Calender Systems

[Darren Ladner]

I need a new calender of events type software. Right now we were using the open source vtcalender system until it broke. This system has been nothing but problems. The previous web designers were the ones that put this calender system into use. What are others using? I know that a lot of institutions have CMS which include a calender system with the application. Anybody out there using a different open source calender system or a reasonable priced commercial calender? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Again thanks in advance to everyone who replies.

[Doug Minor]

Have you taken a look at Active Data Exchange (http://www.activedatax.com/calendar.htm)? We are in the middle of implementing the calendar as part of our site redesign. They can host your calendar or you can host it yourself. You can also pull events into the calendar from other scheduler systems via a persistent .csv or xml feed. Also includes features like social bookmarking, add to my calendar, e-mail to friend, etc.

[Seth Meranda]

The UNL events system (open source) has worked well for us, and is used by many institutions: http://code.google.com/p/unl-event-publisher/

[Aaron Knight]

We're using a home-built system based on classic ASP and Microsoft SQL 2005.

[Michael Plyler]

We're using Helios Calendar (http://www.helioscalendar.com). It's a PHP/mySQL system, easy to deploy, reasonably priced and easy to customize.

[Darren Ladner]

Michael thanks for the info on helios. Do you use the $149 version or the developer version for $699? Is the $149 version pretty easy to customize with the schools Logo and colors? Is it easy to install? Have you had any major issues or problems with it?

Thanks, Darren

[Michael Plyler]

I use the $149...you can customize everything that you want on the front-end with this. The $699 license is if you want to customize the admin interface and resell their product as a developer.

I'm more of a .NET/SQL person. It was extremely easy to install and customize. I've not had any issues at all. They do have email support, but their FAQs and forum support have answered any question I've had.

[Ken Newquist]

Aside from OpenID, what sort of authentication does it support (e.g. LDAP, Shibboleth, etc.)?

[Jason Slater]

Would you say a Helios implementation requires a "developer" or someone who's comfortable with PHP and MySQL code? Our institution lost it's developer with no expectation to replace the role and Helios is being considered for implementation. Our goals would be for campus event presentation, filtering of events to specific sites for marketing presentation, LDAP integration, campus community contribution with moderator approval and pulling in Athletics events from our Sidearm vendor. We're also considering Active Data which presents the other end of the spectrum in terms of a solution with more integration/implementation support.

[Darren Ladner]

Jason, a person does not need to be an advanced PHP programmer. I believe that someone that is knowledgeable in computers and computer files could follow the directions and can install the calendar. They give some easy to follow directions. Knowing some very basic PHP would make things easier. When it comes to customizing the calendar, I would say very basic PHP knowledge would also be helpful. You must have a MySQL database and PHP installed on the web server. The program comes with the SQL creating database files. So someone with basic PHP knowledge could easily install and customize the Helios calendar. I hope this helps. You can email me if you have any questions as I just got through with the install and customization of our calendar.

[Mike Murray]

Great thread. Can one of the Helios people answer whether HeliosCalendar can pull in XML or feeds from other calendars and integrate it somewhat automatically? Our campus is too diversified with web calendars and we need something to bring them all together under one roof.

Thanks

[Darren Ladner]

Thanks for all the responses. Greatly appreciated!

[Hilary Knox]

We are considering moving to Bedework. Per their website, "Bedework is an open-source, enterprise calendar system designed to conform to current calendaring standards. Made for higher education and built in Java, Bedework has a centralized server architecture allowing immediate update of public and personal calendaring information."
http://www.bedework.org/bedework/