I have implemented a (sports field) booking system. I would like to add one feature: when a customer makes a booking I would like to offer him the possibility to get/sync his newly created entry in his own calendar.
One solution what I already found is to create an iCalendar feed for the customer with his bookings. So he can take this feed (basically an URL pointing to a user-specific .ics file) and integrate it into his calendar applications (as most will support the addition of external calendars).
One bottleneck with this solution is that a good amount of customers use Gmail and its calendar. And it may take some time until Gmail refreshes external calendars. So it may take up to few hours until the newly created entry appears in the customers calendar.
Of course there's no such problem when customer is using calendar apps which offer more frequent or on-demand synchronization.
So my question here: what other solutions can you recommend? An export in a file for the newly created event? Or any other technology to sync our bookings with the most widely used calendars? What would be the most usable solution for customers?
If you want to be able to auto update / synchronise the booking by having the user subscribe, then the ics feed is the standard cross application way to do it.
If it is just one booking and is never going to be updated, then you could encourage them to import the ics file to their calendar which usually then appears within seconds.
You can also email them the ics file. It is then not subscribeable as it is NOT a url. How it is handled depends on their email and system setup, but most would offer import into their calendar. (Mine opens in notepad++) ;)
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I subscribed to an internet calendar (the kind with a url ending in .ics), and I noticed that in my calendar clients, future events will update just fine, but past events quickly disappear. Is this standard behavior for internet ical subscriptions? Or is it due to a particular configuration, either on the side of the calendar provider, or on the side of my client?
I didn't see any options in my client for "sync older events" or anything like that, so if it's either of the first two scenarios, are there any programs (ideally on either Android or Windows) that could essentially subscribe to an internet calendar and copy its events onto a different, local calendar, so as to preserve them indefinitely?
After doing some digging, I've determined the following:
There is no standard time window that internet calendars sync events.
That is determined by the provider of the internet calendar, and cannot be changed by a subscriber.
There are no common, universally applicable utilities that automate the copying of events from one calendar to another (in part because, on non-smartphone operating systems, the storage and management of calendars varies wildly by client).
However, Calendar Cloner is a free, open-source program that can be compiled and run on Android, which does automate the copying of events from one calendar to another. It does not support much complexity in terms of rules, but it gets the job done.
The simplest viable alternative for Windows might be to subscribe to the internet calendar in Outlook, then write a VBA macro (perhaps based off this one) to copy events to a new calendar. (That new calendar could be synced to other devices via various plugins that sync Outlook with Google Calendar or CalDAV calendars).
I'm looking for a simple solution for a cooperative project where specimens will be mailed to me, and I would report several measurements back to the sender.
I need the originating site to fill out a form with some basic information (specimen ID, collection dates, shipment tracking #, etc). Then I need to let the site know I received the shipment - via the same form. Then, after some analytics, I need to report 3 numerical values (biomarker levels) back to the site.
Someone recommended REDCap for this project. I know I can do data collection with REDCap (the initial requisition form), but can I also report the values back with REDCap?
It appears I found the solution, by talking to a REDCap expert. In case someone is interested, here's basic outline:
Create two forms: one for requisiton, another one for reporting data back to user.
Invite REDCap users to my project and give them read-only rights to the second form.
Put other users in Data Access Groups, so they only can see the requisitions (and results) from their own group.
This might work, but I decided to not go this way. In REDCap, an user has all rights by default, and I would have to limit them. In my application there is too much potential for data breach due to mistake in assigning rights and DAGs.
Another solution would be to use REDCap with an email alert module enabled.
Configure a project with two forms:
One for the client to enter the information you need from them, and make that form anonymous - no user account needed, and collect an email address from them (to return results). For the example below let's call this form [request].
The second form will be for you to enter the biomarker levels and whatever else you need to. This form only needs to be viewable and editable by you. Let's call this [results].
Then, if you have the email alerts module enabled (and you'll have to speak with your REDCap administrators about that) you can configure it to automatically email someone with information contained in the record, and to set the logic by which the email is sent.
This solution and the one you were recommended are the same with respect to form design, but they differ in the way the results are shared with the requestor. This solution does not require the user to have an account to access the results. I personally think the other solution (with user roles and DAGs) is the better solution.
I am the lead developer on a project for a 'difficult' client. I will try not to bore anybody with the details but here is my issue I am facing.
Our client has a team of QA testers that are managing their project through JIRA. We currently have a fixed bid contract with them to supply them the software they requested at a fixed price and any additional features or pre-existing issues will be covered under time and materials.
They have taken the time to raise every defect within the system unrelated to the current fixed bid process and have tried to get them resolved for free and each time we have come to an agreement through JIRA comments that this is a preexisting issue/new feature and you will have to pay for it after the project has been completed which they have agreed to.
The issue is this client has a history of forgetting conversations and email trains that don't benefit them putting a lot of wasted time on our side digging up proof we agreed to handle a situation a specific way.
The project will not complete for several more weeks but as soon as it does I will likely be removed from the JIRA project by their administrator and they will begin asking again for us to complete all this additional work at no cost and I will lose access to the comments on each issue explaining to them it will not be free and them agreeing.
I am currently exporting each ticket after it closes but this is wasting about 30-40 minutes a day and would be interested if there is a tool out there that can export an entire JIRA project to a readable text format that I can run once near the project end.
TL:DR; Is there a tool that will allow me to export an entire JIRA project in a text readable format before I lose access to the project and all information included within that project
Export as CSV doesn't include comments and is limited to 1000 issues be default.
I have used the jira-python library to retrieve all issues, all fields, all comments from a single project. Missed the attachments though.
But what you have is a people problem more than a technical problem. Good luck!
Large exports (e.g. many hundreds of issues) are not recommended.
To change the number of issues that are exported, change the value of the tempMax parameter in the URL.
To export search results to Microsoft Excel:
Choose Issues > Search for Issues.
Refine your search, as described in Searching for Issues, then choose the Export menu.
Choose one of the following from the dropdown menu:
'Excel (All fields)'— this will create a spreadsheet column for every issue field (excluding comments).
Note: This will only show the custom fields that are available for all of the issues in the search results. For example, if a field is only available for one project and multiple projects are in the search results then that field will not appear in the Excel document. The same goes for fields that are only available for certain issue types.
'Excel (Current fields)' — this will create a spreadsheet column for the issue fields that are currently displayed in your Issue Navigator.
A file called - .xls will be created. Edit this file using Microsoft Excel and/or save it as required.
I'm trying to search some guidelines to create my first app for a price list. If I search on Google I find only ready system but I'd like to make something customized. My needs are to import a 3-4000 lines excel sheet for products with different measures and give to customers the possibility to make a quotation with their personal discount and place an order our make only a quotation for logged users. Instead for not logged user to see only product without prices. Then I don't know if it's better to make contents downloadable or to load all contents inside the app. I think it's better to download contents, so I can update prices directly without make them download each time an app update. Then a possibility to show some pop-up with products news, sometimes in a month. I'm yet practice with magento, WordPress and sql queries. I think The best for me is to find some kind of cms, for phone app, if they exist. Cross platform maybe the best. To understand something like wish or geek. I wait for your replies. Thank you guys!
I'm building a simple scheduling application for a client. It allows teachers to create a calendar of assignments for their students. I'd like to offer the ability for a student to add ALL assignments to their calendar at one time. Say there were 20 assignments over a 4 week period. This functionality would allow the student to download a single file, or follow a certain feed, to add all 20 assignments to their calendar at one time.
In my head this would be a single iCal file, but I'm not sure if iCal works that way. Alternately, each course /course/basket-weaving-101_51/ would have an RSS feed /course/basket-weaving-101_51/cal/ that could be followed.
Does anyone have experience with this, or could offer guidance?
Yes, one feed program that accepts parameters via the url could be used to offer a subscribeable calendar feed at whatever level of detail you wish. I say subscribeable as that, at a student level ... /student_id_or_name?feed=ics would offer the students the most convenient solution. They could subscribe once and then all the courses assignments that they are signed up for all courses over time could automatically appear as their calendar app refreshes the feed.
A single assignment could also offer a feed of the one 'event'. But that should probably be imported into their main calendar, rather than subscribing!
Note subscribing is different to importing - your help instructions need to make that clear as it is up to the user what they do with the feed.
Import(or add to calendar) is a once-off and will not update with new events/assignments.
Subscribing as a separate calendar I find much preferable as most calendar apps will let one check and uncheck the calendars as you need them. I have mykids timetables subscribed (and public holidays etc) but that's a very busy view, so often I just untick them
for a cleaner view.
You need to get familiar with the treatment of ical by the different calendar clients (outlook, webmail) before you can decide how best to target them. In general, they have two modes for treating ical: "accept an invitation" and "subscribe to an internet calendar".
The big advantage of "Accept an invitation" is that your events go into the user's calendar, and generate reminders and so on as if the user had created the event. The disadvantage is that you need to send your invitations one "event" at a time by email, and, particularly in Outlook, they may need to be viewed as mail before they appear in the calendar. If you're sending out 20 or more assignments, this may feel like spam to the recipient.
"Subscribe to an internet calendar" is a little misleading in that an ical feed is not a feed. You put the "whole calendar" on a website, and the client poles the website. Outlook and webmail clients are generally happy to display these calendars, but "importing" the events into the user's own calendar is a bit clunky. Gmail and webmail display the info on the same grid by default. Outlook displays a new grid for each calendar.
Modifications are a bit more complex for the subscription scenario. You will likely want to regenerate the whole calendar for affected students, whereas in the invitation scenario you just send one mail with the changed event.
Even so, if you have a database with courses, students and enrolments, you could do a nice little app that generates an ical per student, names it with their student number, and whacks it in a calendars folder. The student subscribes once to http://myuniversity.com/calendars/12345.ical, and each semester all their assignments are automatically in their web calendar.
Be careful with the subscription link. If tens of thousands of students subscribe to (pole) a dynamically generated calendar, you are going to have a lot of needless processing, and quite likely a performance headache. You want to be generating static files, then let your webserver negotiate with the client whether they need to be resent.