| Online Calendar with RSS | |
Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 9:13 am |
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b2blog |
n00b |
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Joined: 16 Jun 2006 |
Posts: 2 |
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan |
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I posted this to my blog last week. For you Goldmine geeks, I'm on v6.6. If anyone knows if there is a way to add contact info to the calendar records when they become iCal format, I'd appreciate it.
A couple years ago I set up a simple online calendar for our service department to use so salespeople would be able to find out when their customers were getting service calls. Its there, but how many salespeople are going to check it regularly? While discussing this system with a rep, I suddenly had an idea: Make a calendar RSS feed!
Now what we were using doesn't have RSS feeds. Besides, it predated our installation of Goldmine CRM. So I'll generate a schedule in Goldmine, export a 'iCal' file, then use Google Calendar to display it and generate RSS.
Google experiment:
I took an existing '.ics' calendar file from Goldmine, then FTP to a spot on the web. In Google, I added an 'external' calendar...and Google didn't like it. Maybe its a problem with Google, maybe it is a problem with the way Goldmine generates the file. Experiment over.
Plan B: PHPiCalendar:
I've played with PHPiCalendar (PiC for short here) before, so I checked out its current version. Guess what: it does RSS! I made a new spot on the web for PiC and uploaded all the files. Unlike other PHP programs, it doesn't use a database, so no tinkering with mySQL. I did have to figure out how and where to create a 'temp' file for it to use, which took some experimenting. Then I manually FTP'd my '.ics' file and it worked.
Now Goldmine:
Goldmine is actually pretty cool when it comes to calendar functions. I selected what 'users' schedules to publish and what type of events, then put in the FTP information. It sends one iCal file with their combined schedule to the website. Then I set-up a 'server agent' to run the publishing of the file automatically a couple times a day.
What Goldmine doesn't do, however, is add any info to the iCal file about the contact the appointments are linked to, so we have to manually add this to the comments section when an event is scheduled.
RSS feeds:
PiC offers daily, weekly, and monthly feeds. Or you can create a custom feed for a date range. Now the reps and other non-Goldmine users who use an RSS reader will be able to be up-to-date on our service schedule.
Overall I'm very pleased with the way things turned out. I'm testing for a week before rolling out to our folks. |
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Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:05 am |
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DougCastell |
GoldMine Guru |
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Joined: 15 Jun 2006 |
Posts: 1639 |
Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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| TY | |
Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:20 am |
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b2blog |
n00b |
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Joined: 16 Jun 2006 |
Posts: 2 |
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan |
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Doug, looks like he is doing almost the opposite of what I am...pulling calendar info INTO Goldmine. The code is probably over my head, tho. |
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Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 11:09 am |
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DougCastell |
GoldMine Guru |
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Joined: 15 Jun 2006 |
Posts: 1639 |
Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Yeah, it's a bit over mine as well... still cool! |
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Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:01 am |
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DJ |
GoldMine Guru |
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Joined: 29 Jun 2006 |
Posts: 2055 |
Location: Fitchburg, MA, USA |
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You may just want to take at the iCal as Published from GoldMine to the iCal Parser on my website. This will give you an idea as to how I use GoldMine to Publish my Calendars. |
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_________________ DJ Hunt
Phone: (978)342-3333
Email: DJ@DJHunt.US
GoldMine Premium - The Defintive Guide
One-on-One GoldMine Technical Support ( Fee Based )
www.DJHunt.US |
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Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:34 pm |
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Charlatat |
GoldMine Journeyman |
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Joined: 16 Feb 2007 |
Posts: 31 |
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DJ, is this still on your site? |
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