I am trying to integrate a filemaker calendar in which we are filtering by staff ID. So in the calendar there is a checkbox field for Staff ID that can have multiple boxes checked. This allows the user to filter views of appointment items by staff ID.

We would like to integrate this calendar with iCal using Zulu. Can you suggest a strategy for maintaining this information in iCal. Also, if a user creates an appointment in iCal, is there a way to tag it with the correct Staff ID for that user? Or is this something that has to happen after the fact in Filemaker?

I think i would like to create calendars in iCal that correspond to the Staff ID list. So if an event is tagged with two different Staff IDs it would show up on both calendars. Or, is there a better way?

Thanks for any feedback on this. Still trying to get my head around the integration process.

Hi Rusty,

You can do this, but the staff IDS will probably need to be text.

We have John: ID001 and Fred: ID002

We can then set up a filtered calendar with a display name of John, a filter field of staff ID, and a filter value of ID001. Since the filter searches are looking for values that "contain" the filter value, an event that is assigned to both Fred and John will show in John's calendar, i.e.

Filter value of ID001 will find a calendar with the staff value of:
ID001
ID002

Likewise, on the iCal side, if John adds a new event to his Calendar the filter value of ID001 will be assigned back to the filter field (staff id) in FileMaker. What you won't be able to do is to assign a single event to two calendars in iCal, i.e. John creates an event in his calendar, he can only assign it to himself, not to Fred. Assigning an event to more than one person will have to be done on the FileMaker side.

hth,
Jason

Thanks Jason. I will give this a try and report back.