iCalendar Importing

Import your Sessions from iCalendar files and applications

From the File menu, select 'Synchronise Calendar', then 'Import Calendar...'. In the popup that appears, enter the name of the iCalendar file or the web address of the calendar to be imported. Then click the 'Import' button

iCal Address for Google Calendars

You will need the private iCal address for the calendar you want to import. Details on how to get this address are on the Google calendar help pages under 'Importing and Exporting'. The address will look something like;
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/johndolittle%40gmail.com/private-d9529c8b544d79af1fe/basic.ics

Importing

When the calendar is read appointments will only be converted into PennyPerfect Sessions if;

The Location or Subject of the appointment matches a Practice in PennyPerfect (either the Practice name or the first line of the Practice address).
The appointment has a start and end time (full day appointments are ignored).
The appointment does not have the same start time as an existing Session in PennyPerfect (to prevent duplicate sessions being created when importing multiple times)

By default each session is created with a rate of £0 and a session type of NHS Normal. If these are entered in the appointment details (on seperate lines) these will be used when creating the session e.g.

£175
NHS OOH

Repeating sessions will be imported but wont repeat more than 50 times or more than a year into the future. This is to prevent a huge amount of Sessions being created in PennyPerfect because they were accidently created in the source calendar or it incorrectly writes the repetition details.

The date range for importing can be set so sessions more than x days in the past are ignored. This makes the sync process faster if you have a lot of appointments on your iCalendar.

Filtering

It is best to keep your work appointments on a seperate calendar from non-work appointments.

Some calendar applications allow a category to be specified for each appointment. In the PennyPerfect Options dialogue you can choose to only import appointments with a particular category.

Time Zones

When calendars are imported, the time zone of the calendar is ignored - it is assumed the calendar is set to UK time. Daylight savings time is correctly handled by Google and Mozilla calendars. MS Works calendars do not export DST times correctly, so times may be imported incorrectly (offset by one hour).