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Import and Export Calendar in ICS format
Table of Contents
Introduction
If you have your events or tasks in iCalendar(ics) format, you can import them into your Calendar Module in Vtiger CRM. Additionally, you can also export your calendar records in Vtiger CRM into .ics format.
Import Process
- Click on
icon
- Click on List View option in the left nav bar
- Click on Import button from the top right corner
- In the popup, select ics file type
- Click on Select from MyComputer button, choose your ics file to import
- Click Import
Note! 1. Make sure that your .ics file addresses all mandatory fields in your Calendar module.
2. The Activity Type is set to Meetings and the Assigned To value is the username who perfoms import.
Export Process
If you ever want to transfer your calendar records, you can simply export them to .ics file.
- Click on
icon
- Click on List View option in the left nav bar
- Click on More and select the Export option
- Select ics radiobutton, by default the Export all data options will be selected
Note! While exporting records in ics format only Export all data option will be available. The other 2 options are frozen, this is a limitation, for now.
- Click on Export Calendar
Points to remember
- All the mandatory fields have to be mapped during import.
Note! Activity Type is a mandatory field
- A new Activity type(say, Demo meeting) can be imported. This value will be added in Event > Activity Type picklist value.
- If a Task record is being imported, mention the Activity type as Task, else an event record will be created with Activity Type value specified in CSV file.
- Send Reminder, Repeat and Invite User field values can neither be imported nor exported.
- Import fails if Visibility field is empty or contains an improper value.
Date and Time field values
- Start Date, Due Date, Time Start and End time are all different fields which has to be mapped individually during import.
- On import, the Time start and End time fields remain same as specified in CSV file irrespective of the time zone configured in My Preference.
- Date field values depend on date format configured in My Preference. Any other format found during import, the date field value will be empty.
- If My preference date format is mm-dd-yyyy or dd-mm-yyyy, the system can auto-detect the value from CSV file and import the values as in My Preferences.
- You can import values like – 21.10.2010 or 21/10/2011 whereas you cannot import values like – 8 June 2013
Note! The CSV file should always contain the Time values in 24-hour format only.
- You can import values like – 21.10.2010 or 21/10/2011 whereas you cannot import values like – 8 June 2013
- On import if the date field contains wrong date values like 36-45-2016, then the value will be overwritten as 01-01-1970
- On import if the time field contains wrong time values like 50:89:00, then the import fails.
Note! If the End Time is not mapped/empty, then import considers it as a Task, irrespective of it being a task/event.
Related To fields
- Relate an event to more than one contact record while import by following the below-mentioned structure.
Contacts::::Jessie Stokes,Contacts::::Daniel Avasti - For related to the field, if no prefix is given (say in above example, if Contacts is not specified), then the system will search for that value in the following order- Organization, Campaign, Cases, Invoice …. Services (as mentioned in the Related To block).
- If no record found, then it will create a new record in Service with that name and relate the event to it (as service is last in the list).
- If there exists a new custom module (with no mandatory reference fields), then a record will be created for that module.