Opening calendar attachments on iPad 2

What types of documents are they? Pages? Microsoft Word?

iPad can only open files if appropriate apps are installed, and Microsoft Office is not available for iPad.

iWork '09 is though, including Pages, Keynote and Numbers.

Just as an FYI, we've developed best practices for maintaining calendar consistency in an Exchange/iOS world. Our experience has been if you attach "stuff" to calendar items on mobile devices you are looking for trouble. First the attachments, if they are things like agendas change frequently, leading to the need to send out frequent updates, leading to greater likelihood of error. Second, large attachments can make the iOS device choke. I can't speak to the attachments not opening, but am convinced that using attachments can lead to calendar inconsistency. We've found the best thing to do is to put documents for meetings at a shared location, and not make them part of the appointment.

you will need an ical plugin to read attachments to events.

or you can just copy and paste the doc info into notes which is a best practice executed by meeting schedulers in todays mobile enterprise.

or you can attach the documents to the email, or you can schedule all events from the ipad.

We just had the admins setup a Sharepoint site...one good thing about it is you just change the document on Sharepoint and then refer everyone to that..so you don't need to worry about people relying upon outdated versions of agenda's or their mailbox on the iOS device "choking" during downloads...

I found a semi-solution for this problem. It doesn't allow you to open the attachments through calendar however.

If you adjust your outlook settings to not delete calendar requests, the original email (with attachments) will remain in your inbox and you can access the files through the mail app. I also created a folder that I keep all my meeting requests in it to make them easier to find. If you are the one creating the meeting, just invite yourself so you get the email with the attachments.

It's not a perfect solution, but it works.

It is amazing how people can suggest "best practice" is using dropbox, sharepoint - umm NO. The company I work for have a huge number of conference calls, we stay across the content by attaching relevant documents (minutes from previous meetings written on other ipad apps like QuickAgenda). All Apple need to implement is an option and place filesize limit, can't be that hard.

I don't really like the semi-solution suggested above, mainly because the calendar invitation might have been made some weeks ago and I receive over 100 emails a day.

Just a little irritating

Document transfer through meshed peer to peer networking is the perfect example of a dysfunctional office environment.

Wasted bandwidth disseminating the same 30MB slide Deck file to 50 people through "attachments" when a link to an NAS that is on a proper share point with documentation management policies to ensure everyone is using the most up to date information is how information collaboration is done with efficiency.

It's not a "semi-solution" it's the way that organizations who value documentation integrity, network efficiency, and successful collaboration across different hardware platforms conduct business.

Who wants to download 'hundreds of emails' and calendar invites with attached binaries every day on a cellular connection from exchange servers that could be virtualized, running unoptimized infrastructure giving the ios based mobile devices "terminal checking for mail" syndrome because webmail based exchange authentication gets last priority?

Not me.

What if the documentation changed when the calendar invite and attachment arrived in your inbox, and now it's two weeks later and 5 revisions had been made to the document?

Maybe that's why you have over a hundred emails a day. Everyone pushing revised documents in re: threads that simply say "update" with and the time punched in by the user even thigh email is auto time stamped.

Pitty.

your proposition of documents changing and then being "out of sync" is most likely quite real in certain industries, in mine that is not the case at all. We drive meetings through online technologies (including Webex), but there is always a need for some level of file attachments, I am not talking about 30meg files, that would just be silly. I am talking about situations where you have a calendar invite with people from various different organisations - a NAS, Sharepoint etc often are not the answer, due to user access etc.

The point remains, viewing calendar attachments on an iPAD is for me, a necessity. We are already monitoring the Microsoft Surface, that may well be a viable alternative if Apple does not take such business requirements seriously

I note you are quite technical talking around virtualisation etc, might I recommend you review products from F5 Networks they do some great things for us around enabling performance, speed etc on Sharepoint and Exchange

I don't think Exchange supports it and Apple are sending people off on a goose chase suggesting it can be done.

See : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2503175

I spoke to Apple and their second level suppport took it up with interest.

Their best suggestion so far is to install an iCloud plugin for Outlook so that outlook syncs the calendar with iCloud and then I guess you use an iCloud calendar instead. Of course that will only work while Outlook sits running on your desktop keeping your exchange calendar and iCloud in sync with each other. Not really an enterprise solution.

BTW I have not tested it at all yet so I have no idea if the iCloud sync supports atatachments in appointments either.

Don't you just love it when someone ignores what you ask for and lectures you instead on what (they think!) you need?

I use Outlook on my PC to organise my day by moving emails (with attachments, such as documents that need editing or review and reply) into my outlook calendar as events, so that I definitely put the right amount of time aside for each task. My days are busy and I find this the best way (for me!) to ensure I don't end up with an infinite list of things to do that never get done.

Thus, I would like iCal on my iPad to find the attachment when I want it, from my calendar. Likewise attachments to invites to the many, many meetings I attend.

Please do not respond by telling me that I am inefficient or that my institution needs to change its ways. Please do not tell me to use a Tasks list instead - using my calendar in this way works best for me. Please, if you are from Apple, or have any influence with their developers, simply listen to what this particular customer (who is apparently not alone) wants and if you could provide it to me, that would be much appreciated. After all, even the dreaded Microsoft (dare I say the name?) will allow me to open attachments from within calendar entries - why not Apple? If I can add attachments to Outlook calendar events on my laptop/desktop and iPad (iCal) iOS purports to sync with Exchange accounts, then for heaven's sake, give me full functionality on my iPad. Please!!!

As soon as Microsoft or Exchange are mentioned the notion of "unsupported" comes along with it. I have had many many if not dozends of instances where Apple refuses or plays stupid as soon as Windows, or Microsoft products are involved, which makes it kinda hard to believe that those products are in fact business devices which you're led to believe when you view the one page ads.

The iPhone/iPad is missing key functionality such as calendar attachments, out of office and ActiveSync smart forward/reply.

This idea of a central store for files doesn't work when you are sending invites out to user outside your organisation unless you suggest we make the stores public.

I think Apple are not quite there with making the iPhone a proper business tool, they are slick and good at a lot of things so people seem to moan less. If this was a windows, Android, Blackberry they would be up in arms about the issue but not so with Apple products.

I really hope Apple implement attachments in calendar and smart forward as it is so inefficient to have to download the attachment just to forward it when exchange is more than capable of forwarding on your behalf.

Sohail

Sohail - you absolutely nailed it. I was an original Mac user, got forced by my institution to go towards Windows, finally spat the dummy last year and returned to Mac. I also bought iPad early in its life. Having been a long-time user of Outlook and wanting to keep using it for various reasons, I too am totally frustrated by both the Mac version and the iPad Calendar in terms of business applications.

Apple, I'll avoid SHOUTING (even though I have been so frustrated for so long on this) but please, please fix this - I do not want to carry paper around, and the various "fixes" of downloading and re-emailing documents to oneself or keeping a separate file of meeting documents, etc are hopeless.

Please do not suggest that I switch to Calendar and Mail - I have looked at these several times, believe me, and if they worked for me I would use them in a flash. Outlook works just how I want it to on a Windows machine (ridiculous as it seems, I was running Parallels for a year solely to use the Windows version of Outlook - really clunky and stupid and doesn't work for iPad).

I am a busy person, with lots of meetings and I need the attachment capability that Outlook has in Windows but on my Mac and iPad.