Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

Dan_Stevens_
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

We have an event that will allow the registrant to select a specific date and time for which to meet with us.  We'd like to include these values within the calendar reminder that gets sent in the confirmation email.  Is it possible to include dynamic dates/times in a calendar file?

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15 REPLIES 15
Josh_Hill13
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

No.

Different webinars will require different programs anyway, so you should set the respective ICS in each PRogram as a  local token.

Dan_Stevens_
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

Thanks for confirming.  These aren't webinars but rather options to meet our sales executives during an in-person event.

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

Dan, I have a dynamic ICS file generator based on query params.  A robust single-event ICS file is still ~800K including both full field names and their values, so the URL is usable, albeit ugly (but of course you'd hide it with a pretty link).  Something to think  about.  DM me if you want to hear more.

Shashank_Sharma
Level 2

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

Sanford Whiteman​ - We're also trying to do something similar. Basically, we are giving option on our webinar registration form for people to select different session dates. So, looking to include the calendar file with the session date they selected on the reg form. We're looking to scale our webinars, so the ability to create dynamic calendar file will be really helpful. Can you please guide me on how to generate dynamic calendar file to be added in the confirmation email?

Thanks,

Shashank Sharma

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

Check out these blog posts on Agical: http://blog.teknkl.com/tag/agical/

Trinity_Levens3
Level 3

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

Hey Sanford!  Hope you're doing well! 

I'm using the Agical ICS generator, so far so good.  I'm working on a large webinar series where we kickoff a live webinar 12Noon, Jan 17, globally to Singapore, UK, US, and need a calendar button for each time zone.   Yes I could use a bunch of calendar tokens locally in Marketo, but Agical gives me a specific URL that I can use which may work better for the program overall. 

I'm confused with Zulu/UTC time zones and trying to figure that all out for the ICS links like the example you have:

(dtstart=2018-01-18T15:00:00-04:00&dtend=2018-01-18T16:00:00-04:00)

Maybe I'm overthinking this but is there an easier way to figure out or a good converter site?   Or do you have an actual Agical link builder that I'm overlooking?  

Thanks!!

Trinity

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

There isn't an official builder (think a user once said he'd contribute one, but it hasn't made it to production). But I slapped this together today and it should help:

     Agical :: Date Range Builder

Coupla screenshots:

pastedImage_4.pngpastedImage_6.png

Click the "Set in current time zone..." button and datetimes you choose are assumed to be in your local timezone. (Then they get converted to UTC/Z for the generated URL, but you don't need to worry about that, just copy and paste.)

This simple builder doesn't support timezones other than UTC and your machine's current tz.  Juggling timezones is much harder than most people think (as I've mentioned a lot in the context of Velocity scripts, where people constantly mess it up).  In browsers, you can't do accurate timezone stuff without a 3rd-party library -- the de facto standard being moment.js -- as past and future boundaries for non-local timezones are just not available. It would be possible to use moment.js to create a great tz-aware builder, I just haven't had the time.

Trinity_Levens3
Level 3

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

Just slapped together huh!  Much more than I can do Sandy   Thanks so much!!!  TZ's are a pain in the !$$--don't even want to go the Velocity route for this project.  

This is lovely, and would be even lovelier if I could access the URL since our network security is so tight.   

Gerard Donnelly -hey can you access the link Sanford shared for the Agical date/range builder?  Tried in Incognito....no dice, but you're on a different server so maybe you'll have better luck  

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Creating a calendar file with dynamic dates/times

Wow, blocking CodePen is no way to help employees learn! 

Can you try it via https://cdpn.figureone.com/figureone/debug/831dc03692753f03d9dd0b1392d70936 ?