Letting two users share one synced iCal Calendar

Hi all,

I'm looking for a way to share a single iCal calendar between two users, giving both users the ability to make changes to the calendar. Is this possible with Apple's iCal?

As an example, say I'd like to create a calendar for a trip itnerary. I'm in New York and my host ("Sara") is in San Francisco. I open my iCal, select the "Itinerary" calendar and enter a few events into it. Then, Sara opens her iCal and it automatically loads the "Itinerary" calendar, showing the events I've entered. Knowing San Francisco better than I do, she decides to alter my "Explore Chinatown" entry by extending the hours. The next time I open my iCal, I see the changes Sara made in the "Itinerary" calendar.

I'm sure this has probably been asked before, but even though I searched for it I couldn't find information answering this question. If you can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!
-Meitar

Mac OS X (10.4.3) iCal Version 2.0.3

Posted on Dec 27, 2005 5:26 PM

31 replies

Dec 31, 2005 9:40 AM in response to Ken Twydell

The other user does not need a .mac account. The
whole point is that they are syncing to the one (ie
your) account.

Will this not require me to give my .Mac username and password to the other user? If I sync my Calendars with .Mac, the only way to give another user access to these calendars (not including the WebDAV publish/subscribe method) is to give them my .Mac access credentials as well, isn't it? That's not an acceptable solution at all because then they'd have access to all my other .Mac info, like Keychains! I already use .Mac syncing to sync my own calendars across multiple macs, but the point here is to let someone else sync them (both read them and write to them) as well.

If there's a way to do this where one user is using .Mac and the other is not using proper authentication, then I'm unaware of that method and would love to hear more about it. Otherwise, it's not a solution because the second user is pretending to be the first.

Thanks again for any help you can provide!

Jan 1, 2006 8:31 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

sorry I see your point.

How about a separate free trial .mac account (I think that they are still availlable) for the duration of the planning?

Jan 2, 2006 11:15 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

I have hoped now for quite some time that this possibility would be included with every new upgrade of iCal.
I actually just purchased a family .Mac account hoping that that would allow to do so, but it does look like I wasted my money not needing the other features of the family account...

Seems I just have to keep hoping...

Best regards, Peter

smokenaxs

Level 1

105 points

Jan 4, 2006 5:42 PM in response to Jerryb

Jerry, Sorry about the delay. The .mac solution is actually simple, (in that I share the calendars home and work between to locations and within the family)

make sure your sync settings are set to sync the calendars
1. Create the calendar you want on computer 'A'
2. publish it (auto publish the changes)
3. sync computer 'A' to .mac (depending upon how often you want to be aware of the correct version, set your settings accordingly)
4. sync computer 'B' to .mac

calendar should now be on 'B' computer. Set to publish and you are set

Simple cause I am not worried about any .mac info being viewed by anyone else.
Hope that is what you meant.

Smokenaxs, I'm interested in the .Mac solution. How
about filling me in!

G4 iMac,1.25 iBook, G4 Tower Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Feb 1, 2006 1:15 AM in response to P.A. Kluytenaar

Any more solutions is the upgrade going to address this
I would love to have my calender accessed and potentially changable by my secretary without her being able to acces the rest of my .mac

Feb 1, 2006 8:44 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

<<make sure your sync settings are set to sync the calendars
1. Create the calendar you want on computer 'A'
2. publish it (auto publish the changes)
3. sync computer 'A' to .mac (depending upon how often you want to be aware of the correct version, set your settings accordingly)
4. sync computer 'B' to .mac

calendar should now be on 'B' computer. Set to publish and you are set>>

Are you confusing the terms publish and sync?

As I understand it you can 'publish' any selected calender within ical by selecting publish from the calender drop down menu. This means that it will be available for viewing only by anyone online.

You 'sync' the whole ical database (ie all of the calenders) with .mac by using the Sync drop down menu of .mac preferences (on 10.4). This can be set to automatically, every hour, every day, every week ot manually.
You can then sync with .mac online from any other mac (or another user within the original computer) and the data for .mac and any other synced computers will be identical and any changes from any of the synced computers will be distibuted as and when syncing occurs.

Unfortunately all of the isync data is available to all of the synced computers.
Not a problem for me as I don't get out much............

Feb 1, 2006 9:34 AM in response to Ken Twydell

<<make sure your sync settings are set to sync the
calendars
1. Create the calendar you want on computer 'A'
2. publish it (auto publish the changes)
3. sync computer 'A' to .mac (depending upon how
often you want to be aware of the correct version,
set your settings accordingly)
4. sync computer 'B' to .mac

calendar should now be on 'B' computer. Set to
publish and you are set>>

Are you confusing the terms publish and sync?

As I understand it you can 'publish' any selected
calender within ical by selecting publish from the
calender drop down menu. This means that it will be
available for viewing only by anyone online.

You 'sync' the whole ical database (ie all of the
calenders) with .mac by using the Sync drop down menu
of .mac preferences (on 10.4). This can be set to
automatically, every hour, every day, every week ot
manually.
You can then sync with .mac online from any other mac
(or another user within the original computer) and
the data for .mac and any other synced computers will
be identical and any changes from any of the synced
computers will be distibuted as and when syncing
occurs.

Unfortunately all of the isync data is available to
all of the synced computers.
Not a problem for me as I don't get out
much............

The question was how to not have all isync data available to others, but just allow editing of the particular calander...

Best regards, Peter

Feb 1, 2006 10:34 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

<<The question was how to not have all isync data available to others, but just allow editing of the particular calander...>>

I do realise that.

I was just trying to correct the posting from smokenaxs which could have been misleading

Feb 7, 2006 5:03 PM in response to Ken Twydell

Okay so I read the thread and am completely confused. I published a calendar. I'd like to update it. However I do not have my mac at the moment. How would I do this? I do have access to other people's macs but I am loathe to share my account information with them. How do I use another computer to update a published calendar in ical that was published on a different computer to the one I'm going to use?

Feb 8, 2006 2:51 AM in response to Ken Twydell

The only solution I see is to have the family mac account and have I calender account which can be accessed by anyone with the password to change to their hearts content but they will not have access to my emails etc on the other account

Feb 8, 2006 9:46 AM in response to Neale Watson

Still, really, not really making sense. Is there no way for me to update my published calendar from any other computer or on my .mac account. What I'd like to do is update my published calendar from another computer or online via my .mac account. Is this an impossibility? I don't want a family .mac account - I'm single and the cat doesn't type.

Feb 8, 2006 2:40 PM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

This functionality is exactly what I'm looking for. I can't seem to find anything, though. Seems like a basic need for most people, especially those who have secretarial support.

tobor68

Level 1

29 points

Feb 9, 2006 1:36 PM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

check out www.icalx.com for setting up calenders if you don't have a .mac account.

cheers

Feb 10, 2006 1:36 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

<<Still, really, not really making sense. Is there no way for me to update my published calendar from any other computer or on my .mac account. What I'd like to do is update my published calendar from another computer or online via my .mac account. Is this an impossibility? I don't want a family .mac account - I'm single and the cat doesn't type.>>

This is not quite what the original post was about. However the first part of what you want should be no problem if the 'any other computer' is a mac. Simply go to the .mac preference and log that particular computer into your .mac account. You can then sync ical using isync.

You can set isync to sync just the calenders if you don't want to share bookmarks and keychain stuff and you could then erase the .mac login info of the 'other computer' if you want privacy. Only problem is that all of your calenders sync.

I don't know if your calender can be accessed and altered online. Anyone?

I also don't know if it can be done with the 'any other computer' being a windows machine - possibly running entourage? or is there an alternative calender program that could sync via .mac?

Feb 10, 2006 8:56 AM in response to Ken Twydell

Totally helped! Thanks. The cat is now thankfull as it doesn't have to learn to type.

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Letting two users share one synced iCal Calendar