JcF's dashboard

Brilliant idea. +1

I like this because it follows the same model as Sandy working via email, in that you essentially bring her into the conversation; you would bring her into the meeting. – Geek Pirate Roberts, on May 08, 2008 17:35

I've just started with Sandy. I use Google Calendar from Apps for Your Domain. Still trying to understand what I get from Sandy that I don't already have with Google Calendar. Two-way sync, even if primitive, would definitely make Sandy a sweet girl indeed: she'd be my email interface to Google Calendar.

Thank you! – Stanislav Shalunov, on April 16, 2008 03:22

This is a surprisingly insightful and clever idea. In one respect it's a one-off feature that's somewhat orthogonal to the rest of what Sandy does, but in practice I think it's a *brilliant* one-off feature that fits particularly well into both the way you interact with Sandy (email requests and reminders/updates, iCal/RSS subscriptions, and explicit email queries) and the virtual assistant metaphor. Potentially a very useful and very natural/intuitive addition.

That would be fantastic!!

This would be unbelievably useful. Please make this!

This is exactly where I am. I use gcal, RTM, gmail, Jott, and Sandy. I need to make it all work together, so everything can be updated when I Jott Sandy.

I just converted a guy to Sandy while standing in line at Trader Joe's. He was intrigued so I explained it to him. He is also in need of someone to follow him around and remind him to do things, and update his calender when things change.

i logged into gcal this morning and the sandy calendar showed up. how often does that update?

ok, i followed the steps listed for Google cal... cut and pasted the private url and i have a calendar listed under "other calendars" labeled "Sandy" but i am not getting any listings... double checked the private url, even have the box checked in Google cal to display the calendar entries. what did i do wrong?

Thanks, Paul.

OK, I have sent you an email with details. Briefly, I find that the ics files work in iCal but not gCal, even with a new event I created.

Hi Paul,

Nice use of the word "redacted" ;-)!

I've taken an initial gander and what I'm seeing doesn't quite jive with what I see in your posted iCalendar snippet. Can you please email help@iwantsandy.com so that we can troubleshoot in a little more detail? (Please add "Attn: Rael" to the subject so that I can be sure to catch it when it comes in.)

—Rael

I can't get the .ics files I get from Sandy to import into Google Calendar or iCal. iCal interprets them with no time specified (ie, all day events) and Google parses them as occurring at import time, if it manages to figure them out at all.

This is what I get (lightly redacted):

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:REQUEST
PRODID:-//Values of n//NONSGML iwantsandy//EN
X-WR-CALNAME:Sandy
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Los_Angeles
X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Los_Angeles
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:19700308T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:19701101T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
ORGANIZER;CN=Sandy [iwantsandy.com]:MAILTO:<redacted>
ATTENDEE;CN=Paul:MAILTO:<redacted>
DTSTAMP:20080210T191519Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20080214
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20080215
BEGIN:VALARM
ACTION:AUDIO
TRIGGER:PT420M
END:VALARM
SUMMARY:Swimming meadowbrook
DESCRIPTION:Tags: @exercise\nContext: remind me about swimming @ meadowbroo
k 1PM Monday Tuesday Thursday \n@exercise\n\nEdit: http://iwantsandy.com/
832621/edit\nForget: http://iwantsandy.com/832621/forget
URL:http://iwantsandy.com/832621
CREATED:20080210T191519Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20080210T191519Z
UID:http://iwantsandy.com/832621
SEQUENCE:0
CATEGORIES:exercise
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
</redacted></redacted>

One way to get closer to this goal would be to teach Sandy to intepret invitation emails from Gcal. One could create an event in a Gcal and invite Sandy as a participant. Sandy would accept the invitation and put it on your Sandy calendar. If you update the event, a new invitation can be sent out, and Sandy could update the event on "her" end. (Gcal already does this as a method of scheduling resources and rooms.)

The meeting would show up twice on your Gcal (once on the original calendar, and once in the Sandy feed), but at least it would work for updating Sandy on events that originate in Gcal.

I currently use iCal w/ Sandy. I would love a way to have two way sync. Sometimes a quick email to Sandy is easy, other times a quick entry into iCal. In m world I can't live w/ either, so getting them worked together would make Sandy a perfect 10!

I'm using ScheduleWorld to synch my Outlook2003 and lightning for firefox calendar and tasks. Works fine.

The killer feature here would be two-way sync. Here's what happens in my world:

1. I send Sandy an email (or these days, a tweet) to schedule an appointment.

2. The appointment shows up on my Google calendar, since I'm subscribed to the iCal feed.

3. I notice that the appointment conflicts with something else on my Google calendar (something that originated from outside of Sandy), so I want to change the Sandy appointment.

4. I go back to the Sandy website to change the appointment, or if I'm feeling brave, I'll use the "update" command. I don't quite have the hang of using update just yet.

In an ideal world #4 would read: "I make the changes right there on the Google calendar view and they get synced back to Sandy."

I'm sure there are all kinds of problems with this right now but I'm hopeful that it will be sorted out eventually. GCal is the office standard here, so as much as I like Sandy it needs to work with GCal. So far it works sufficiently well, but not as well as I'd like.

Thanks!

Chris