Best practice forum (Archived)

Face To Face iCalendar attachment

 
Plamen Vassilev
Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Plamen Vassilev - Thursday, 6 March 2014, 8:15 AM
 

We are not receiving the iCalendar attachment in the email after booking for a session and selecting: Notification Type - Email Notification and iCal Appointment.

I believe it is received as text in the body at the bottom of the email but not as attached file.

Thanks,


Jamie Kramer
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Jamie Kramer - Thursday, 6 March 2014, 10:02 AM
 

I have received reports that the ical shows up in gmail inconsistently. Sometimes it is rendered in a way that the user can easily add it to their google calendar with "add to my calendar" and other times it doesn't.

Plamen, what version did you see this on?

I also wonder to what degree the various mail user agents have trouble with this.

Plamen Vassilev
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Plamen Vassilev - Thursday, 6 March 2014, 10:19 AM
 

Jamie, I see it on version 2.5.9

Susan Sellmeyer
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Susan Sellmeyer - Friday, 25 April 2014, 6:07 AM
 

Does anyone have any updates regarding iCal attachments failing in F2F? The attachments are not working on version 2.5.9 with Outlook.

Thanks,

Susan

Ciaran Irvine (Core Developer)
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Ciaran Irvine (Core Developer) - Sunday, 27 April 2014, 5:18 PM
 

As far as we are aware iCals mostly work, though in general in every version of every email client iCal support can be limited and flaky - usually in completely different ways in Outlook, Gmail, Thunderbird etc.

If you have an example bad iCal file you could post it here to see if there is anything obviously wrong with it.

Susan Sellmeyer
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Susan Sellmeyer - Thursday, 15 May 2014, 7:18 PM
 

Thank-you Ciaran,

The issue is resolved now. This is what was done to resolved the issue:

Setting the trainers email address to "Hide email from everyone"

Setting SMPT to the correct server (email was still being received but iCal attachments were not working)

Upgrading to Totara 2.5.12.1

Thanks,

Susan

 

Ciaran Irvine (Core Developer)
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Ciaran Irvine (Core Developer) - Thursday, 6 March 2014, 1:28 PM
 

That's very strange Plamen, what email client are you using?

Try sending iCals to users with for example gmail accounts and see if their iCal arrives correctly, it may be a client issue because as far as I know most customers are receiving iCals OK.

Plamen Vassilev
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Plamen Vassilev - Thursday, 6 March 2014, 2:09 PM
 

I am using osx Mail 7.2 as well tried by logging to my email form the browser and I see exactly the same content. There is no attachment at all, but instead it looks to me that the iCal is embedded in the body of the email as text.

Christopher Mandel
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Christopher Mandel - Friday, 7 March 2014, 6:28 AM
 

Hi Plamen and Ciaran, 


I am using Gmail, and receive an email with a .ics file attached that tries to open Outlook (which I do not have configured on my computer), but no longer see the Gmail add to calendar option at the top. If I forward the email to someone or even forward it to myself, the email looks like it used to, with the option to add to my Google Calendar. 

Thanks,
Chris

Jamie Kramer
Re: Face To Face iCalendar attachment
by Jamie Kramer - Tuesday, 11 March 2014, 9:19 PM
 

Ok, in regards to Gmail, this is what I have found. In Gmail it all depends on who the "sender" of the F2F email is. The sender depends on a couple factors, most notably users' "email display" setting.

Here is some information I have provided to others:

After some extensive testing, each user's email display setting affects ILT email as well as other email in the system.
 
Basically, as we have confirmed, Gmail refuses to "interpret" ics attachments if your email address is a participant in the event and it was sent from your own email account. How does this affect ILT?
 
If an ILT requires manager approval
If manager has email display set to "hide from everyone"
The session sign up invitation comes from the no-reply address and the managers name.
The event is rendered in Gmail
If manager has email display set to "allow course members"
The session sign up invitation comes from the manager's email address and the managers name
The event is rendered in Gmail
 

If an ILT does not require manager approval

If user has email display set to "hide from everyone"
The session sign up invitation comes from the no-reply address and the user's own name
The event is rendered in Gmail
If user has email display set to "allow..."
The session sign up invitation comes from the user's own email address and the user's own name
The event is NOT rendered in Gmail 
 

 

There is definitely some confusion with who the sender is of email from Totara/Moodle in other cases than F2F.  I am not really in favor of ever "spoofing" users' email addresses as the sender of email, it causes too many email deliverability issues. Perhaps it is ok in a corporate environment where all users have the same email domain and the appropriate email server whitelisting can be set up to allow email from the LMS, but in many other cases I do not think people should want Totara to spoof the users' email address.

In regards to F2F, it seems that if users have email display set to "hide from everyone" then F2F email will come from the email message outputs "no reply" settings. If the "support email" address is set, then that is used in some other places, perhaps even in F2F but I don't remember now since I have tested so many permutations it drove me crazy. The F2F activity "sender address" setting really isn't used other than the event organizer in the actual ical/ics attachment file, and in the instant notifications (I think).