Ways to use the calendar token?

[Eric_Salamon1]

Now here are the following ways I have used the calendar token in the past:

• Added the image html so that it would hyperlink to an image
• Added the html so that the text will look the way I want it to

But now I have a strange issue. My company just started to use the modules so there is an image that needs to link to the same link as below, and wouldn't you know it the link is a calendar token. How would I reference the token information  without duplicating it is there some kind of <a href> I could use so that I could anchor the link to the one that populates the token?

[Anonymous]

I'd like to see the Marketo calendar token:

• Allow for the use of other tokens in the "Subject" and "Location" fields like it does in the "Description" field.
• Pull the date and time from the "Main Event" entry, a date token, or allow for a reference that's relative to a date token – like in the "wait" flow step.
• Include a reminder field that can be set and that has a reasonable default value, or allow for a reference that's relative to a date token – like in the "wait" flow step.

Agical.io looks useful, but it still requires the user to piece together and then properly encode the string, which is not great if we want to create a program that Marketing can just clone, populate tokens for (without encoding anything), and then launch.

For anyone looking to generate calendar links, Add Event (www.addevent.com) is one tool. The great thing about it is that you can create an event and it will generate a button for your site as well as Outlook, AppleCal, Google, Yahoo and Outlook.com links. All the calendar entries you create can be viewed and managed in one place. If you send out a link to a calendar that's incorrect, you can update it. Anyone can use it – the steps for creating an event are simple. Just fill out some fields. It does all the work for you. Also, there's an API.

The pricing is pretty reasonable too.

I'd really love to see improvements in Marketo though. That would be really helpful to us.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Agical.io looks useful, but it still requires the user to piece together and then properly encode the string, which is not great if we want to create a program that Marketing can just clone, populate tokens for (without encoding anything), and then launch.

Hey man, that's only because you didn't build a UI for it.

[Anonymous]

Good work though, on Agical.io. At least that gives people an option.

[Anonymous]

I'll get right on that.

We recently leveraged the API to read a {{my.capacity}} token we created in our event programs to close an event when the number of registrants reached that capacity. I guess the next thing will be to generate calendar links on the fly using the API and a program ID.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Or store the event info in an (editable) Velocity dictionary object token, then output the URL using another (no-touch) token.

my.vtl_eventinfo

#set( $event = {
  "title" : "Group chat session",
  "date" : "2017-03-15",
  "time" : "05:00 EST",
  "reminder" : "5m"
} )

my.vtl_eventlink

<a href="http://calendaring.example.com/?subject=${event.title}&startDate=${event.date} [... etc...]">Add to calendar</a>

[Anonymous]

That's clever, but I want to keep anyone from having to tinker with any code, no matter how simple. Also, I'd like to remove as much redundancy as possible.

I'm just going to use Marketo's existing calendar tokens for now and accept the redundancy. Later on I might look at using the API. That way, I'll be able to add calendar links anywhere I like so long as I know the program ID, and if I have to make any changes to dates, they'll be applied everywhere the moment the program is updated.

And no one in Marketing will ever to look at anything that looks remotely like code.

Thanks for the tips though, Sanford! I hadn't realized you could separate the tokens in that way. I thought each token was self-contained.

[SanfordWhiteman]

I'm just going to use Marketo's existing calendar tokens for now and accept the redundancy. Later on I might look at using the API. That way, I'll be able to add calendar links anywhere I like so long as I know the program ID, and if I have to make any changes to dates, they'll be applied everywhere the moment the program is updated.

FYI, calendar tokens themselves don't actually work w/the API last time I looked. But you can use regular text tokens (maybe that's what you meant).

Thanks for the tips though, Sanford! I hadn't realized you could separate the tokens in that way. I thought each token was self-contained.

Yep, Velocity context is shared across tokens (in insertion order).  I often add a dictionary object to the header in the template, then read it in the email.

[Anonymous]

Thanks again, Sanford!

Yes. To be clear, we're not going to use the Marketo calendar tokens at all when we go the API route. We're going to build an outside application that, when provided with the program ID, pulls specific tokens from the program using the API and uses them to generate and serve the user the ICS file/link dynamically.

Bonus there is that we should be able to provide a bunch of different formats just by appending a parameter, similar to what www.AddEvent.com does, to help the application serve the right file/link. Also, we should be able to use it on our site, social media, et cetera.

Not sure if the date and time information can be pulled from the "main event" entry in the program's calendar. That would be ideal, but, if not, some additional tokens should be fine. At least they'll all be in one place.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Also, so you avoid the DoS vulnerability, why not use an interstitial LP as your "service"? The LP will have access to all the {{my.tokens}} and it can immediately build and redirect people to the calendar URL.

[Anonymous]

Yeah. Maybe. That does sound easier.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Sounds pretty DoS-y though... you're going to call the Programs API multiple times on every hit (program-level data and token data)?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Thread should be moved to Products​ methinks. ("Central" being for non-Marketo-specific marketing topics, as confusing as that is.)

You can't have two different types of special formatting for the same calendar token, so you'd need two tokens.  Or you could use Agical.io and open your mind to much more.

[Eric_Salamon1]

Ya that is a bit confusing, given that this is a Marketing tool that is commonly used and I am trying to find out ways to adapt the code into difficult situations.

Also there needs to be a work around that you can reference an a href tag that appears lower on the page. I can't imagine that everyone goes to a third party to make it work each time.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Ya that is a bit confusing, given that this is a Marketing tool that is commonly used and I am trying to find out ways to adapt the code into difficult situations.

Peer-to-peer support is under Products... that's just the way it is (or is supposed to be)!  Otherwise half- or unanswered questions proliferate and the confusion gets worse.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Also there needs to be a work around that you can reference an a href tag that appears lower on the page. I can't imagine that everyone goes to a third party to make it work each time.

This part isn't Marketo's fault: static HTML has no facility for applying the href of one tag to another tag. (You can reference one <A> from another <A> in the same document, but that is very different.)

[Eric_Salamon1]

Thanks!