Now that we understand the design of a minimal “ics” file, we can define a calculation field, ical_basis, in our database to assemble and format the data accordingly. Reminder: the first thing we do when we define a calculation field is, of course, make sure the result type is correct: in this case we want the result type to be text. Also, let’s set the storage type to “unstored”. This calculation is the heart of the whole operation. Its main purpose is to generate one body segment per appointment record.

Note how the conversion to UTC is handled: Additionally, it will create the header at the beginning of the first record, and the footer at the end of the last record with the help of the “rn” and “fc” variables. transform a date and time into a timestamp.

break it into individual components (year, month, etc.).pad the components with leading zeros if necessary.Let’s reduce our found set to three records, go into preview mode and see how that calc evaluates. We simply export our found set of appointments to a text file with an “ics” extension and declare victory, right? Well, not quite. …a text file with three lines, each a mile long. While inconvenient, this makes sense if you think about it. When you export to a text file, FileMaker uses ASCII 13 as the record delimiter, i.e, puts a hard return between the data from each record. To avoid confusion, any existing hard returns from within the source data are converted to a “vertical tab” character (ASCII 11).īut we’re not going to let a puny ASCII character defeat us, are we? (Yes, I know, these are Unicode, not ASCII, codes… but the values are the same either way, and it’s easier to refer to ASCII codes than Unicode “code points”.)īroadly speaking, there are two different approaches we can take to solve this problem:Ī. Generate the text file, and then post process the file using some sort of external technology.ī. Parse each row of ical_basis into a separate record, and then export those records. (There may be other plug-ins that can accomplish this as well, but Troi File is the one I’m familiar with, having used it since 1998.) There are various ways the post-processing can be accomplished, including AppleScript on the Mac, and VB Script or PowerShell on the PC, but it can also be done via a 3rd-party FileMaker plug-in, Troi File.

Import ical to outlook for mac 2016