Calendar subscription - iCal format
it would be good if I could get a published calendar in ical format for all my future (and possibly past months) bookings. I should be able to generate a personal calendar url that has a security token that identifies me (and possibly includes options of what I want included for each event).
By subscribing to that calendar my bookings would appear in my calendar on my smartphone, tablet and pc.
For each event the location could be filled in with the site address making it easy to navigate to. As well as having site contact details, arrival/departure times etc all readily available.
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We just put them in our diary which shows across all our Apple devices. You can put as much, or little, information in as you like.
Would you like to explain what you mean by ical format. If you mean that you are given the option of putting an entry into your calendar from your confirmation email. As is the case when I book my car in for a service. Currently we don’t know what tweaks / enhancements might be included with the new booking system.
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Perhaps the new booking system might have something in it that allows you to sync data?
David
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My Club bookings are automatically entered into my Google Calendar, with relevant information, such as address. This appears to be generated from the email booking confirmation. You can then add to that information and print as you require.
Your calendar is then synched across all your devices with Google Calendar installed.
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I know you can put them in your diary yourself and also using ics can add it to a calendar, but none of that is the same as having an ical published calendar sync.
If you cancel a booking it would not get removed from your calendar if you initially added it manually or via a confirmation email ics attachment.
A published ical format calendar would keep all diary's in sync of new and cancelled bookings.
The ical format is a standard for calendar sync recognised by apple, android, pc etc. It is what airbnb and all such services use.
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It may well be useful, but as far as we are concerned, wether it’s worthwhile would depend on what it would cost the club to set up. We currently have 18 bookings for next year and I don’t find it takes a lot of effort to manage them as I do at the moment. So yes if it can be done at minimal cost. No if the reverse.
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We have to remember that CAMC doesn't have a brilliant record of reliable IT systems and there's no point in having something that doesn't work properly.
I wonder, too, how many folk would use it.
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On an aircraft booking system site that I run it took about 2 hours (certainly less than half a day) to create an ical synced calendar for members bookings.
The caravan club website already has a page that lists my bookings (https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/ecommerce/uksites/booking/mybookings), so the only change needed is to create another page the same and then output it in ical/ics format rather than html/text. It would then just need to be called with a token (encrypted) to identify the member for whom to output bookings so the published ical url could be something like:-
https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/ecommerce/uksites/booking/mybookings/?output=ical&token=lkfu987f987
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Sounds like a simple and useful enhancement to me. I have a similar capability on the app for my gym. Make a booking and the app/website offer to allow you to subscribe to a calendar for all your bookings. Doing so generates a link that when followed installs a calendar in your chosen app (cross platform) that has all your booking included. It’s one way - you can’t make changes via the calendar, but reflects changes to bookings made, so you know they are up to date.
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For some AD...not just 'a few'....As SteveL says earlier in this thread...he has 18 bookings to date.
I do agree with CT that this iCal would be an enhancement to the booking system...and whilst some members may prefer other, shall we say 'more traditional' methods...Many of my IT savvy silver surfer friends would certainly use the 'enhancement'...
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I like to think I'm pretty good on using technology and IT and next year we have 14 bookings which is (or hopefully is) getting back to previous years, but I've never felt the need to have them in any device and I hadn't heard of iCAL till this thread. Mrs C puts them on the kitchen calendar but I may have a strange mind (rhetorical) but I can now give you the approximate dates for all of those bookings.
Having said that if there is a need and it can be easily done then perhaps the club will look at it.
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I've been using the calendar on my tablet to record our trips since we retired in 2011.
New tablet bought awhile ago and all info was synced across to new tablet, great.
Not so great that the new tablet now deletes the older info as I add new details.
Thankfully I still had the old tablet. I have now transfered all the info onto my laptop.
I don't trust these systems so will continue to record it on the laptop and do regular back ups.
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