requires a small amount of configuration (mostly getting the permissions correct) and it provides a web interface (whihch looks nice and allows searching/themeing/filters, but doesn't allow direct editing) and allows sunbird / thunderbird+lightening / outlook2007 to connect in without problems. Our small business uses it for around 20 users daily and it works reliably. I would suggest really understanding its workings to ensure the security is correctly set up. http://phpicalendar.net/

Re:below -- iCalendar support on Outlook

[BerntB]

Sounds like a good choice -- Microsoft is well known for promoting open standards and publishing protocols. You know your product won't stop working in subtle ways with other products in the next version.

Oh, by the way, I have a contract to sell the Golden Gate bridge for scrap? You could be interested... I promise a good price.

Me too!

[Skapare]

Hey, can I have /.'ers look for free software for me, for free, so I don't have to do my own googling?

Re:Me too!

[Builder]

Ok wiseass - give me an example of a true shared calendar application with clients that isn't called Exchange or Notes.

All I want is read and write access to one or more calendars, the ability to selectively
1. Share with everyone (read - write)
2. Share with everyone (read only)
3. Selectively share read-write with a number of other users
4. Share only availability information

If you can find this _just_ by googling, you're a better man than me.

I guess what is really being asked here is 'Could people using products please recommend one, because most of what is other there is pure immature bullshit, half implemented at best'.

Re:Me too!

[dfsixstring]

I am no developer nor am I a frequent visitor to /. but I do use a Linux solution to Exchange and I am very satisfied with it. I was forced to run Exchange for years and after my second "melt-down" I threw up my hands and said "No More!". I found a product called the "insight server" by a company I had never heard of called Bynari. I Googled 'till I was sick with no luck and someone on the Fedora (God rest her soul) users' group pointed me to this company - www.bynari.net. I purchased it and I now use it corporately (IMAP) and on a small scale ISP side (POP3). I put it on a Dell PowerEdge 2850 with plenty of RAM and HD space along with full phone support for under $7K - that included the price of the server BTW. I couldn't be happier with it. I have been running it corporately for about 3 years and on my ISP side for about 1.5 years. Took me less than 30 minutes to install and have completely up and running too.

Re:Thoughts on Zimbra, Sunbird, Exchange clones, e

[mabinogi]

vi or Vim has a calendar? Yes

Right question, probably wrong answer

[Kunta Kinte]

The question you should be asking is - which shared calendar protocol should we choose?

Good call on the question remark, I'd disagree with your answer.

The problem is that iCalendar isn't calendar 'line' or 'sharing protocol, it's more of a 'serialization/persistance' protocol. iCalendar does not define any connection or query methods. Things like that have to be defined if there is to be any interop. We've actually written tools around the iCalendar/WebDAV combo, they work great for smaller teams, but you run into problems very quickly has the team grows or the calendar's use increases.

As things settle down, CalDAV, a.k.a RFC 4791 will probably become more of an entrenched calendar sharing standard. I've been working on a CalDAV Outlook plugin, Open Connector for quite some time. CalDAV is supported by Apple Calendaring products, Mozill thunderbird, Oracle calendaring server and a bunch of other open-source and commercial packages.

Foldera

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

Maybe look into Foldera
http://www.foldera.com/

It is supposedly going to be released soon. It includes a calendar but has way more than that and sounds pretty cool from what I've read.

Calendar page: http://www.foldera.com/calendar.htm

Almost exactly my problem

[Net0ps]

We've been looking for something similar: a calendaring solution that allows for us to collaborate on scheduling site visits with our internal groups. We've settled on Zimbra so far, but it's only OK for what we need: the calendar has no ability to publish an unauthenticated web page for other internal groups to see, and the notebook/documentation features are extremely weak. It's functional, but we're having to build a wiki to do a bunch of other stuff that it just won't do for us, and only use the calendaring features in it.

I've been Googling (and freshmeat-ing, and SourceForge-ing, and all manner of other searches) and only the web services seem to do this properly. We'd *LOVE* to use Google Calendar for this, because it's exactly what we're looking for, but like all of the other similar services, it's purely predicated on the "you give us your data and we'll keep it nice and safe for you" model. We *can't* do that with this data, so that lets out all of the best implementations. For internally-managed solutions, everyone seems to defer to Exchange these days (or try to re-implement Exchange, as Zimbra and openXchange do), and that just...sucks. Here's hoping Apple's Calendar Server will bring something new and different to the fray.

phpiCalendar isn't bad, but be aware that, like a lot of calendars, it makes no visual distinction between an event that spans four days (like a business trip) and an event that recurs daily on four days (like a daily meeting).

You might try Plans if you're willing to do some CSS hacking to make it look a little nicer--it's closer to the mark, at least.

Outlook+Exchange

[theonetruekeebler]

I use Outlook at work and it's fantastic for one simple reason: They screwed up the Daylight Saving Time shift so badly that for three weeks this spring I could skip meetings, show up late for meetings and keep undesirable bozos out of meetings, and if anybody asked what happened, all I had to do was mutter "Outlook" under my breath and all was forgiven.

I expect this will happen again in the fall. For all its silly, annoying, single-threaded, poorly implemented crap, if I can spend six weeks out of the year dodging meetings and actually getting work done, I'll forgive it every other flaw.

Shared calendar and synced calendar

[btempleton]

Yes, I want a shared and roamable calendar so I can maintain a variety of calendars -- one that's private for me but which I can add to from any machine, and some that I can share with others -- both read/write and read only, and of course the ability to import easily events from public calendars.

But I also want to be able to sync my 'combined' calendar to my PDA or cell phone's calendar too. Is there anything (on Linux, not Windows) that can do this for me?

Personal example: I want my own private calendar for myself which only I add events to. Then I want a "household" calendar which anybody in the house can add events to, such as "we're going to a party on Saturday" and these events appear to me, and sync to my PDA. Then I may want to publish free/busy on the merged calendar to others who want to schedule me in meetings etc.