iCal and Groupwise?

There was another thread that discussed going from GW to iCal.

If you use Mail.app, and connect to GroupWise via IMAP (vs POP), you'll see a calendar folder. You can open any of those messages, they are your calendar appointments) and then double click on the attached .ics file to add it to iCal.

Unfortunately, going from iCal to GW is next to impossible. So, if you enter an appointment on your Palm or BlackBerry and sync it with your Mac, you can forget about it getting into GW. It's quicker, easier and faste to re-type the event.

The problem, in this case, isn't with Apple.

GroupWise does not conform to the .ics calendaring standard, instead using some type of variant. No matter how I have tried to import my iCal data, GroupWise (both v.6 and v.7) ignore the timezone settings, or the lack of timezone setting, and then shift the event either 7 or 8 hours, depending on daylight savings being in effect or not in effect.

Having studied the .ics specification to attempt to form a resolution to this problem, the only thing I've come up with is writing an Apple script or Automator action to go through an exported .ics file and then change the times by +8 or +7 hours prior to importing into GroupWise.

Aside from being a pain in the rear to do this, it also requires using the Windows version of the GroupWise client, since you can't import (actually "retrieve" a file from either the Web client or the cross-platform Java client. In my case, I'm able to log in to Citrix to use the Windows version, so I don't have to get to an actual XP machine. I'm sure this solution isn't readily available to most.

From what my colleagues tell me, syncing the GroupWise calendar with a Palm on a Windows machine must be done with a third-party application called IntelliSync. It's not much fun on the Windows side, but it guess it's technically better.

Syncing between GroupWise and BlackBerry appears to require the purchase and installation of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, something we're not going to do here. So apparently, nobody with a BlackBerry can sync their calendars.

That's a colossal bummer, because this has been a hot issue for many users for years. I write Apple at least once a year to request a fix or this, but if you want something done, you should write them, too [use the iCal feedback mechanism at the Apple website]. Only if enough of us point out the need would Apple wish to consider a fix, which is fair enough, right?

It doesn't matter whether, as Marc says, the problem is "with Apple." What matters is that it gets fixed, and the incentive is higher for Apple to fix than Novell. Novell doesn't need the fix as much. You see, if Apple users can't work with the Novell software, their employer's more likely to say, "Then stop using the Apple" than, "Oh, in that case, we'll change the entire enterprise-wide solution for something that works for you, too".

From Novell's point of view, if you have encountered this problem, you're already a locked-in customer, so, tough luck. You're not going to affect our sales one bit.





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Marc, I should add that I'm interested in your idea of using an AppleScript to fix that timezone issue, because I'm interested generally in getting iCal working at the university where I work. It uses GroupWise. Most here use PCs, except the luckiest [or the cleverest 😉 right?].

I love iCal. I find myself entering most appts. twice, though, because our GroupWise system won't accept an iCal appt. and my iCal won't accept a GroupWise appt.

For me, it might be less trouble to drop an iCal .ics file on an AppleScript than to retype, because I am retyping at least 2 a day, sometimes as many as 10 a day. I already use the heck out of TextExpander to minimize repetitive typing, but, sheesh, we're talking about programs that claim to support a common standard, the .ics file format, right?

Yeah, I keep trying to wrap my head around the script solution and everytime I think I've got it I come up with another barrier. Then I run out of time to work on it and it sits for a month.

Essentially, I've written a script that takes a tab-delimited file from the Palm Desktop and converts it to .ics. That involves converting a time format of May 10, 2006 to be 20060510. So I think I've got the time manipulation routines basically figured out.

What is difficult for me, it dealing with all the potential combinations of the time shifting (check to see if it is currently daylight savings, will it be daylight savings when this event takes place) and the day shifting (what if the event ends at 9 p.m. and I shift it across days and then shift it back?

My temporary solution has been to use .mac to host my calendar, but I can only get away with that since we're not required to have our calendars in GroupWise.

I was also dragging my feet a bit hoping for better calendaring in GW 7 which we recently deployed, but that didn't turn out to be the case.

I'm open (begging?) for other people's thoughts before I invest a ton of time in this since I've got deadlines up the wazoo.