General Information

Registration is now open for CalConnect XXIV, May 21-25, 2012, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, hosted by Patricia Egen Consulting.  Please see CalConnect XXIV for logistics and registration information.  As usual, the first 2.5 days will be the Interoperability Test Event; the remainder of the week (Wednesday lunch through Friday mid-afternoon) will be the Roundtable Technical Conference.  Early booking at the conference hotel is recommended as the block rate expires on 3 May or

The SOAP version of the Web Services Protocol for Calendaring is now available for public review and comment for a period of at least one month; the public comment period will last until at least 22 March 2012.  To review the document and comment, please see Public Review Documents on the CalConnect website.  (Note:  This public review is being carried out in parallel with the public review of the OASIS WS-Calendar version of the protocol.)

We are very pleased to announce that Google will host CalConnext XXV this autumn at their offices in Zurich, Switzerland, on October 1-5, 2012.

The schedule of coming events is:

We have posted the schedule for the week for the next CalConnect meeting, January 30 – February 3, 2012, at Apple in Cupertino. The schedule covers the entire week and includes the technical committee session schedule in addition to the IOP test event. See http://www.calconnect.org/calconnect23.shtml#schedule.

Our next Interoperability Testing Event will be at CalConnect XXIII, January 30-31 and Wednesday morning February 1. CalConnect XXIII will be hosted by Apple in Cupertino, California.

Testing scenarios at this event will continue to evolve but at this point we are looking at the following possibilities:

Based on the success of our first European CalConnect event (October in Prague), we have decided that our Autumn 2012 event will also be in Europe, and are actively seeking hosting proposals. The dates are probably October 1-5 (at the host’s convenience it might move a week or two earlier or later), and will be decided, along with the location, once the host is identified. We hope to find a host and identify the location and exact dates as soon as possible, and will report progress on this blog. Hope to see you in Europe next Autumn!

CalConnect XXIII will be the week of January 30 to February 3, 2012, at Apple in Cupertino, California. As usual, the first 2.5 days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning) will be devoted to the Interoperability Test Event; the Roundtable Technical Conference will start with lunch on Wednesday, and continue until mid-afternoon on Friday.

Registration is now open for both the IOP Test Event and the Roundtable Technical Conference; see the logistics page referenced below.

In my blog post of December 27, 2010, In calendaring, success means the right thing, the right way!, I talked about downloading iCalendar .ics files from university sports web sites, and importing these events into different calendaring systems to ascertain whether the event data was interpreted the same way in each system.

The meeting is drawing to a close with the last Technical Committee session, followed by the wrapup and our Plenary meeting. It’s been a great five days, although quite tiring as always. We are very happy with the European involvement, including the presence of representatives from four non-members, which has injected new perspectives and concerns into the technical discussions to the benefit of everyone.

CalConnect has always been interested in timezone data because accurate and timely timezone information is essential to calendaring and scheduling. We have done considerable work in the area and have always been impressed by the Olson volunteer team and Olson Database.