Will the IA calendar have a functional iCal link instead of just a text file download link like it does now? I exclusively rely on the iCal option in the Scoutbook calendar for all of my units and the realtime updates that occur are beyond useful for me, my leaders, my parents, and my scouts. When the new IA calendar becomes the exclusive method on November 2nd, will it have this feature instead of the downloadable text file? Currently the link you copy is just a hyperlink and not a iCal link. This feature is very high on my list and I imagine others and the fact it is missing this close to the Scoutbook calendar closing down is concerning.
If I have missed the iCal option, then my parents and scouts will miss it too and it needs to have its location change for better functionality and visibility.
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At the bottom of the calendar page, it should list all of your calendars. The first icon gives you the url. Does that not work?
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The url listed on that icon is not accepted by subscribe to calendar option on the iPhone. It does not have a .ics extension. This is what IA has for one of my unit’s calendars under that icon (each unit has this type of link): https://api.scouting.org/advancements/events/calendar/8011
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That’s my experience as well. I have found that the URL option is importable by Google calendar on the web so that’s my workaround to get it on iOS for now, but that’s too in depth(there’s some weird steps to get a subscribed google calendar to show on iOS) for a lot of my parents to follow
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It appears that iOS does not accept links that don’t have the file extension like .ics or .vcs unfortunately.
I tried again on macOS and found that it gets an error 406, if that helps anyone troubleshoot
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I did some more digging on what’s wrong with the current link and the iCalendar validator shows it has an error. Could that be related?
You can check it with iCalendar.org. I don’t want to permalink results here as it shows our entire troop calendar, but the error I get is
Problem! Found 1 error
Errors
- Lines not delimited by CRLF sequence near line # 1Reference: RFC 5545 3.1. Content Lines
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The developers tell me they know what the issue is, but they don’t have an ETA
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Thank you for the information update.
This is critical functionality for my units as well. For now, I am continuing to use the scoutbook ics link, but it looks like that wont work in only a few weeks!
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This is a critical function for me as well. For years we have pushed scoutbook for calendar and messaging and now calendar is being taken away. We synced scoutbook to our website.
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It is not being taken away. It is getting updated, like all of Scoutbook. There hasn’t been the best branding, but think of this as Scoutbook calendar 2.0.
…but it is. It’s moved somewhere else. Message on scoutbook says, “… will no longer be available after November 2023.” AND we are losing a function in the process.
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You will have everything you have now. It will just be a different user interface
So to be explicitly clear… the current SB ics link (https://scoutbook.scouting.org/ics/XXXXXX.ics) will work even after the IA calendar cutover?
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@WilliamNelson this is what we don’t have right now. That started the original post. @BrianCarter2 says exactly what we want above in post. We do appreciate your service on the advisory council. This is the function we are losing.
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You will have it prior to the switch
Everything you can do in the existing SB calendar you will be able to do in the new calendar
And more…
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I have a unit with 134 scouts and their families, without the ability to link the calendars and get updates on outlook, iphone, etc. The new calendar is just a waste of time. Parents can’t be expected to go to IA everyday and check calendar events. This is a poor rollout and needs to be scaled back until all issues are resolved.
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My understanding is that all Scoutbook Calendar functionality is gone with the new rollout, but they haven’t been able to get proper links for IA yet. Such a terrible rollout
The URL does not work, errors on outlook as well as iOS and Android devices.
I’ll second, third, or 99th the fact that having an active .ics (iCAL) link in IA just as Scoutbook currently has is not just important, but critical.
Options if programming staff is not able to rectify the issue by November go-live:
- Leave SB Calendar as-is and maintain dual until corrected.
- Make SB Calendar Read-Only with IA back-feeding into SB and allowing us to maintain the iCAL.
Hopefully a solution will become available, but only having 9 working days left before Nov 2nd and a solution is not active for end-users to UAT is a bit scary.
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