Overall there was good interoperability. In general the vendors were able to interoperate. They were able to invite, reply, reschedule, and cancel to single instance meetings. There was some problems with the timezones that were used in recurrence rules, as a result only minimal testing was done with events with multiple occurrences. Finally, even though Microsoft was not there, some interoperability was done with Outlook.

Some issues found were UID problems and then in timezone problems.

The only other interesting problem was distinguishing between removing a person and canceling. From my point of view we did not end up doing a lot of testing. I am including a table of what we support and what we tested. The table is not completed except for EVENTS

Other Issues encountered while doing iCAL testing at CalConnect2.

1. Sent to a Bcc user via Location Doc: “Through xxxx Server/MIME format”; Person Doc: “Prefers MIME”. The Bcc user receives an invitation with all of the Typical Workflow actions. Error: S/he should only have the “Add to Calendar” action.

2. Reschedule notices are not displaying invitee response actions.

3. Invitations from a French Vendor 3 client are received with no subject or date/time fields.

4. Cancellation notices being received as Updates from vendor 1. Upon opening notice, you get the correct pop-up indicating that the meeting has been cancelled and the entry is removed from the Calendar. However, the “Update Calendar” button is not hidden, and if you click on it it will recreate the entry.

5. Cancellation of a repeating meeting from Vendor 3 doesn’t remove entries from Calendar.

6. Custom repeats from Vendor 3 (RDATEs) only display the first date in the “Repeat Options” dialog in invitee’s Calendar entry.

Comments from Vendor 3.

1. Vendor 2 and Vendor 1 can retrieve EVENT REQUEST messages from Vendor 3 Server — But they would prefer that the Vendor 3 IMIP messages come in the “multipart/mixed” MIME format. We have included this item in our bug list.

2. We tried to import a REPLY from the other vendors. We were able to import Vendor 2’s REPLY. However, we could not import Vendor 1’s REPLY messages. This was because they were inserting the Recurrence-ID in the event REPLY message even though it was a non-recurring VEVENT. Also, we had a bug in handling RSVP. We were saving the change in the RSVP value of the attendee, which caused a UI bug. (In our User Interface, the attendee was moved to an INFORM)

3. Vendor 1 and 2 can receive our recurring EVENT REQUEST invitations.

4. We can import Vendor 1 and 2’s recurring REPLY messages. However, we get the same number of e-mails as instances (i.e. 60 replies (messages) to 1 recurring event)

5. We can import CANCEL messages from Vendor 1

6. Vendor 2 could not import our mail messages from a Spanish or French user. — Vendor 1 can display them OK using the Eudora mail program.

7. We can import a recurring REQUEST from Vendor 2

8. Vendor 4 created an event. They sent two REQUEST messages, sequence=0, sequence=1, the first one sent RECURRENCE-ID, the second one did not. This is Vendor 1’s bug, and they may have fixed it.

What about others:

1. No one implemented ADD.

2. No one tested COUNTER or DECLINECOUNTER

The Vendor 3 team is working on fixing CalConnect-related bugs and will include the fixes in future releases.

This interop compared to the first one was a world of difference. Many many more things worked and we were able to spend more time testing elements.

While Vendor 2 shows a lot “Untested”, after reading notes, I believe many of these items were indeed tested. We have developed a new testing form that will be used on the next interop test. I know one vendor felt we had not done enough testing — I think he really wanted to prove it all works. Well, most of it did! We still have a ways to go, but for the first time, everyone feels that we have made progress and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The best part of the interop was the interactions between the attendees. That will help ongoing efforts tremendously. Everyone wants to do the next interop within the next 6-9 months. We don’t want to wait too long now that we have momentum.

By Patricia Egen