using org-mode with MS Outlook

using org-mode with MS Outlook

[David Ellis]

I would like to move my calendar and task data from MS Outlook into
org files. I would like to know if anyone has done this and what is
the best way to do this. I know that MS Outlook can export to an
icalendar file. So, if there is an easy way to import that into and
org file, that will solve the calendar issue.

I appreciate any help you can provide.

--
David Ellis

Re: using org-mode with MS Outlook

[Rehan Iftikhar]

David

Are you using an MS exchange server? I've been thinking about how one
might pull down data and present it in org-mode.

-Rehan

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 12:31 PM, David Ellis <ddellis914@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to move my calendar and task data from MS Outlook into
> org files. I would like to know if anyone has done this and what is
> the best way to do this. I know that MS Outlook can export to an
> icalendar file. So, if there is an easy way to import that into and
> org file, that will solve the calendar issue.
>
> I appreciate any help you can provide.
>
> --
> David Ellis
>
>



-- 
-Rehan

Re: using org-mode with MS Outlook

[Nick Dokos]

David Ellis <ddellis914@gmail.com> wrote:

> I would like to move my calendar and task data from MS Outlook into
> org files. I would like to know if anyone has done this and what is
> the best way to do this. I know that MS Outlook can export to an
> icalendar file. So, if there is an easy way to import that into and
> org file, that will solve the calendar issue.
> 
> I appreciate any help you can provide.
> 

There have been recent discussions on ical2org, an awk script to convert
icalendar files to org. Search for ical2org in the list archives. Here's
a possible starting link:

  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/36965

Nick

Disclaimer: Never used it - but it is on my to-check-out list.

Re: using org-mode with MS Outlook

[David Ellis]

After I sent this email, I found ical2org.el. I saved a month of my
calendar from Outlook to an iCalendar file. Then, I used
ical2org/convert-file to convert it to an org file. All of the times
were off by 6 hours. Since I live in the Central time zone in the US
that is GMT-6, I wondered if this was the issue. When I used
icalendar-import-file to convert the iCalendar file to a diary file,
the times were okay.

I edited the iCalendar file and removed the timezone section which
included the following:

BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Central Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16011104T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=11
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010311T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE

After this ical2org/convert-file produced an org file with the correct
times. The times in the iCalendar file produced by Outlook were in
GMT.

Is there a way to get this to work without manually editing the iCalendar file?

-- 

David Ellis

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 2:31 PM, David Ellis <ddellis914@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to move my calendar and task data from MS Outlook into
> org files. I would like to know if anyone has done this and what is
> the best way to do this. I know that MS Outlook can export to an
> icalendar file. So, if there is an easy way to import that into and
> org file, that will solve the calendar issue.
>
> I appreciate any help you can provide.
>
> --
> David Ellis
>

Re: using org-mode with MS Outlook

[Nick Dokos]

David Ellis <ddellis914@gmail.com> wrote:

> After I sent this email, I found ical2org.el. I saved a month of my
> calendar from Outlook to an iCalendar file. Then, I used
> ical2org/convert-file to convert it to an org file. All of the times
> were off by 6 hours. Since I live in the Central time zone in the US
> that is GMT-6, I wondered if this was the issue. When I used
> icalendar-import-file to convert the iCalendar file to a diary file,
> the times were okay.
> 

Where did you get ical2org.el? Does it use icalendar.el as distributed
with emacs? IME, the latter has a lot of problems with timezones (based
on a very cursory examination - I mean to go back to that but haven't had
the time), so if the former uses it, I wouldn't be surprised to see
timezone problems cropping up.

I bet you would have better luck with the awk script, if only because the
two people who have worked on it (Eric Fraga who originated it and Arun
Persaud who has added functionality recently and has taken over its care
and feeding [fn:1]) are both regulars on this ML and *very* responsive.

Nick

Footnotes:
[fn:1] I hope this description is accurate but the principals involved
might have different ideas - this is just my reading of the situation.

Re: using org-mode with MS Outlook

[Eric S Fraga]

Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com> writes:

> David Ellis <ddellis914@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> After I sent this email, I found ical2org.el. I saved a month of my
>> calendar from Outlook to an iCalendar file. Then, I used
>> ical2org/convert-file to convert it to an org file. All of the times
>> were off by 6 hours. Since I live in the Central time zone in the US
>> that is GMT-6, I wondered if this was the issue. When I used
>> icalendar-import-file to convert the iCalendar file to a diary file,
>> the times were okay.
>> 
>
> Where did you get ical2org.el? Does it use icalendar.el as distributed
> with emacs? IME, the latter has a lot of problems with timezones
> (based on a very cursory examination - I mean to go back to that but
> haven't had the time), so if the former uses it, I wouldn't be
> surprised to see timezone problems cropping up.
>
> I bet you would have better luck with the awk script, if only because
> the two people who have worked on it (Eric Fraga who originated it and
> Arun Persaud who has added functionality recently and has taken over
> its care and feeding [fn:1]) are both regulars on this ML and *very*
> responsive.
>
> Nick
>
> Footnotes: [fn:1] I hope this description is accurate but the
> principals involved might have different ideas - this is just my
> reading of the situation.

Nick, yes, I think you got the summary about right.

David, with respect to your original query, if you have a look at my
original script, you'll see that the times should be adjusted for your
time zone.  Can you please have a look at the file exported by Google to
see if the times are actually in your time zone or whether they have
already been converted to UTC?  Google does provide both options, as
far as I remember (but Google does not really document much of these
aspects and things do change).

If you want, send me an extract of the ical formatted file and I will
check it out.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 24.0.50.1
: using Org-mode version 7.4 (release_7.4.639.g1a03c.dirty)

Re: using org-mode with MS Outlook

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

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Hi David,

>>>>> On Thu, 3 Mar 2011 14:31:48 -0600, David Ellis ("DE") wrote:

  DE> I would like to move my calendar and task data from MS Outlook into
  DE> org files. I would like to know if anyone has done this and what is
  DE> the best way to do this. I know that MS Outlook can export to an
  DE> icalendar file. So, if there is an easy way to import that into and
  DE> org file, that will solve the calendar issue.

I took a slightly different approach; when I get meeting-invitations etc.,
Exchange usually sends a message; so what I did was to write some code to
parse these message and add the item to my org-calendar.

The approach is a bit fragile, and there are quite a few cases which are not
handled very well; still it may be useful; so find attached
org-exchange-capture.el; ideas for improvements are welcome.

Best wishes,
Dirk.


[-- Attachment #2: org-exchange-capture.el --]
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;; org-exchange-capture.el, v0.0.1
;; written by: Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>
;; License: GPLv3+

(require 'org-capture)

;; turn the e-mails sent MS-Exchange about invitation/appointments into org-TODOs
;; using 'org-capture'.

;; The idea is that you select (mark) the parts of the email you want to add to
;; your org-todo item, and then invoke M-x org-exchange-capture-invitation

;; Some caveats:

;;  - obviously, this is just a one-way copy, it won't make you 'accept' an
;;    invitation, nor does it get any updates

;;  - it seems to work with the emails I get from Exchange (I've encountered two
;;    different kinds). But there may be more; at least the ones I get that are
;;    in English, there are other versions as well. I'd be interested in
;;    extending the regexps with more cases.
;;
;;  - it does not take time-zones into account (yet)
;;
;;  NOTE:
;;  It does NOT handle yet:
;;     When: 12.08.2010 12:00-14:00 (GMT+02:00) Helsinki, ...
;;    When: \\([0-9]\\{2\\}\.[0-9]\\{2\\}\.[0-9]\\{4\\}\\)

;;    When: 20. syyskuuta 2010 12:00-12:45 (GMT+02:00) Helsinki,  ....

;;  When: Occurs every Thursday effective 19.08.2010 from 14:00 to 15:30
;;  (GMT+02:00) Helsinki, ...

;;  - it requires org-capture, which is fairly new; it should be easy to support
;;    org-remember as well though. Also, I only tested with Wanderlust as e-mail
;;    client; it *should* work with others as well though... 

;; Note that that the message buffer must be the active buffer;
;; ie. it won't work in the 'Summary' (Wanderlust)

(defun djcb-exchange-invite-time-to-org-date()
  "try to to find the Time/Date from an Exchange-invitation
e-mail in the current buffer, and convert it into an org-mode
date, or `nil' if it's not found."
  "get the time/date of an Outlook invite in org-mode notation"
  (let ((date) (time-begin) (time-end))
    (save-excursion
      (save-match-data
	(beginning-of-buffer)
	(if (re-search-forward
	      (concat "^When: \\([0-9]+ [a-z]+,? [0-9]\\{4\\}\\) "
		"\\([0-9]+:[0-9]+\\)-\\([0-9]+:[0-9]+\\)") nil t 1)
	  (progn
	    (setq
	      date (parse-time-string (match-string-no-properties 1))
	      time-begin (match-string-no-properties 2)
	      time-end (match-string-no-properties 3))
	    (format "<%d-%02d-%02d %s--%s>"
	      (elt date 5) (elt date 4) (elt date 3)
	    time-begin time-end))
	  (message "No match")
	  nil)))))

(defun djcb-exchange-invite-subject()
  "get the subject of an MS-Exchange invite e-mail in the current
buffer"
  (save-excursion
    (save-match-data
      (beginning-of-buffer)
      (when (re-search-forward "^Subject: \\(.*\\)" nil t 1)
	(match-string-no-properties 1)))))

(defun org-exchange-capture-invitation ()
  "capture the MS-Exchange invite e-mail in buffer into an
org-mode agenda item using the org-capture system. For this to
work, you'll need to add to your `org-capture-templates' an item
with a shortcut key of 'E', e.g.

     (\"E\" \"ExchangeInvite\" entry
       (file+headline \"todo.org\" \"Meetings\")
       \"* TODO %c\\n\")

any text you select (mark) in the buffer will be added to to
captured TODO; thus you can add the relevant details to the org TODO item.
"
  (interactive)
  (let(	(time (djcb-exchange-invite-time-to-org-date))
	(title (djcb-exchange-invite-subject))
	(txt
	   (if (use-region-p) (buffer-substring-no-properties (region-beginning)
				(region-end)) "")))
    (when time
      (kill-new (concat title " " time "\n\t" txt)) ;; hack: prepend to kill ring
      (org-capture nil "E"))))

(provide 'org-exchange-capture)

[-- Attachment #3: Type: text/plain, Size: 172 bytes --]




-- 
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema                  Helsinki, Finland
e:djcb@djcbsoftware.nl           w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
pgp: D09C E664 897D 7D39 5047 A178 E96A C7A1 017D DA3C

Re: using org-mode with MS Outlook

[Bastien]

Hi Dirk-Jan,

Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb.bulk@gmail.com> writes:

> The approach is a bit fragile, and there are quite a few cases which are not
> handled very well; still it may be useful; so find attached
> org-exchange-capture.el; ideas for improvements are welcome.

I'm not using MS Exchange myself, but I hope your code is useful for
others.  Would you consider putting it on Worg/org-hacks.org?

I can do it for you if you want.

Thanks for sharing it!

-- 
 Bastien

Re: using org-mode with MS Outlook

[Michael Markert]

On 4 Mar 2011, Nick Dokos wrote:
> David Ellis <ddellis914@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> After I sent this email, I found ical2org.el. I saved a month of my
>> calendar from Outlook to an iCalendar file. Then, I used
>> ical2org/convert-file to convert it to an org file. All of the times
>> were off by 6 hours. Since I live in the Central time zone in the US
>> that is GMT-6, I wondered if this was the issue. When I used
>> icalendar-import-file to convert the iCalendar file to a diary file,
>> the times were okay.
>
> Where did you get ical2org.el? Does it use icalendar.el as distributed
> with emacs? IME, the latter has a lot of problems with timezones (based
> on a very cursory examination - I mean to go back to that but haven't had
> the time), so if the former uses it, I wouldn't be surprised to see
> timezone problems cropping up.

Yes it's based on Emacs' icalendar.org; I'll look into the issue, but
currently short on time - so you might be better of with the Awk
solution right now.

In case anybody wants to hack on it himself/herself Repository is on
Github[1].

It was on the list a few weeks before [2].

Michael

Footnotes:
[1] https://github.com/cofi/ical2org
[2] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/35555