Motivation

The AddThisEvent ('Add to calendar') link which is displayed by default on event pages uses a third party service to process the event information so that it can be added to other calendar programs.

On clicking a link the user is redirected to http://generate.addthisevent.com where the information is served from.

This is not an 'https' connection, even if the request is sent from an OA page on a secure connection.

Personally I don't think a third-party service is suitable for use with an intranet, which by its definition is a private area.

Certainly in our use case we have have sensitive information in events which we wouldn't want to be sending to a third-party, least of all over an insecure connection.

Proposed resolution

Although it lacks functionality, the add to calendar link could be served by a Drupal view which creates an iCal file for the current event.

I open this up to discussion.

Comments

mpotter’s picture

mpotter commented

This is an old issue, but I noticed it never got a response. I agree that using a 3rd party service is not ideal. I'd welcome suggestions on how to improve this. I'm not sure a simple iCal file view would provide the level of integration people are looking for, especially for Outlook and Google calendar, but I'd need to try it.

I'd welcome help on improving this. There certainly needs to at least be an option in the OA Config to disable the "Add to Calendar" button on event pages for sites that have data privacy concerns.

dustin@pi’s picture

dustin@pi commented

I'd welcome suggestions on how to improve this. I'm not sure a simple iCal file view would provide the level of integration people are looking for, especially for Outlook and Google calendar

Outlook works fine with a simple iCal file (assuming you set the headers right), but Google calendar creates a new Calendar for the iCal file ... this is nice for a view but pretty bad for a one off "add to calendar" link. What you want to do is use Google's "add" url ... basically you just link to Google calendar and pass the parameters as query string variables (example: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10488831/link-to-add-to-google-calendar).

For our site we had secure events so we couldn't use AddThisEvent, so we ended up implementing our own buttons/links but we only put in a direct Add to Google Calendar link, and plus an ICS link.

mpotter’s picture

mpotter commented
Status: Active » Fixed

Committed some code to bb966c1 of oa_events to add an Atrium config option to enable AddThisEvent support with a note about their required license for commercial use. As of Atrium 2.613 the "Add to Calendar" button will be DISABLED by default and you'll need to go to admin/openatrium/setting to enable it.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed - issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

jkingsnorth’s picture

jkingsnorth commented

Sounds good, thanks for the fix/implementation mpotter.