aC forum: adding Calendaring

Post #24 by [user deleted]

[user deleted] — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:48:11 CDT

google calendar is best calendering system period, i wish it would import stuff from aC better.

Post #23 by [user deleted]

[user deleted] — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 03:37:56 CST

For me, a simple, graphic calendar would be great. Should show all current 'events' on the right date. Ability to add/remove 'appointments'. Need to be able to give users permission to edit a shared calendar. Ideally, each has their own calendar (which is already really there, just not graphically displayed) plus the shared 'company' or 'group' appointment calendar.

I tried to use Sunbird and it loads the activecollab ics file just fine. Biggest problem is that I have users on Win98 and Sunbird no longer supports same. Also, it is perhaps slight overkill for what we need, though not as bulky as it probably will be one day. I might try 30Boxes, but I would rather have it all on my own site.

Anyhow, aC is cool, I have been experimenting and following for some time.

Post #22 by Ilija Studen

Ilija Studen — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:44:04 CST

Benefit is in data aggregation. Instead of querying 12 tables to see what is due for a specific date you query just the index table and than go into other tables to get details (if required). At the same time you can see who is assignee, is this item completed or not, what is the parent project etc.

You'll see how this will turn out ;)

Post #21 by viceroy321

viceroy321 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:52:51 CST

@Ilja: I'm not too fond of the idea with plain english. as aC cannot possibly parse every english sentence, you have to define keywords like "give me all objects" and "related to" and "and", and so i see no obvious benefit of this method versus using XML or any other standard.

perhaps i misunderstood, and you were speaking metaphorically....

Post #20 by [user deleted]

[user deleted] — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:01:52 CST

Ditto! :)

Post #19 by sajseven

sajseven — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 13:47:06 CST

I'd enjoy seeing this feature in the near future! +1

Post #18 by romdg

romdg — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:38:25 CDT

I agree that matching basecamp in its use of calendar to present upcoming milestones would be the way to go. As for marking events on the calendar that may be an add on module later, maybe labelled 'Reminders'.

Project reminders could simply allow for an upcoming event to be detailed with datetime, title, people to remind, and whether to notify them via email. The reminders could be displayed along with milestones in a calendar view.
My 2 cents,
Cheers.

Post #17 by Ilija Studen

Ilija Studen — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:41:57 CDT

New system will be able to pull out all objects that are related to a specific date and a specific person from all the plugins. Crazy thing is that activeCollab will not know anything about internal structure of plugins so the only way for iCal, RSS or any other technology to work is to make the rules so activeCollab can "speak" with plugins in plain English:

* give me all objects that are related with 2006-12-11 and Peter
* give me all objects that are considered active and upcoming
* give me last 50 most important log entries so I can server them to user through global RSS

Defining set of this interfaces will not be easy, but most of them are obvious and new ones can be added (they you need to wait for a bit while they get adopted).

If we manage to "force" developers to implement this interfaces (plugins developed and supported by aC directly will) then there will be no problem to make any kind of plugin that plays nice with other plugins.

Post #16 by [user deleted]

[user deleted] — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 16:47:30 CDT

IMHO the most usable kind of calendar in a collaborative environment is a workgroup calendar such as good old phpgroupware, despite its poor UI.

Unfortunately, there are only a few examples of such calendaring out there (all of them ancient monster groupware apps with LDAP and everything).

How it works? E.g. one user sets a meeting for John, Lisa and Paul, and only them will see the dates in their personal calendars, and have e-mail reminders set for that. This is not a everybody or anyone in the project meeting -- I'm requesting the time of *someone specific*.

Basecamp's milestones aren't suitable for that, nor iCal is. And in my experience with Basecamp, milestones are nearly always ignored by clients if we rely on Basecamp only. If they were person-to-person commitments, that would not happen.

Furthermore, keeping tracks of milestones and a calendar in parallel is a pain, and aC could help us keep track of all three: company-level, project-level dates (as milestones) and user-level dates in one calendar view. Preferrably while keeping it iCal compatible.

I know it's a different beast from what aC does now, and I hope it won't get bloated with an overload of features in the near term -- but that would make it an absolute killer I think.

Just my rants on one point where I think Basecamp is broken yet wildly overrated, and aC could fix them. A plugin, nonetheless, would be great anyway.

Post #15 by Ilija Studen

Ilija Studen — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:20:57 CDT

There is a plan for building it but it will have to wait.