Sync Oracle Calendar to Google Calendar + iCal + iPhone

I've been searching for a reliable method to automate the synchronization of events from Oracle Calendar (formerly CorporateTime) to my Google Calendar, iCal on my Mac, and internal iPhone calendar on my iPhone.

Recently I learned of a promising iPhone app available at iTunes called Todo+Cal+Sync that could do most of what I was looking for with synchronizing calendars. However, I didn't want to fork over $14.99 for an application that, instead of importing Oracle Calendar events into the native iPhone calendar, added an additional calendar application on my iPhone. Synthesis AG, the developer of the Todo+Cal+Sync application, is required to do this because of limitations imposed by Apple's iPhone software development kit (SDK). In other words, Apple does not allow 3rd part applications, such as Todo+Cal+Sync, to access the internal iPhone calendar, nor sync with iCal. This is a risk/benefit that Apple needs to manage; is the benefit of restricting access to the internal iPhone calendar worth the impact it has on the development of 3rd party applications and subsequent ripple effect? Until Apple's iPhone SDK allow such access, I did not want two calendar applications and continued looking for something that would better match my needs.

After digging around and tinkering with different solutions, I worked out a method that did exactly what I wanted. To make this solution even better, it cost $0 - in other words, FREE!

Below are the steps that I came up with to make the calendar sync work for me. Steps 1-3 are also useful for those who do not necessarily have an iPhone or iTouch but want to sync their Oracle Calendar with other devices and/or calendar apps that support Google Calendar's CalDAV sync.

1. Begin by changing your password for your Oracle Calendar user account. Make it a unique password that you are not using anywhere else. In other words, your new Oracle Calendar password should not be the same password as you're using for other email accounts, online banking, eBay, PayPal, etc. This new password should also comply to any password policies that may exist for users of the Oracle Calendar system.
2. Create a "magic" URL using SyncML2iCal.com. This URL will be used in step #3. You will want your magic URL to look something like the following:

Example - Oracle Calendar supporting https on port 443

http://sync.syncml2ical.com/?serverurl=https://YOUR.ORACLE.CALENDAR.COM:443/ocas-bin/ocas.fcgi?sub=syncml&user=USERNAME&pass=PASSWORD&eventsdb=./Calendar/Events?/dr(-7,30)

SECURITY WARNING - There is an increased security risk with this method. It's up to you to determine if this is a risk you are willing to accept and that it doesn't violate any policies or restrictions imposed by the organization running the Oracle Calendar service that you are using. The risks include:

• Unauthorized interception of your password from the URL as it's being transmitted to SyncML2iCal.com or from SyncML2iCal.com.
• SyncML2iCal.com itself becoming compromised and allowing an attacker to intercept your password.

In my opinion, the likelihood of the above risks happening are medium to low. You can keep this risk on the lower end by never connecting to untrusted networks or using insecure wireless, which includes wireless networks that use WEP encryption.

Additionally, you will need to determine if the impact of an unauthorized user obtaining your Oracle Calendar password would have a significant impact or not. In most instances, I would imagine the impact would be low.

This is why doing step #1 above is critical in helping minimize the impact if your password was compromised.

Anyone using an application that syncs using the SyncML functionality of Oracle Calendar should take the same precautions irregardless if he or she are using SyncML2iCal.com as a proxy to convert SynchML to iCal format.

3. Go to Google Calendar and add a new calendar by selecting Add by URL . You will use the URL you created from step #2. You may also want to change the display name and color of this new calendar on Google Calendar.
   
   Do note that Google has stated that external feeds added via the "Add by URL" method should be refreshed every 24 hours.
   

4. Download and run Calaboration from Google Code. This will allow you to add your Oracle calendar to your Mac's iCal application. Before you can add the new calendar, click on preferences within Calaboration and enable allowing read only calendars to be added. Make sure your new calendar is selected and let Calaboration do the setup work for you. Your Oracle calendar will then sync with iCal.

5. Use iTunes to sync Oracle calendar from iCal to your iPhone.

One minor annoying issue I came across was with how day events and day notes from Oracle Calendar were handled by the time they showed up in iCal. Day events and notes from Oracle Calendar showed up in iCal as being a blocked all-day event from 0000-2359. As a quick temporary solution I simply denied day events and notes within Oracle Calendar and re-synced. This temporary approach was acceptable for me since I use Google Calendar to manage my daily notes and I can look at a user's Oracle calendar if I need to know if he or she is on vacation, on-call, etc.

As for effectively managing tasks using your iPhone, see my previous article titled, Tools To Get Things Done.

Steve

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Tools To Get Things Done

“Give us the tools and we will finish the job.” ~  Winston Churchill

Managing tasks and keeping notes readily accessible and easily searchable has been an ongoing challenge for me. In 1997 I took a Franklin Time Management class and clearly understood the necessity to effectively manage my tasks and time. However, carrying an awkward organizer with me wherever I went wasn't convenient, and I often found it annoying to pull my organizer out when I needed review my schedule and often difficult to quickly locate notes that I had taken previously.

Fortunately...through need, advances in technology and the synergy of creative minds, many electronic productivity tools have surfaced in the market over the years to help with staying organized and getting things done.

Task Management

Over the past several years I've used tools such as Jott and Remember The Milk (RTM) to help me with managing my tasks. Over a period of time I found myself growing more and more frustrated with the two productivity tools. Jott started charging money for a service that did a mediocre job with converting speech-to-text. I tethered RTM with Jott for adding tasks through speech...in other words, I was using two productivity tools to do what one should have been able to do independently.

I can't expect to meet the challenges of today with yesterday's tools and expect to be in business tomorrow. Fortunately, I found a very powerful yet easy to use productivity tool that has been working extremely well for me. Several months ago I started using ReQall as a replacement for both Jott and RTM. What exactly is ReQall? According to the marketing blurb on the ReQall website:

"ReQall is the best memory tool you may ever have, connecting all the ways you communicate in one easy-to-use reminder system. Use it on the web (no software to install!) or download it into your iPhone or BlackBerry smartphone. ... By integrating voice input, speech-to-text transcription, automatic organization and multi-platform reminders, ReQall goes beyond typical to-do and reminder applications."

I've been using ReQall to manage my tasks and shopping lists. From my experience ReQall does a much better job with speech-to-text conversions than with Jott. ReQall's web interface to manage tasks is simpler to use. I'm able to add tasks via the following; web (text), iphone app (text and voice), firefox plugin (text), phone (voice), and instant messaging (text). Plus, I appreciate now having a single solution (ReQall) to do what I had been doing with two (Jott and RTM).

ReQall also allows me to add meetings and schedule tasks for specific dates and times. For example, on my iPhone I can launch the ReQall app and say the following note:

"Meet with Mike on Friday at 3pm"

The above voice note gets converted to text by ReQall. Adding my ReQall meeting feed to my Google Calendar I then see a meeting on Friday at 3pm with Mike! I also synch my iCal with Google Calendar so that my schedule stays current and easily accessible no matter where I'm accessing it.

If I want to add an item to my shopping list, all I have to do is say "buy" and whatever it is I need to pick up at the market. Whoala, the item gets converted to text and shows up in my shopping list. My shopping list can be accessed and individual items checked off from my iPhone while at the store.

Though ReQall is currently a very useful productivity tool, there's room for improvement that will increase ReQall's value. Features I would like to see include:

• A ReQall desktop widget for Mac (RTM already has a desktop widget for Mac OS X)
• Ability to view all To-Do's and shopping list items via the Firefox extension
• Ability to check items off as completed via Firefox extension
• Ability to check items off as completed via the IM interface
  
• iPhone app: Have shared shopping list entries show up in my shopping list AS WELL as my recipient's shopping list
• iPhone app: Auto refresh when starting app, making changes to items, and at specified time intervals (e.g., every 15 mins)
• iPhone app: Ability to change user/pass from the ReQall app instead of having to go through the standard iPhone settings app

I look forward to seeing what ReQall will rollout throughout 2009!

“Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.” ~ Louis Gerstner

Note Taking, Journaling and Retrieval

Over the past six months I've been using Journler to record and search through my notes. Journler was great so long as I had my laptop next to me when I needed to retrieve notes. Ultimately, what I needed was a solution that would allow me to securely access my notes from my iPhone as well as from the web. I also wanted a productivity tool that would let me take photos with my iPhone, or other camera, of whiteboards at the conclusion of a work meeting and would place the photo into my notes and preferably convert the words on the whiteboard from the photo into searchable text (OCR).

Last month a co-worker of mine asked about Evernote. Simply put, Evernote is incredibly useful! According to the Evernote website:

"Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere."

I've now migrated all of my Journler entries into Evernote. It goes without saying, I don't store anything sensitive in Evernote unless PGP'd. I can access my notes from the web browser on my laptop, the Evernote application, and from my iPhone. Imagine I was in a meeting this morning and I took a picture of the whiteboard where the word "Monkey" was written. Evernote will convert the writing into text and make it searchable. Therefore, I can search my Evernotes for the word "Monkey" and the picture of the whiteboard will be a returned result. That's awesome!

Screenshot: Evernote iPhone App

Additional features I would like to see in Evernote include:

• Strong crypto that can be applied to specific notes requiring a separate password to encrypt/decrypt for enhanced security and privacy - see next bullet point regarding two-factor authentication;
• Two-factor authentication with support for one-time-passwords (see PayPal Security Key)

Overall, I see productivity tools finally getting to a point where there's a noticeable benefit in my productivity in using them. ReQall and Evernote are two such productivity tools.

“When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools.” ~ Michael Leboeuf

Steve

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Productivity: Useful Meetings

Aaron, of the Dumb Little Man blog, just posted a helpful reminder that includes eight tips we all [should] intuitively know in order to keep meetings focussed and useful. I think we've all experienced "those" types of work meetings; whereby hours pass and very little progress, if any, has been made. The result is wasted time, wasted money, and often frustration and confusion.

Aaron writes:

The phenomenon of chronic, pointless meetings is also known as the Dilbert Meeting in some circles. Dilbert Meetings happen every day, wasting people's time and patience.

Meetings can be quite productive, but most organizers simply don’t take the steps to guarantee that a meeting will be useful.

Aaron then lists and expands upon the following eight points:

• Have a clear agenda
• Make sure that only attendees are people who need to be present
• Establish objectives for the meeting
• Have the attendees prepare in advance (if necessary)
• Keep it short
• Record key points and decisions
• Create action items and assign them
• Report progress and follow-up

I believe it's important for all of us who propose meetings to incorporate the above points into how we organize and run our meetings. The result will be better for the business, and better for the development and morale of those attending.

Steve Zenone
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Time Management - Email

Do you sometimes feel as if you have too much to do, yet not enough time to do it all? You know, where one moment you're working on a critical project, the next dealing with a perceived emergency. Those times when you feel as if you're being pulled in a bunch of different directions. As a result you might sometimes feel as if you're not getting anything done! I came across a blog from New York Times blogger Marci Alboher. She describes the following:

• The system she uses for maintaining emails.
• To eliminate unnecessary meetings.
• To work when most productive.
• To set boundaries when necessary.
• To know when to say "no" at times when a "yes" will be counterproductive.
  

I certainly find the last two most challenging; setting boundaries and knowing when to say "no". What I'd also add to the list is how to delegate and leverage resources. Ultimately, I believe a win/win needs to be reached.

5 Time Management Tricks [NY Times Blog: Shifting Careers]
InBox Zero: Action Based Email [43 Folders]
-steve