Please add API support for adding non-Google calendar subscriptions!

One of the most exciting new features we've gained from the transition is the ability to easily create, share, and subscribe to different calendars. In fact, upon user account creation, we automatically subscribe users to a few calendars we expect them to find useful. One of those is the academic calendar.

The academic calendar is managed through our intranet portal, so I simply wrote an iCal (.ICS) output URL of it, and that allows users of Google Calendar (or almost any other calendar software) to subscribe to it. Through the API, though, I can't just subscribe users to the calendar's URL. I had to add the calendar personally through the normal web interface first, which then provides the Google Calendar ID necessary for the calendar subscription API.

Since the academic calendar is the same for all users, it's not a big deal. A single hand-performed operation allows for the same calendar to be subscribed to by all of the users on the domain. This has become a problem, though, for one of our other planned features.

One original goal was to have the user's class schedule subscribed to by default upon account creation. Imagine how smooth that is! No need to manually type in each class's start and end times or adjust added/dropped classes yourself. Not only that, but since it's a calendar subscription to an ICS that is dynamically generated from our course registration database, it requires absolutely no user or administrative maintenance. Everything "just works."

Unfortunately, though, Google's API doesn't provide a way to subscribe users to a non-Google ICS URL. The calendar must have a Google Calendar ID, which can only exist if the calendar has been added by a user. While it doesn't completely kill the feature, it's really disappointing to have to walk users through adding this calendar subscription themselves. Sure, it's not that hard, but new students and employees already have a long list of stresses and things to worry about. On a practical level, the end result is more likely to just be that most users don't bother adding it and miss out on the functionality.

I was quite disappointed to discover this, but I'm still hoping that this ability is added to the API.

Google Sync Calendars: Shouldn't they be "On" by Default?

The ease of sharing and subscribing to other calendars is one of the most useful features we've gained in our transition, but one thing I haven't understood:

Why are Google Calendars toggled "off" in Google Sync by default?

This is especially annoying among employees because we have three separate calendars we subscribe each to. It's not just that, though. The process of making a calendar appear through Google Sync is a bit convoluted, and since new calendars are off by default, this process must be done each time a new calendar is added.

Here's what I've posted on our help desk site as instructions. Keep in mind that Seton Hill has issued iPads to all full-time students and faculty, so this is an issue we see quite commonly with the iPad.

Want to select which of your Google Calendars show up on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch?

• On the device itself, open Safari and go to m.google.com/sync
• Tap "Sign in with your Google Account"
• You should now see a Google login page. Enter your e-mail address as the username and leave the password blank. Click the button to continue.
• You should now see the Griffin's Lair login page (if you weren't logged in already). Enter your username and password, then click the button to log in.
• You should now see a page that says "Google Sync" and "Manage devices". Each device that you have configured for e-mail and calendars should appear here. Tap the row for the device you'd like to configure.
• Here you should see a list of all of your calendars. Check the boxes for any calendars you'd like to have on your device, then tap the "Save" button at the bottom.

That'll turn them on, although you may need to kill the "Calendar" app and restart it for them to show up. Rebooting the device will do it, but you can do it more quickly by:

• Double-tap the home button.
• A row along the bottom with some of your apps will appear here. If you don't see the "Calendar" app, scroll to the right until it's visible.
• Tap and hold the app's icon until it becomes wiggly, then tap the red "-" icon (just like you do to delete apps).
• Double-tap the home button to go back to normal.

The practical result is that most users don't bother getting or keeping their calendars set up properly. Just imagine sending these instructions to someone who is in no way "tech savvy." The problem is so easily solved, though. Just have calendars show up through Google Sync by default. After all, they can be hidden on the client itself, anyway.

SSL Domain Hosting!

Google Apps already allows administrators to have the various services (e.g. Gmail, Google Calendar) mapped to your own domain (like this blog is). However, for some services, it can only really act as a redirect.

Try it yourself! I've properly set up. Here are links:

• http://gmail.setonhill.edu
• https://gmail.setonhill.edu

See how the second one doesn't work? Part of HTTPS involves ensuring that the server you're talking to is who it is supposed to be, but since Google doesn't have a setonhill.edu certificate, it can't prove that it's gmail.setonhill.edu. Makes sense, right? Well, the end result is that users see their Gmail coming from mail.google.com instead of our domain.

It's not a huge problem, but it can be solved.

We use ZenDesk as our helpdesk management system and they offer the ability to do exactly this. They'll let you upload a certificate that they can then use to show clients that they're an authenticated host on your domain (link). Because of the extra cost, we haven't implemented this with ZenDesk, but this seems like a really great feature to have on a Google Apps domain. I think it'd help settle some of those subconscious fears to see a familiar setonhill.edu address instead of Google's.