RSS for Outlook calendar?

Get Help
1

I’m not sure if this is possible, but I’m looking for a way to show multiple Outlook calendar events in a ticker.

Currently I’m following these steps (http://xibo.org.uk/2014/05/27/using-datasets-to-display-meeting-room-bookings/) to show meeting room appointments in a ticker. I export the Outlook calendar via powershell to a csv file and then manually import it into a Dataset every few days.

Is there a better way, with less manual work? I can automate the powershell export of Outlook to csv or another format, but that’s where I’m stuck.

Can I schedule Xibo to import a csv file to overwrite this DataSet on a nightly basis?

Or is there a format I can use to export the appointments in some type of RSS file that Xibo can reference easily? I tried creating an .xml file for an RSS feed but it has non-standard fields that I couldn’t get to work in a ticker. I can save this exported file (csv or xml) on a web location that the local Xibo server can reference.

Any ideas? We’re currently on 1.80rc2, haven’t jumped to 1.80rc3 yet but if there is a solution for this in rc3 I’ll try upgrading sooner rather than later.

TIA,
Michelle

2

There’s a couple of broad options.

  1. You automate the upload of your CSV file via the CMS API. You’ll need to be comfortable writing PHP code to do that, but it’s certainly possible.
  2. As you suggest, pull the content in to a ticker as RSS, however I think then you’ll loose the ability to filter the events by a date range. It may be possible to extract the raw XML you already have using custom tags - I’m not sure how far that functionality will get you. I suspect for this to work, the XML will need to contain a channel tag which contains items - as an RSS feed would. Here are the links regardless:
    How to extract extra data fields from RSS?
    Ticker RSS Feed extra field namespace how to use?

What you could perhaps do is take your CSV, and with a little PowerShell or similar, convert that to an RSS feed XML structure, which then yes the Ticker module can absolutely show.

3

I’m open to either option - but I’m not fluent enough I guess. For the CMS API, I know PHP but since my server is local, not springsignage, I think the example online isn’t working even though I created an Application and have the clientID and secret. I’ll keep trying, plus I’m trying to learn Postman as well. Alternately, I’ll also review those RSS links - I can manipulate the CSV into an XML structure, but I know I’m off somewhere, and with XML I know it’s very picky, so I’m probably only one tag off. I’ll keep working on this, thanks for the reply.

4

It’s certainly something the project sponsors could tackle for you on a commercial basis if you wanted.

It’s one of those things where I’d need to sit and write it to tell you how to do it, beyond the broad guidelines I’ve already given.