Calendar question

[Mariko]

Hi! I'm a new Groove user and have a lot to learn. Our company has 5
employees and quite a few contractors. On particular projects we'd like these
contractors to have access to a central calendar/schedule. Is there any way
to export the calendar data from Groove to, say, Google calendar? We don't
really want to make contractors download and install Groove, and we don't
want to pay for them to access Groove when they are only working on a
short-term project.

Thanks!

 

[Joel Corra]

It's definitely possible, but you'd have to quite a bit of custom programming
to handle any changes to the Groove calendar and sync those changes out to
Google. I'm not overly familiar with the Google calendar API, but you would
probably also need to create a program that can be scheduled to connect to
Google and update Groove with changes if you want 2-way synchronization.

Have you looked at using SharePoint? Although SharePoint calendars don't
integrate with Groove either, they are fully web accessible. And using the
new Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint (which is still
pre-release, see
http://blogs.technet.com/groove/archive/2008/01/03/groove-and-the-extranet-collab-toolkit.aspx
for more information) you can create SharePoint sites that are shared between
both internal users on your domain and outside users without having to set up
an Active Directory account. The toolkit also has a planning document you
can use to help evaluate which product best fits your needs.

 

[SBC [MVP Groove]]

Check the these out:

TeamCalendar' - http://www.teamcalendarmanager.com/index.php

GrooveIT - http://www.grooveit.biz/en/home.aspx

SBC
-------------------
Microsoft MVP - Groove

weblog:
http://weblogs.asp.net/sbchatterjee

sbc111 at gmaildotcom

Pickup Groove Developer workspaces:
http://www.ctdotnet.org

 

[Fabrice BARBIN [Groove MVP]]

Thanks SBC for pointing to Hommes&Process products...

At this stage, TCM does not allow to synchronize with a Google calendar.
It is something we will maybe support in the future...

To note : TCM will shorty join the GrooveIT! line with a new name (GrooveIT!
for My Calendars) and a new release...
Beta program will start in the coming weeks...
All necessary information will be provided very soon on the TCM and
GrooveIT! websites but do not hesitate to drop me an email or a Groove IM if
you would like to join...


--
---------------------------------------------------------------
Fabrice BARBIN [Groove MVP]
http://fbarbin.spaces.live.com

Hommes & Process (www.hommesetprocess.com)
GrooveIT! (www.grooveit.biz)