I'm looking at calendar options for my FileMaker solution and have decided to either integrate SeedCode's bolt-on native FileMaker calendar or use their Zulu plugin on the server with iCal for the desktop. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, so I'm curious to hear from others who have faced this challenge.

I'm leaning towards Zulu so that our employees in the field can access calendar information from the native iOS Calendar application. To the best of my knowledge, SeedCode's native Calendar doesn't work on FileMaker Go. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

The major disadvantage I see to Zulu is not having access to FileMaker data or the ability to (easily) link a contact, institution, or other database record to the calendar event when created in iCal. I'm also not sure how Zulu handles the creation of new event records in iCal for a filtered calendar. If, for example, I have a filtered calendar set up to filter on the UserName field, if I create a new record in John Smith's calendar in iCal, does Zulu know to insert this value into the UserName field so that it displays in the correct calendar?

We're also looking at project management software and I'm intrigued by OmniPlan's ability to sync with a CalDAV server. Since Zulu essentially turns FileMaker Server into a CalDAV server, I'm wondering if OmniPlan could sync with our FileMaker database this way. Has anyone tried it?

All feedback is welcome! Thanks!

-Rob

Hi Rob,

I have a couple of clients using Zulu. We have not found a practical way round the problem you describe when creating an event in iCal, so all events are created in FileMaker and iCal is used for reminders, rescheduling and completion. Zulu handles new events in filtered calendars as you would hope, by including the filtering criteria - so the answer to your question is yes.

``download a copy and play with it.

Sorry I didn't respond earlier but only just read your post, hope you get a great solution

Tim

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the reply! I've been playing around with it and it's pretty darn cool. I want to test it with OmniPlan. You haven't tried that by any chance, have you? Also, I'm currently just testing it as a single user and was wondering if each user who accesses a calendar in a multi-user environment can set his/her own reminders for the events?

For example, I'm planning to use Zulu to generate a (filtered) calendar for each of our Project records showing all Events for that particular Project. Users will be able to view and update, reschedule, etc the Project Events via iCal. I plan to do the same as you, create Events in Filemaker then use iCal for everything else. If multiple users are all accessing a single Project's calendar via iCal, can each user set his or her own reminders?

Thanks for taking the time to share your insights!

Best,

Rob

Hi Rob,

No, not tested OmniPlan, sorry!

I don't think what you describe will work. You will get an alarm for the Project, not for the person - I think!

In my scenario each user has their own Calendar (filtered) and so can get their own reminders. There may be a way to do what you want with some clever filtering - concatenating the projectID and the userID for example.

If you get stuck ask a question on SeedCodes support forum. (http://www.seedcode.com/support/) Both John and Jason very smart and helpful - as you will see from their responses.

Good luck

Tim