Google calendar integration

Google Calendar integration

If you use Google Calendar or another calendar service that supports subscribing to remote calendars, you can set it up so that your todos with due dates show up on your calendar.

Here are some instructions to set it up on Google (other calendars will have different steps):

1. First, Google’s calendar uses their googlebot web crawler to fetch your data. The default robots.txt file that comes with Tracks blocks all bots. So, even though you have told Google to come get it, the googlebot will respect the robot.txt rules and will not fetch you calendar without a small change to your Tracks installation. To make the change, open your preferred text editor on the server where your Tracks is hosted and edit the robots.txt file. From your Tracks root, it is located at public/robots.txt and you need to add these lines:
   

   User-Agent: Googlebot
   Allow: /calendar.ics?
   Disallow: /

   Above the line “User-Agent: Googlebot”. If you are using a different calendar service, it may not need a change like this one. If it does use a robot, you would need to find out the name of its robot and use it in the User-Agent line.
2. Now that you have given the googlebot access, you are ready to add your Tracks todos to your Google calendar. Visit your tracks calendar page by using the menu View >> Calendar or type in the URL directly (for example: http://your.tracks.domain/calendar)
3. This page has a listing of your todos grouped chronologically. On the right side of the page, you will have an orange iCal icon that links to your calendar feed. Copy this link (if you have a two button mouse, usually you will find a “copy link” option on a right click. Other systems may vary. :)
4. Now, go to your google calendar page. On the left sidebar, you will find a section for “other calendars”. Click the down arrow to show the menu and then click “Add by URL”. In the popup window, paste in the link you copied earlier and click the “add calendar” button. In a while, you should start seeing your todos in a calendar. Google will periodically check your feed and update your calendar with any changes. There is some lag between when you create a new todo with a due or check off a completed one and when the change shows up in your Google calendar. It may only update daily and the googlebot works on its own timetable so you can really control the update schedule.