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!

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.

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/

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'.

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.

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.