Using a group calendar via ical from caldav server

Hi

It might be possible to access the group calendar from ical? However the way you access the group calendar is via a web page. Launch your favorite browser, key in the correct url - you should be prompted to authenticate - and you should be looking at the group calendar.

Hope this helps, Tony

Hi

I could be hopelessly wrong in which case someone will post and tell me so and give you the answer to your post. Now up to Date is what we are currently using although we are beginning to test iCal server to see if it meets our needs. At the moment we get the same results as you.

Tony

I'm usually a little too shy to answer others' questions, but I'll give this one a shot. iCal server is pathetically under documented (thanks, Apple.), so I reckon I ought to share what I think I've figured out!

I'm not sure where you're entering your info, so bear with me if this is what you're doing:

1. Open preferences in iCal.
2. Go to the Accounts pane.
3. Click the plus in the bottom left.
4. Enter description and your user name and password (obviously user should be part of group in question)
5. Open the "Server Options" triangle and enter the URL you mention. (You're missing a closing "/" in your URL. Perhaps that matters?)
6. Click add.
7. In the left column in the main iCal window, under the "CALENDARS" section, you should now see a "WORKSHOP" section.

Now, I think that one of the biggest confusions with iCal server that I've noticed on these forums is that folks think you're only gaining access to the group's single shared calendar that's accessible through the wiki. But the really cool thing about iCal server is that it's much bigger than that - you're actually gaining access to a whole "area" in which you can create as many group calendars as you'd like. Anyone in the group who adds the group calendars through the preferences as above will have read/write access to them. You should realize, though, that none of the additional ones you make will be visible through the wiki - you can only see the one group calendar there, which frankly we found to be so error-riddled and difficult to use that we turned it off. Everyone just uses iCal rather than the web calendar.

As a side bonus, users can have their own set of calendars too. You're supposed to be able to share them (delegate access), but I can't figure that out. Just go through the preference process above to add another account with a URL ending with "/principals/users/username/". Killer.

I hope this is along the lines of what you're trying to do and somewhat helpful...

maybe it needs the trailing slash.

setting up the account in ical should use this syntax in the server settings: http://mydomain.com:8008/principals/groups/staff/

it should work.

Glad to hear it's working now.

For each account that you add, you should get a section in that left list with it's own reveal/hide triangle. I thought that the name that appears in all caps next to the triangle was just the group or user name, so I assumed yours would say "WORKSHOP," but I just looked again though, and realized I was wrong. The account description that you enter in the preferences is in fact what shows up there.

As for the "calendar" calendar, that's the default first calendar. Not sure what relationship it has, if any, to the wiki calendar. But you can rename it and/or start making as many others as you like.

Good luck and congrats!

Wow! I am so glad to find this! I was told by Apple's OS X Server phone support that it was not possible to gain read-write access to group calendars in iCal, and that it all had to be done through the Wiki, which for some reason hasn't been working correctly on my system. I can't wait to get into work tomorrow and try this out!

Now I just have to think carefully about how to set up all of my calendars. Due to the very poor documentation, I'm not really sure what is possible with iCal in terms of scheduling with resources, integration with users' calendars, etc. Knowing that this group editing is possible, though, I think I should be able to at least move our current setup (with two users editing a whole passel of calendars using .Mac and others just downloading) to iCal Server and allow one group to have read-write access and then everyone else to just download the calendars. Then hopefully I can figure out how to get resources working, and perhaps I can get iCal to automatically notice room conflicts and whatnot.

Oh, iCal Server is young again!

Greg

Management of Resources and Locations is handled by the Directory.app tool in the Utilities folder. This provides a "friendly" interface to the directory where that information is stored. Using Directory.app you can setup resources and locations and assign calendar delegates to each. Note that you can only assign one delegate in Directory.app but that delegate can be a regular directory group that you can then assign individuals or other groups to effectively allow multiple people to manage the resource or location. You can also setup the resource or location to auto-accept invites - with that on any invite will be accepted if there is no existing conflict, otherwise they will be declined - all without the need for human intervention.

"I was told by Apple's OS X Server phone support that it was not possible to gain read-write access to group calendars in iCal,"

That is patently ridiculous. When users have figured out how to accomplish what phone support has not, it makes me very wary of calling phone support.

I've yet to call, and have been able to find all of my answers either here or by watching the lynda.com videos.

Who knew you had to have DNS 100% perfect before hitting the Save button the first time, or it screwed the pooch royally? Ugh.

This appears straight forward, but I'm having difficulty. After setting up a resource in Directory, and making it reservable with auto-accept invitations it does not allow me to invite in iCal. I get this error:
Access to "event" in "calendar" in account "server" is not permitted.

The server responded:
"HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden"
to operation CalDAVScheduleEventQueueableOperation.

Are their other set-up matters I need to attend to? All other calendering features using the server work just fine.

I have encountered this same problem. I believe that I can add events directly to the resource/location calendar without a problem, but when I try to create an event on a regular calendar and list it as using that location, I get the error about Event Queueable Operations.

I am not using this server as an e-mail server, and don't want invites to be sent out via e-mail. Does that have anything to do with this?

Greg

Did you try stopping/restarting the calendar server to see if that made a difference?

What does the server's error.log show for the scheduling operation that fails in iCal?