Configuring Apple iCal 3 for CFAES Messaging Service

From CFAES Help Documentation and FAQs Project

Apple's iCal 3 calendar client released in Mac OS X 10.5 includes better calendar groupware support using the CalDAV protocol. This article will help guide you through setting up iCal to make use of this feature.

Contents 1 Data Loss Prevention 1.1 Backing Up Your Current iCal Configuration 1.2 Restoring an iCal Backup 2 Adding Calendars 2.1 Adding your CalDAV account to iCal 2.2 Adding other account calendars. 3 Customizing and Clean Up 3.1 Applying Colors to Specific Calendars 3.2 Clean up 4 Notes 5 See Other 6 References

Data Loss Prevention

Please make sure to create a working backup of your current iCal configuration in case anything goes wrong. This will help save you much time.

Backing Up Your Current iCal Configuration

1. Select Back up iCal from the File menu
2. Select a file name and location (the default should work) and click the Save button

Restoring an iCal Backup

If anything went wrong during, you can always revert back to the saved backup you made at the beginning.

1. Select Restore iCal... from the File menu.
2. Select the back up file you created earlier and click the Open button.

Adding Calendars

Adding your CalDAV account to iCal

1. Select Preferences... in the iCal menu.
2. Click on Accounts to access the Accounts pane.
3. Click the + (plus sign) below the Accounts list to add a new account.
4. Enter a meaningful descriptor, such as My CFAES Calendars, in the Description: field.
5. Enter you account name in the Username: field. Your short account name will suffice.
6. Enter your account password in the Password: field.
7. Expand Server Options by clicking on the triangle.
8. For Account URL: use http://mail.cfaes.ohio-state.edu/CalDAV/ (make sure to include the trailing slash ('/').
9. Make sure the check box next to Use Kerberos v5 for authentication is unchecked.
   
10. Accept the clear text password warning by clicking Connect Anyway. This will bring back the Accounts preference pane.
    
11. Close the iCal Preferences window.

Adding other account calendars.

You may also have editing privileges for another account's calendar. The owner of the "foreign" calendar should already have the appropriate permissions applied to it for you. To add another account's calendar, you will need to add a folder alias to your messaging service account through the WebMail interface.

1. Open your web browser, go to http://mail.cfaes.ohio-state.edu and log in.
2. Click on the Settings link.
3. Click on the Folders link under Settings
4. Click on the All Subscribed Folders link in the Folder List Viewer section.
5. In the Folder Aliases section, enter a meaningful label in the Alias Name field, like Brutus' Calendar.
6. In the Folder Name field, enter a folder name using something similar to this:

   ~<account>/<calendar>

   where <account> is the published or real account name of the account you're aliasing to and <calendar> is the name of the foreign calendar. Calendar is usually the default.
7. Click Update.
8. Now go back to iCal and select Refresh All under the Calendar menu. The new aliased calendar should show up under your CalDAV calendar list.

• Please note, these aliased folders will also show up in your mail client. Take caution with these folders when accessing them through a mail client, as the client will not understand they are calendar folders.

• While you can also apply this method to foreign read-only calendars, you may want to just use iCal's normal Subscribe to access those calendars.

Customizing and Clean Up

Applying Colors to Specific Calendars

You can change the color of the calendar to help make it stand out visually.

1. Select the calendar you want to apply a custom color to.
2. Choose Get Info from the File menu.
3. The color selector is the right of the Name: field.

• You won't be save anything in the Description: field for a CalDAV calendar. This feature is unsupported.

• Editing either the color or description for a CalDAV calendar will result in a Request Error claiming the calendar could not be found. This can be safely ignored by clicking the OK button on the error pop up.
  

Clean up

Now that you have all your calendars set up through CalDAV, you may want to remove redundant published or subscribed calendars.

1. Select a redundant calendar under Calendars or Subscriptions in the Calendars list to be removed.
2. Select Delete from the Edit menu. This will not delete the remote version of the calendar, just the local cached setup.
3. Repeat to remove other redundant calendars.

Notes

• iCal will open only calendar folders in the top level of your CFAES Messaging Service account. Any calendar folders you have in other folders will not be seen.

• You cannot create new or delete or rename existing calendars in your CFAES Messaging Service account through iCal. Calendars must be created, renamed or deleted through the CFAES Messaging WebMail service or through Microsoft Outlook the CFAES Messaging Service Outlook connector.

• CFAES Messaging Service delegation with iCal 3 is not supported as of yet.

See Other

References

• CommuniGate Pro Mailbox Alias Management Help
• CommuniGate Pro CalDAV