[sabredav] CalDAV Scheduling - functionality to Accept or Decline invites

['Peter Koch' via SabreDAV Discussion]

Hi all,

There's a short description of sabre/dav Scheduling functionality at
http://sabre.io/dav/scheduling/

I'm interested in the functionality to accept or declie invites but so far
I don't understand, what the scheduling functionality is doing (besides
creating rows in the schedulingobjects-table)

Kind regards

Peter

[Evert Pot]

Hi Peter,

Scheduling is defined in this RFC:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6638

It relies greatly on this specification as well:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5546

While we don't support everything described in those 211 pages, we support
a large portion of it. I'd suggest to skim it a bit to get an idea of what
scheduling is, and if you have more specific questions let me know!

Evert

Post by 'Peter Koch' via SabreDAV Discussion
Hi all,
There's a short description of sabre/dav Scheduling functionality at
http://sabre.io/dav/scheduling/
I'm interested in the functionality to accept or declie invites but so far
I don't understand, what the scheduling functionality is doing (besides
creating rows in the schedulingobjects-table)
Kind regards
Peter

['Peter Koch' via SabreDAV Discussion]

Hi Evert,

Thanks for your answer (and this wonderful software).

Post by Evert Pot
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6638
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Ftools.ietf.org%2Fhtml%2Frfc6638&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHw_HziOgsZBuCWmv_5h3wCnrcmrQ>
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5546
While we don't support everything described in those 211 pages, we support
a large portion of it. I'd suggest to skim it a bit to get an idea of what
scheduling is, and if you have more specific questions let me know!

I have red those RFCs but I still don't understand the complete picture.
Here's what I have understand so far:

RFC5546 describes iTIP-message and how they can be used by calendar users
to inform other calendar users. iTIP-messages seem to be ICS-files that
fulfill additional restrictions and these messages are exchanged mostly
between organizers and attendees.

Without Caldav auto-scheduling iTIP-messages are exchanges via email so
your calendar-application must be able to send emails and your
email-application must be able to store data from ics-attachments into to
your calendar system.

RFC6638 seems to specify how iTIP-messages can be exchanges directly
between two calendar-users if they are using the same CalDAV-server. In
particular iTIP-messages from a sending calendar user will be stored
directly into the inbox of the receiving calendar user.

If that was true, auto-scheduling would require a calendar-application
which has the additional functionality to display the contents an inbox and
let the user decide wether to accept or decline the invitation. Is that
correct? And if yes - which calendar-application has such functionality?

Does auto-scheduling makes sense if the calendar-application is
Thunderbird/Lightning or Outlook/CalDavSynchronizer?

Kind regards

Peter

[Evert Pot]

Post by 'Peter Koch' via SabreDAV Discussion
Hi Evert,
Thanks for your answer (and this wonderful software).

Post by Evert Pot
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6638
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Ftools.ietf.org%2Fhtml%2Frfc6638&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHw_HziOgsZBuCWmv_5h3wCnrcmrQ>
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5546
While we don't support everything described in those 211 pages, we
support a large portion of it. I'd suggest to skim it a bit to get an idea
of what scheduling is, and if you have more specific questions let me know!

I have red those RFCs but I still don't understand the complete picture.
RFC5546 describes iTIP-message and how they can be used by calendar users
to inform other calendar users. iTIP-messages seem to be ICS-files that
fulfill additional restrictions and these messages are exchanged mostly
between organizers and attendees.
Without Caldav auto-scheduling iTIP-messages are exchanges via email so
your calendar-application must be able to send emails and your
email-application must be able to store data from ics-attachments into to
your calendar system.
RFC6638 seems to specify how iTIP-messages can be exchanges directly
between two calendar-users if they are using the same CalDAV-server. In
particular iTIP-messages from a sending calendar user will be stored
directly into the inbox of the receiving calendar user.
If that was true, auto-scheduling would require a calendar-application
which has the additional functionality to display the contents an inbox and
let the user decide wether to accept or decline the invitation. Is that
correct? And if yes - which calendar-application has such functionality?

Hi Peter,

The benefit of auto-scheduling, is that clients don't need to understand it
in order to benefit from it. If a client does a PUT request to create a new
event, and that event has an ORGANIZER that matches the current user, and
an ATTENDEE that is on the system, sabre/dav will automatically create an
item in the inbox for the recipient and a new calendar object on the
calendar of the recipient.

Likewise, when that user accepts the invitation by setting
PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED, the original organizer's calendar object will also
automatically get updated with that information (as well as every other
attendee).

Post by 'Peter Koch' via SabreDAV Discussion
Does auto-scheduling makes sense if the calendar-application is
Thunderbird/Lightning or Outlook/CalDavSynchronizer?

So, yes, it does. The inbox is actually not very interesting and is ignored
more and more by various calendar client. Most of the information that's in
the inbox can actually be inferred from calendar objects that are already
on the calendar.

Hope that explains it.

Evert

Post by 'Peter Koch' via SabreDAV Discussion
Kind regards

Peter

['Peter Koch' via SabreDAV Discussion]

Hi Evert

2017-02-15 2:03 GMT+01:00 Evert Pot <***@gmail.com>:

Hope that explains it.
Yes - it did.

The benefit of auto-scheduling, is that clients don't need to understand it

Post by Evert Pot
in order to benefit from it. If a client does a PUT request to create a new
event, and that event has an ORGANIZER that matches the current user, and
an ATTENDEE that is on the system, sabre/dav will automatically create an
item in the inbox for the recipient and a new calendar object on the
calendar of the recipient.
Likewise, when that user accepts the invitation by setting
PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED, the original organizer's calendar object will also
automatically get updated with that information (as well as every other
attendee).

That makes sense to me. So the auto-scheduling mechanism does not accept or
reject invitation but it just places invitations into the attendees
calendars with status NEEDS-ACTION. And if the attendee accepts/rejects the
invitation the calendar entries of all other participant will be changed
immediately..

In our case there's one big advantage. If user A invites user B the
(tentative) invitation will be immediately visible to all users. But user B
won't be notified by email about the invitation. Can we configure
auto-scheduling such that calendar-entries will be automatically created
and email-notifications will be sent as well?

So, yes, it does. The inbox is actually not very interesting and is ignored

Post by Evert Pot
more and more by various calendar client. Most of the information that's in
the inbox can actually be inferred from calendar objects that are already
on the calendar.

Can I just truncate the schedulingobjects-table once in a while to prevent
it from getting bigger and bigger?

Thanks very much

Peter