Create and Send ICS Calendar Invites with Flow 08-18-2020 10:12 AM - last edited 08-18-2020 11:10 AM

[aprildunnam]

In this video I show how you can use Microsoft Flow to create and send out ICS Format Calendar invites.

Here's the link for the ICS File Format: https://github.com/aprildunnam/Flow/blob/master/ICSFormat

watch?v=DU_d71ykRJA

[Anonymous]

Anyone knows how to include time zones to the ICS? To be more specific... I need to send an automatic .ics to people in different parts of the world, so not everybody will have the meeting at 11:00AM, some will be earlier, others later... Any ideas on how to accomplish this??

[russrimm]

@beshr1993 I ran into this also.  I had to first run my date through a formatDateTime expression, and THEN I was able to do the replaces on it.  The reason is Flow is bringing in my Sharepoint list item date format as YYYY-MM-DD and not yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ, so I had to reformat it to that first using one compose, then I could do the replace on the output of that compose.

formatDateTime(body('Get_item')['Date'],'yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ')

[beshr1993]

Hi @aprildunnam ,

Thanks a lot for the useful video.

I did exactly as you did but I keep running into an error with the FormatStartTime step: Unable to process template language expressions in action 'FormatStartTime' inputs at line '1' and column '2922': 'The template language function 'replace' expects its first parameter 'string' to be a string. The provided value is of type 'Null'. Please see https://aka.ms/logicexpressions#replace for usage details.'.

Now I know why I get this error. It is because of this highlighted part in the code Replace(replace(body('Get_item')?['Date'],'-',''),':','')

The thing is that this does not seem to return anything (i.e. it's a blank). I tried different things like Start Date, StartDate, Start Time, StartTime but none of that works. On the other hand, EndDate works correctly. Of course, I can remove the FormatStartTime part but then I end up with an empty .ics file in the attachment. Any idea what the correct name should be instead of Date?

Thank you very much.

[Thastark2]

Great video. If the course was cancelled, is there any way to automatically remove it from an end users calendar?

[psbabu]

Hi Aprildunnam L ,

Thank your time to make a video for events creation using mslfow. I am following your video and I have one query.

How can we add RSVP to the ICS calendar.

[JR-BejeweledOne]

Unless the recipient has turned on the 'Automatically accept meeting Invites' function in their Outlook, I don't believe that you can force it to create an item on the calendar.

In Outlook 2016 and beyond, if you receive a meeting invite, it does show on your calendar as long as it's in your inbox, but it's not actually accepted so there would be no reminders.   If the invite is deleted, then it is no longer shown on the calendar.

[JR-BejeweledOne]

With Calendar items there are a host of properties that are basically invisible to you.   AllDayEvent is one of those and I suspect Recurrence information is also.   Try using the link below to see the properties of an event that recurs and see if it gives you the information you need.

https://<site_url>/_api/web/lists/GetByTitle('<Calendar_List_Name>')/items<ID of the recurring item>)

[rjhale]

Thanks.  That looks like really useful information. 

We've kind of given up on our plan of sending ICS files when a SharePoint list is updated because we were having a really difficult time figuring out how to handle recurring events.  I couldn't find a way to pull the recurrence pattern from the SharePoint list/calendar we were testing with.  Without that information it's impossible to tell exactly which days the recurring events should fall on.  

[JR-BejeweledOne]

Here is some information you may want to check into.   This is a site around the iCalendar standard.  There is some information here on UID's being included in your ics file.   Especially if you are sending these to people outside of your company or group.

https://icalendar.org/

[rjhale]

This is very useful information, and I really like the concept better than creating an event and adding the users as attendees.  

@aprildunnam do you know if there is a way to create the ics file in such a way that it creates a tentative appointment automatically on the user's calendar?  Right now, it sends the ics as an attachment, but in the Outlook desktop client there doesn't appear to be any easy way to add the event to your personal calendar. Ideally, they would receive the email and ics attachment, the event would be added to their personal calendars as a tentative appointment, and then they would just need to accept it.  Even if they didn't accept it, at least it is on their calendar.