Try adding an .ics appointment into Outlook

Would you like to try adding an Outlook appointment, just to see how it works?

We’ve made a simple test .ics you can download:

Add a test appointment

It’s a normal .ics file that can be added to Outlook for Windows/Mac or any other compatible programs (most calendar programs do).  See Web Links Adding Outlook Appointments – Tricks and traps

Here’s how it looks when opened in Outlook:

As you can see, the details obviously fictional.  Little risk you’d mistake this for a real flight.

 

Effective Outlook Calendars 2nd edition shows you how to make use of the appointment, event, reminder and calendar parts in Outlook and share that information with other computers & devices.

 

Under the Hood

FYI, here’s the entire test ics file in plain text.  As you can see, there’s a lot of time zone information that Outlook for Windows/Mac totally ignores.

 

BEGIN:VCALENDAR

VERSION:2.0

X-WR-CALNAME:HBT to

CALSCALE:GREGORIAN

BEGIN:VTIMEZONE

TZID:Europe/London

TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo-outlook/Europe/London

X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London

BEGIN:DAYLIGHT

TZOFFSETFROM:+0000

TZOFFSETTO:+0100

TZNAME:BST

DTSTART:19700329T010000

RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU

END:DAYLIGHT

BEGIN:STANDARD

TZOFFSETFROM:+0100

TZOFFSETTO:+0000

TZNAME:GMT

DTSTART:19701025T020000

RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU

END:STANDARD

END:VTIMEZONE

BEGIN:VEVENT

DTSTAMP:20170213T090857Z

UID:[email protected]

DTSTART;TZID="Europe/London":20170401T070000

DTEND;TZID="Europe/London":20170401T141500

SUMMARY:Hobbiton to Mt. Doom

DESCRIPTION:Ref:  123456\nLuggage limit:  One Ring\nInflight: Lembas

LOCATION:Gandalf Air GA9  7am

BEGIN:VALARM

ACTION:DISPLAY

DESCRIPTION:Hobbiton to Mt. Doom

TRIGGER:-PT1H

END:VALARM

END:VEVENT

END:VCALENDAR