Upcoming Changes to Add to Calendar
In our upcoming 7.1.7 patch release (~January 21'), we will be making a much anticipated improvement to our 'Add to Calendar' capabilities by replacing our existing implementation with an integration to the popular AddEvent service used by many other web applications. It is very important that you review the following if you have live events that leverage this feature as the presentation of the 'Add to Calendar' links is changing and MAY require some modification on your part. Note that the add to calendar functionality will continue to work if no changes are made, however the display of the link on the confirmation page and particularly in emails will change. Customers who have a Virtual Test Environment (VTE), will be able to preview and test the functionality in that environment for prior to the release being posted to production.
Before getting into the changes, we'll first share some more general information on AddEvent and it's configuration in the Certain platform.
Add to Calendar Configuration - Account Level
In the upcoming 7.1.7 release, we will be introducing a new account level configuration option available to administrators under Account Settings>Management>Add to Calendar>Add to Calendar Display Settings. In this new section, account administrators can select the 3rd party calendar options that will display in events within that account. By default, the only calendar that will be enabled is the desktop version of Outlook which was the previously supported calendar. Administrators can also update the label displayed next to each calendar's icon for each calendar and enabled additional calendars by selecting the 'Display?' option and saving.
Add to Calendar Configuration - Event Level
Configuration of the 'Add to Calendar' link label and default icon will continue to be driven by the label defined in each of the respective areas displayed below for agenda items, sessions and the events within forms. Note that the default calendar icon can be overridden with a custom icon which can also be uploaded in these areas. Lastly, the appointment subject, body, reminder time etc...will continue to be configured in these areas as well.
- Agenda Items
- Forms>Agenda>Agenda Display Options>Add to Calendar
- Sessions
- Forms>Sessions>Session Display Options>Add to Calendar
- Events
- Forms>Confirm>Settings
Attendee Facing Forms
Agenda Items
To display the Add to Calendar link on the confirmation page of a registration form for agenda items, you must include the 'Add to Calendar' field as a 'Field to Display' under Forms>Agenda>Agenda Display Options>Personal Agenda Settings.
Upon display of the confirmation page, the 'Add to Calendar' link will display in the "Personal Agenda' section. The only change in behavior for your registrants is that rather than clicking on a link to open a .ics calendar file, a button will display and upon mousing over the button, JavaScript will trigger the display menu of the calendar options configured for the account. The registrant will then select the desired calendar which will be launched, adding the calendar appointment assuming they are logged in to that service. If not, they will be prompted to login.
This is the old 'Add to Calendar' link.
This is the new 'Add to Calendar' button.
This is the new 'Add to Calendar' behavior when mousing over the button.
Sessions
To display the Add to Calendar link on the confirmation page of a registration form for sessions, you have two configuration options that are both available under Forms>Sessions>Session Display Options>My Sessions: Verify & Confirm
Option #1
Include the 'Add to Calendar' field as a 'Field to Display' which will include the 'Add to Calendar' button as a column in the tabular view summary of the sessions that the registrant has registered for.
Option #2
If the 'Replace Table Layout with Session Template' is selected, the selected template will be leveraged in place of the table layout. The session template can be configured to include the 'Add to Calendar' DDF under Forms>Sessions>Session Templates and upon landing on the confirmation page of the registration form, the session template will render for each session the registrant has registered for displaying the 'Add to Calendar' button.
For both configuration options, the only change in behavior for your registrants is that rather than clicking on the link to open a .ics calendar file, a button will display and upon mousing over the button, JavaScript will trigger the display menu of the calendar options configured for the account. The registrant will then select the desired calendar which will be launched, adding the calendar appointment assuming they are logged in. If not, they will be prompted to login.
This is the old 'Add to Calendar' link displayed using the table view.
This is the new 'Add to Calendar' button using the table view.
This is the new 'Add to Calendar' behavior when mousing over the button.
Events
To display the Add to Calendar link on the confirmation page of a registration form for events, you must select the 'Show link to add to calendar' option under Forms>Confirm>Settings. The only change in behavior for your registrants is that rather than clicking on the link to open a .ics calendar file, a button will display and upon mousing over the button, JavaScript will trigger the display menu of the calendar options configured for the account. The registrant will then select the desired calendar which will be launched, adding the calendar appointment assuming they are logged in. If not, they will be prompted to login. See the screenshot above to preview what the menu of calendar options will look like.
For all appointments that have been added using the new AddEvent service, once the appointment has been successfully saved to the registrant's calendar, the following confirmation page hosted by AddEvent will be displayed in another tab referencing the appropriate calendar.
The implementation of AddEvent in emails differs from registration forms in that rather than using JavaScript (JavaScript doesn't work in emails), it uses their Direct URL Method which dynamically creates a URL with the appointment details. When included in an email as a DDF, or in the 'Personal Agenda' section for agenda items OR the 'My Sessions' section for sessions (either using the table view OR the session template layout), the Add to Calendar link will now display like the images below.
Event Add to Calendar DDF
This is what the old Add to Calendar DDF looked like in email.
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This is what the new Add to Calendar DDF looked will like in email.
If you enable additional calendars, this is what they will look like.
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Custom Implementations
If you previously worked with our Professional Services team to implement localization including Add to Calendar, some updates may be required to that setup. If that's the case, please contact us.
Session Catalog
Previously, Session Catalog provided a link to 'Download Calendar' to registrants viewing the 'My Schedule' page. The download included a single .ics file with an appointment for each registered session. While that link will continue to be available temporarily, the new preferred Add to Calendar option using AddEvent will display in the Catalog for Registered sessions after clicking into each session.
The option to enable or disable the Add to Calendar option as well as to configure the body of the appointment that is added to registrant's calendars can be configured by editing the Design Elements of the Catalog and clicking on the 
icon (Screenshot #1 below). This will open the 'Edit Buttons & Icons drawer (Screenshot #2) where you can then navigate to the 'Add to Calendar' tab (Screenshot #3).
icon (Screenshot #1 below). This will open the 'Edit Buttons & Icons drawer (Screenshot #2) where you can then navigate to the 'Add to Calendar' tab (Screenshot #3).Screenshot #1
Screenshot #2
Screenshot #3
That should cover it!
Questions? Comments? Feedback? Please email help@certain.com.
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