Difficulty managing invitations received

I am having the same issue with Google calendar.

If someone sends me an email which contains an event invitation as a simple .ics attachment, I am able to import it into iCal, but it will only accept them to the local calendars; my Google calendar simply isn't an option in the droplist. Basically this is problem 2.

I also can't drag and drop it explicitly onto the Google calendar in the left pane, either; it gives the "you are not the organizer" error dialog.

Yep, I'm having the same problem using a google caldav account. Can't receive invites in anything but a local calendar. I've tried deleting the local calendar with no success there either. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I have exactly the same problem.

Why can't I choose my invitation to go to my google calendar I have setup in iCal???

I have exactly the same problem.
I would appreciate if anyone could share a solution or work-around to this.

Regards,
equinox

I'm having the same problem and would love to hear of any possible fixes.

Same problem here as well. We're using the Kerio Exchange Server and this problem is driving everyone nuts. What bothers me about this is that these are seemingly simple items. iCal for all intents and purposes appears to be a completely basic program with little to no flexibility or options. For instance why is it not possible to configure the alarms to not only go off at a specific time but also choose which notification sound it uses? Why can't you simply move an event from your local calendar to your networked calendar? Where's the firepower?

Here is the work around. Turn off the option in iCal preferences to automatically retrieve invitations and to do the same in the general preferences ("Add invitations to iCal") in Apple Mail. Then when an invitation comes into Apple Mail, position your windows so that you can at least overlap Apple Mail and iCal and drag the attached .ics file in the mail message to the icon in the calendar list representing the calendar that you want add the invitation. The invitation adds itself to the proper calendar and has full functionality. This is the ONLY way I have found to allow users to choose their desired calendar, which includes server based caldav calendars. Extremely stupid and inane. Apple is so concerned with minimalist methodology that they fanatically focus on the shape of a curve of a widget for visual appeal but leave out basic, basic features that are essential to business users. Until they fix things like that, business users will continue to see iCal as a joke. Apple: this is soooo easy for you to fix, why not fix it? Apple is much better than they used to be about catering to small/medium businesses, but they still have too much focus on individual, unconnected home or design user who's NETWORK needs are very unsophisticated.

I hope this helps. Users seem to get used to this work around after they have used it a few times. It is inelegant and fiddly (at least for an Apple product), but at least there is a work around. I recently tested 10.6 and Apple still hasn't rectified this issue. Sigh! (At least exchange support is MUCH better - small steps are better than nothing.)

Same issue about not being able to have the event go to a CalDAV calendar. Please fix! I have no need for a local calendar and it's a burden to move the event around!

I am struggling with the same problem. Whenever I receive an invitation from an Exchange calendar, it puts it by default in the top local calendar. I cannot move it to my Exchange calendar!
The workaround described by Adam Wunn partly works in the sense that you can drag and drop the .ics file to the Exchange calendar but I cannot accept the invitation. Hence the sender doesn't know whether I am available.
I hope Apple is aware of this bug and resolves it quickly.

Total agreement with previous posters here - I was thrilled to learn of Exchange support in OSX 10.6 (even bragged about it within my Microsoft IT driven employer!) - but this issue renders Calendaring nearly useless if I can't rely on a central and updated exchange calendar. Second, not to be too cranky, but I NEVER send meeting replies to folks who send me a meeting invitations - Outlook allows you to select, Accept, Maybe, Decline, or Accept without sending notification...

*Help us Apple* - we need to be able to accept meetings silently, AND have them fall to our EXCHANGE calendar - not a local one.

I'm another person with this problem who would like to see it addressed.

sorry. posted to the wrong topic

Message was edited by: habersmn

I was having the same problem, and this is what I was told by our Apple support guy:
(I paraphrased some of this)

"iCal by default adds invites to its default calendar. If there are "Home" or "Work" calendars those are the default. The easiest fix for this is to delete those calendars if they contain no data. This will allow events to be placed on the caldav instead of local. Right now if a message is double clicked from mail it goes direct to local calendar. Alternatively if they open ical and then accept the invite from iCal it should go to their caldav account. Either way if it gets put in the wrong calendar they can drag the event to the proper calendar by dragging and dropping on the correct calendar on the left side bar. If you're using 10.6, the drag and drop function no longer is supported, HOWEVER, you can copy the event that's in the incorrect calendar and paste it into your server calendar (ie: from "home" to "jinnscal")."

Once the appointment is in iCal you can right click and choose 'calendar' and select any of your calendars to move the appointment into. You can do this while the appointment is in it's 'grey unaccepted state' or if you have already accepted or declined it. It can be moved to any local or CalDAV calendar. This is the case with iCal Version 4.0.1 (1374).

As far as I can tell the appointment goes into the first calendar in your calendar list by default. You can re-arrange this order by dragging.

I tried when the invite was in its grey state but could not place it in Google CalDAV! Copy and paste works but although you can order your calendars on the left pane of iCal, you CANNOT move the Google CalDAV to first position, nor can you apparently delete ALL of the iCal calendars. The program seems to want to keep one of them! Any thoughts or help from anyone on this issue (I want to be able to accept invites, in one step, to my CalDAV Google calendar while in Mac Mail. Thanks!!