ICS calendar token: expected behavior or not?

[Jamie-Carey]

Can anyone from Marketo Product team answer as to whether program tokens should work in all fields in an ICS calendar token?

The current behavior I am observing is that tokens will only work in the "description" field and will not populate in the subject which is frustrating since it forces you to edit this token every time instead of being able to use another token like you can in the description field.

Use case:

We want to be able to populate the subject of the ICS calendar token with another program token such as {{my.webinar name}}.

Documentation says (Release Notes: March 2013 - Marketo Docs - Product Docs)

"Create a calendar file as a My Token to be used in your event confirmation and reminder emails.  This integrated calendar file (e.g. .ics file) will render all tokens, including My Tokens and the {{member.webinar URL}} token."

I did open a case, and Support suggested I create an Idea to have it work the way I would like, but I am still unsure as to whether this is a bug or by design.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Tokens aren't expected to work in the Subject.  (I'm not on the product team, but this is well-understood behavior. I don't think it's a bug but a feature limitation.)

[Josh_Hill13]

This is correct. You may only drop in the tokens where the token icon is in the main Description. I believe there's an idea that is on the roadmap to allow this function.

[Jamie-Carey]

It should be documented if it's expected behavior since current documentation suggests that it should work.

Josh, do you have a link to that Idea? I was unable to find anything in my search for this.

[Jamie-Carey]

I would like to see more thorough documentation since Sanford is right about a general "well understood behavior" that one just has to know instead of relying on the documentation that is out there.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Note the ICS file must end up with a URL-safe and filesystem-safe (on both WIndows and Mac) name.  This could not be guaranteed if any token value were allowed (IIRC, the ICAL Subject appears in the name in Marketo's current implementation). 

Of course, it could be sanitized, but this could end up with something very different from what you intended.  This may be one of the reasons that a single-line textbox is offered instead (though even there you can enter unsupported characters).

[Dan_Stevens_]

I too was unaware of this limitation.  It's common knowledge that tokens can't be used within tokens, but I thought the calendar token was an exception.  Furthermore, it's often promoted that you can essentially build a fully functional EVENTS program template and repurpose it for any event just by changing the token values.  I guess that also includes manually defining those fields - that would ideally be defined by the other program-level tokens - within the calendar token.  Thanks for raising this.

[Jamie-Carey]

I'd really like to hear from someone on the Product team as to whether this is intended behavior or not since the document implies it's not intended.

[hena_wells · Accepted solution]

hey Jamie Carey​,

Unfortunately Jamie, My/other tokens currently works only in the Description field within the ICS Calendar token. Its a great idea though to expand it to other fields within this token.

I agree the documentation is not clear. We'll take care of that. Thanks for bringing it up.

Aj

[Jamie-Carey]

Hey Arjun,

Thanks for answering the question. I appreciate you updating the documentation. Will this be improved so that tokens can be used in the subject field?