Adding appointments to your calendar through email notifications - coldfusion

Question

I need an example for adding events to my calendars through emails. For example when I send an email to my clients regarding their appointment, i want them to have an option in the email that will allow them to add the event on their calendar by just clicking on a button or something.
Is there anything out there that someone can direct me to it?
I need this mainly to use it with coldfusion 9.
Thanks!

Answer 1

I'd recommend the iCalUs UDF from http://www.cflib.org/udf/icalus
WebDH provides a great example here.
Here's an example using CF9 that I quickly put together but haven't tested yet.
<cfscript>
eventStr = {};
eventStr.organizerName = "John Doe"; //Organizer Name
eventStr.organizerEmail = "john.doe#email.com"; //Organizer Email
eventStr.startTime = ParseDateTime("12/30/2011 11:00"); //format: m/d/yyyy HH:mm OR h:mm TT -- this is Eastern time
eventStr.subject = "Demo Example";
eventStr.location = "StackOverflow.com";
eventStr.description = "Example iCalendar using CF9";
// Display in browser
//pc = getpagecontext().getresponse();
//pc.getresponse().setcontenttype('text/calendar');
//pc.setHeader("Content-Disposition","inline;filename=newAppointment.ics");
//writeOutput(iCalUS(eventStr));
//Email
m = new mail();
m.setSubject( "Event" );
m.setTo( "user#email.com" );
m.setFrom( "me#email.com" );
m.setServer( "localhost" );
//m.addParam( file="#ACCOUNT_TXT_FILE#" );
m.addPart( type="text", charset="utf-8", wraptext="72", body="Attached is a calendar event..." );
m.addPart( type="text/calendar" body="#iCalUS(eventStr)#");
m.send();
</cfscript>
Here's another example reference that shows how to email the calendar event.

Answer 2

Here is a very basic implementation of the ICS format. This is designed to be accessed through a browser, but it'd be fairly academic to change to create a text file with ICS extension and send it via e-mail.
<cfheader name="Content-Disposition" value="attachment; filename=event.ics" />
<cfcontent reset="true" type="text/calendar" />
<cfscript>
// handle all-day events
if (NOT isDate(starttime) OR NOT isDate(endtime)) {
dtstart=';VALUE=DATE:#dateFormat(eventdate,"yyyymmdd")#';
dtend=';VALUE=DATE:#dateFormat(dateAdd("d",1,eventdate),"yyyymmdd")#';
} else {
dtstart=';TZID="Eastern Standard Time":#dateFormat(eventdate,"yyyymmdd")#T#timeFormat(starttime,"HHmmss")#';
dtend=';TZID="Eastern Standard Time":#dateFormat(eventdate,"yyyymmdd")#T#timeFormat(endtime,"HHmmss")#';
}
</cfscript>
<cfoutput>
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Company//Source//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Eastern Standard Time
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16011104T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=11
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010311T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
CREATED:#dateFormat(dateAdded,"yyyymmdd")#T#timeFormat(dateAdded,"HHmmss")#Z
DESCRIPTION:#desc#
DTEND#dtend#
DTSTAMP:#dateFormat(dateAdded,"yyyymmdd")#T#timeFormat(dateAdded,"HHmmss")#Z
DTSTART#dtstart#
LAST-MODIFIED:#dateFormat(dateApproved,"yyyymmdd")#T#timeFormat(dateApproved,"HHmmss")#Z
LOCATION:#location#
PRIORITY:5
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:#title#
TRANSP:OPAQUE
UID:#dateFormat(now(),"yyyymmdd")#T#timeFormat(now(),"HHmmss")#Z##uniqueID#
BEGIN:VALARM
TRIGGER:-PT15M
ACTION:DISPLAY
DESCRIPTION:Reminder
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
</cfoutput>