Include calendar name in feed information when subscribing via external cal service

Currently, when you subscribe to a BlackBaud K-12 calendar via Google Calendar on a mobile device, the calendar only displays as "webcal://[some long, unreadable URL]" rather than as its name in the K-12 interface. This should be able to done by changing a single field in the calendar feed text. Google does not let you change the calendar name from within the Google Calendar iOS app, so users of that software are stuck with no way of knowing which calendar feed is which. 

  • Nick Poles
  • May 5 2017
K-12 Core / Calendar
  • Attach files
  • Jeanne Townsend commented
    22 Nov 17:16

    Good idea, and good suggestion @SethBattis! Seems like a reasonable ask for these calendars. My users often get confused about why things are showing up multiple times on their calendars, and then we dig in and find out that they pulled multiple RSS feeds, but couldn't remember which ones or why!

    Attachments Open full size
  • Seth Battis commented
    22 Nov 13:14

    In conversation with support (case #019870907), I was told:

    I spoke with the team[...] but there is no way we can change the calendar name field as you asked. I am sorry but it is not something that we support.
    I understand that this is disappointing, but you can add it as an idea below. Our developers are always looking to enhance the software so it can be added to a future update if you add it there. "

    The problem is that there is no X-WR-CALNAME field in the exported calendar feed. While X-WR-CALNAME is not a part of the iCalendar standard, it is commonly used to indicate the name of the calendar to subscribers.

    To make things easier for the developers, so that there is no ambiguity about what is being asked for:

    1. I propose that all calendar feeds served by Blackbaud should include the X-WR-CALNAME field

    2. The value of the X-WR-CALNAME should be, in its simplest form, the text of the hyperlink that provides the feed (e.g. "My Calendars" or "Assignments" or "Schedule".

    3. There should be a configurable option in Core > Content > Calendars immediately beneath "Allow calendars to be exported as iCal feeds", for Platform Managers to configure a prefix to be prepended to these names (e.g. "myGroton") such that the resulting name could be "myGroton My Calendars" or "myGroton Assignments" or "myGroton Schedule".

    Attachments Open full size

Related ideas