10.5 Server: Add group calendars to iCal

Apr 16, '08 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Gabroil

This is actually a hint for both OS X Server 10.5 and iCal. I was trying to implement the calendaring feature in OS X Server and hit a wall when Apple's documentation did not explain how to set up multiple calendars for a single group, and how to manage them in iCal. After much searching, I found the answer (not supported by Apple) in this Apple Discussions thread.

In order to create a group calendar, you have create a group and enable calendars for that group. This is reasonably well explained in the "iCal Service administration guide for Version 10.5 Leopard" guide. In order to view the group calendars, open iCal (it has to be iCal 3), open its Preferences, and click on the Accounts tab.

There you will create an account by hitting the "+" sign and entering the following:

  1. A description the calendar account (groupname Calendars, for example)
  2. The username of one of the members of the group
  3. The user's password
  4. The Account URL (under Server Options). The URL you use in this field is the key to the solution. If you leave the field blank, iCal will add the user's account URL by default:
    http://serverfg.private:8008/principals/__uids__/USERID/
    In the above, USERID is a long string of letters and numbers corresponding to the path where the user's private calendar is stored. In order to add a group calendar you have to add the group URL instead:
    http://servername:8008/principals/groups/groupname/
    Replace servername with the host name of your server, and groupname with the name of the group in question.
Once you do this, a section will appear under iCal with the description you specified. From there, you can now create calendars for the group, and anyone in the group will be able to view them and edit them. (This is the only way you can do this, since the other option to view the calendars of the group, through the web page of the group, will only display one calendar.)

There are two problems with this solution:
  1. When you edit an existing appointment, iCal will display an error message saying that you cannot modify the item. This is evidently not true, as the change actually is saved to the server and other users will be able to see it.
  2. It is impossible to send invitations to an event through iCal, since attempting to do so will result in the same error as above.
I hope someone will post a better solution in the comments section...

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Mac OS X Hints
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