Sending Tasks as ICal?

[Torsten Schenkel]

Hello All,

we are using a heterogeneous environment here:

1. Left side of the hall: Adminsistration, WinXP with Outlook 2003
2. Right side of the hall: Science, with Linux/Unix and Evolution 2

Interop works fine except for 2 flaws:

1 flaw: PEBKAC, not an issue here
2 flaw: Even though Outlook is configured to send Calendar events as ICal,
which it does for Meeting requests, it still sends winmail.dat attachments
for tasks, which Evolution doesn't understand.

So, how can I configure Outlook to send those tasks as ICal as well. The
other way round works fine: Outlook reads ICal task requests sent by
evolution and inserts them in the correct way, with response and all.

And no, this isn't a windows vs. linux advocacy call
The problem exists as well with Outlook and Lotus Notes or Novell GroupWise
and others. This might be considered the more severe case, since lot's of
industrial partners prefer Lotus over Exchange. Solution to all this
problems is sending stuff as ICal, so I can't believe Outlook won't do it.

Thanks for the help,

Torsten

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook does not support the VTASK portion of the iCalendar specification to
generate task requests. I'm really surprised to hear that it sounds like it
might be able to read them, though. Could you post the text of a request
that works that way?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Torsten Schenkel]

Outlook does not support the VTASK portion of the iCalendar specification
to generate task requests. I'm really surprised to hear that it sounds
like it might be able to read them, though. Could you post the text of a
request that works that way?

Sorry Sue,

just tested it. It doesn't understand it. Outlook shows it as ical
attachment, but won't read it.

Seems like the problem never did arise in that direction (no wonder as WE
get sent the tasks from THEM)

Any idea how to circumvent the problem?

Torsten

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

So Outlook can't read it after all. Not surprising since, as I said before,
Outlook has no VTASK support.

Bottom line is that Outlook can handle only task requests sent by another
Outlook user with the recipient marked for rich-text so that the item comes
across with all the details in the Winmail.dat file.

Also note: The newsgroup interface you are using apparently does not quote
earlier messages in the thread, making your latest message so short on
detail that you risk not getting the answer you're looking for. Please take
the time to quote the original message.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers