Web Calendar not syncing properly with Tools or other 3rd party apps

[robbw]

We are seeing significant errors with the tools app (and other 3rd party apps) not displaying correct items on the calendar.

This is starting to cause significant headaches with our members. We have tried pushing syncs from the website as well as re-synced manually from tools.

What options exist to ensure our calendars are working correctly? Noteably, we are seeing the most issues with calendar items that have been "edited" and changed to another date and / or time. The web calendar does this correctly, but it never propagates to the Tools app or other 3-rd party calendar applications using calendar URLs.

Do you have any temporary corrective actions we can use?

Thanks

[russellhltn]

How much time are you allowing between edit and seeing the change?

Have you confirmed the change isn't showing up by looking at the sync ics file itself?

[robbw]

How much time has elapsed...let's see. For the Stake council meeting, the change was made about 15 days prior to the actual event. People showed up at the wrong time.

For the Ward conference changes, we made multiple changes about a month ago - the Tools app calendar and other 3rd party apps still reflect the original dates and times.

I have not looked at the ics sync file - I didn't know I could...and the 3rd party URLs are just URLs, right? They should update automatically. What am I missing?

[russellhltn]

If you put the sync URL into a web browser, you'll get an ICS file. You can then open it in a text editor and try to decipher the contents.

That will tell if the problem is with the file produced by the calendar system, or with how the apps sync.

In my experience in syncing with a personal calendar on Android, it takes about a day or so. Google pulls the file once a day at a time of it's choosing, and then the phone has to sync with the Google account. That's why I asked how long the wait was.

[russellhltn]

I've been assured things are working - at least now.

Any chance this is a DST bug? There was a long-standing issue about displaying events across a change in Daylight Savings. So if you scheduled an event this for this week (in DST), but you did it before March 9th (before DST), it could do some odd things.

[lajackson]

Do you have any temporary corrective actions we can use?

My Member Tools calendar does not sync unless I sync it. This is particularly true with changes to existing events.

Sometimes it "accidentally" syncs, but this happens too infrequently for me to be able to determine when it does. I think if I am accidentally signed out and have to sign in again it will update. Otherwise, I have to go to the calendar and use the Refresh option on the three-dot menu at the top right to get it to update. The regular Sync does not update the calendar (Android here, for the record, but the iOS folks also complain).

I have worked with my stake clerk and discovered that I am able to go more than a month without receiving calendar changes in Tools that he has made online. He has never successfully forced a calendar change to me.

We encourage our members to "regularly" refresh their calendars, I usually do it weekly, and have a flag in my personal calendar to do it monthly at the very least.

And I always do it a day or two before I make the long drive to the stake center for any meeting or activity.

[russellhltn]

Any feel for how often the member data is updated? I'm thinking both may update at the same time.

[lajackson]

Any feel for how often the member data is updated? I'm thinking both may update at the same time.

When everything is working, membership data says it syncs every time you open the app, if you have Automatic Sync turned on.

If you select Sync Automatically Only on Wi-Fi, you need to be in Wi-Fi coverage, of course. But I have found that even pressing Manually Sync does not update the calendar, even though it is on the Available Data list.

[russellhltn]

Sounds like a bug. Has that been reported?

[lajackson]

Sounds like a bug. Has that been reported?

Yes. Several times. Along with a couple of other bugs that have never been resolved.