Totara Learn Open Discussions

iCal Support in Legacy Seminar Notifications

Welcome to this forum!

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to check—does the legacy seminar notification system in Totara 18 support iCal (.ics) attachments for calendar invites?
Or is this functionality only available with the new seminar notification system?

Thanks in advance!

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Hi Bhagyashri

I can confirm that the calendar information will be embedded in the email sent by legacy notifications.

if you look at the email source you should see BEGIN VCALENDAR followed by calendar info.

If you open the email your calendar application should open.

regards

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I received the calendar invite on Gmail, but it didn’t show up in Outlook. Is this a known limitation or something Outlook doesn’t support?

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Also, I wanted to check - is there a maximum number of session times that can be added under a single ILT session in Totara? Would appreciate any insights.

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Hi Bhagyashri

I don't think there is a limit to the number of session times but the more you have the harder it is to manage and read them.

Regards'

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Is it possible for multiple iCal to be included in 1 email that has multiple days?

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Hi Bhagyashri

The email should open in your calendar app as it should have the calendar information embedded that is recognised by different email clients including Outlook.

Was the email a seminar confirmation notification and were you able to open it in text editor to see if it had VCALENDAR content . There are a few compatibility problems with Outlook and ics content but it should still be recognised and calendar app opened.

Regards

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The notification was for a seminar booking confirmation. We could see the VCALENDAR details in the text editor, and the invite worked fine in Gmail. However, when we triggered the same notification to Outlook, we received the email but no calendar invite was included.

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It sounds like the calendar information is there in the email but not able to be interpreted by Outlook .

There are some incompatibilities with ical and some versions of Outlook which are outside the control of Totara - are you able to raise a support ticket with a copy of the email included

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Hi Craig,

Do we know which versions of outlook have these inconsistencies with ical? Also will multiple email notification be sent for sessions having any additional sessions?

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Hi Pushpak

I don't know exactly as the incompatibilities vary between versions and are around multi day events not being supported.

The new Microsoft Outlook version, often called "Outlook (New)", has issues with importing .ics files, specifically when double-clicking them. While the older "Classic" Outlook handled .ics imports seamlessly, the new version requires a multi-step process or may not import at all

There is a global seminar setting Send multiple confirmation emails for multi-date events. that may help in Outlook if using legacy notifications

If there is more than one event date on a single day then each session will generate an email. One session spanning over multiple days will generate only one email.

Regards

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