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— Update: no longer Exchange based, now iCalendar format —

Just to let everyone here know, I’m currently working on an interface that takes ticket information based on due-dates and ports them over to a shared Exchange calendar. A slightly modified version can be made available that you could run against your own default calendar, too.

1st draft is working quite well, and I still need to flesh out a few details.

Essentially, it will create an all-day calendar event with an 8-hour reminder (will need to add code so this accommodates weekends). Basically - whoever is assigned the ticket will get a reminder as they will be placed on the schedule of the appt.

So, if the ticket is not in a ‘closed’ status, it will populate the calendar with an entry.

Prior to populating the calendar, the script will clear all calendar entries that have 'Ticket: ’ in the subject (configurable) to prevent duplicate entries.

Since this is Exchange, the following is assumed:

The assigned to email address is in the Exchange system, and can therefore resolve to a named recipient.

Requirements:

Obviously, Exchange.

Right now, it requires Outlook to be running on the box where the script runs. I need to work on this part so it merely requires running with the Exchange SDK, but again, this is first revision.

Check the attachment for a basic sneak-preview.

I’m thinking about also add in IT services dates - sometimes it’s nice to see them in a calendar format.

I think that I will work on getting this into some other format that will allow you to attach to it through your email client, rather than plugging into Exchange directly (for other folks who have something other than Exchange). However, this could be really handy for those that synchronize their mobile devices.

Just wanted to get everyone excited, that’s all. :slight_smile:

— EDIT —

Here’s a link to the final script that actually exports the ticket info to an iCalendar (.ics) format. Compatible with Outlook, etc.:

http://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/621-spiceworks-to-ics-calendar-inteface-script

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14 Spice ups
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THIS is awesome! Great job Rob!

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Fantastic! Great job!

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Excellent job… it will useful.

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Cool, thanks guys!

Added a bit of code that would put “** UNASSIGNED **” if a ticket was due on a date and was unassigned. Will probably add something that will let you put a distribution list in the script itself so it will automatically place that distribution list in the schedule field - - i.e. notifying everyone on that list.

Spice this up!

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Just wondering would there be any way to have a date an time sent to the calendar? At the MSP/StPaul spicecorps there was a person that wanted this kind of functionality but as a full scheduling feature (so would also need times).

Good job in any case.

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In Spiceworks, all the times for ticket and service due dates are set as 12:00am, so there’s nothing there that would delineate it from an ‘all-day’ event. I suppose you could have a variable that stated ‘work hours’, but you wouldn’t necessarily have a specific time for an event.

What specifically were they thinking of doing with the times?

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it sounds like they are a Service provider with many residential customers. So they were wanting to schedule the technicians visits to the residential people from spiceworks.

So I could see tweaking your process to work with a start (Date/)time and stop (Date/)time set as a custom field that would allow scheduling a technician’s visit to a client.

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Yep - I could see that…custom attribute of start-time and end-time. The only thing to watch out for here is that they are typed correctly. Would be nice to have an integrated drop-down so those entries could be controlled. Perhaps a drop down value - - unfortunately, no real logic could be setup here. I’d be willing to bet there is a feature request already out there asking for due date times.

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So the database can handle datetime fields but spiceworks does not let the time be entered. So I guess it does end up going back to spiceworks asking them to allow datetime custom fields.

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BWelmers - yup, I think there are a few feature requests around regarding this.

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Hmm…due to some Outlook security restrictions, I might be looking at changing the core script. The script itself works fantastically well, but you have to click ‘accept’ to allow the script to access your Outlook profile for 1-10 minutes. Not really ideal for automated systems.

So, I will convert to a .ics output format.

This will accomplish a couple things:

  • Get around the security limitations imposed by Outlook
  • Make it usable by anyone using an .ics compatible calendaring system, not requiring Exchange or Outlook.

I will still make the script available for those that want it in its current form. If you are ok with running it and clicking OK - then it may be OK for you. Will post updates when I get them in a distributable format.

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Rob is the MAN!

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Here’s the ICS version.

http://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/621-spiceworks-to-ics-calendar-inteface-script

How to subscribe to a shared calendar (ICS):

See the section marked: “Add an Internet Calendar Subscription to Outlook”

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Just came in this morning to a freshly updated calendar…it works great guys, you should check it out!