Group Calendaring service enters beta test

We are pleased to announce the availability of a group calendaring service to help W3C Groups schedule their meetings and share them with the W3C community. Helping our international groups work well across time zones is especially important as work continues to move online. This new service is in beta-test for now but we encourage everyone to use it and report feedback or issues in the dedicated GitHub repository.

This new tool is composed of several parts described below.

Per-group calendar view

All public groups now have a new "Calendar" tab in their description page. This new view lists all upcoming meetings a group has scheduled. It allows to:

• view meeting times in different time zones (including your own)
• access past meetings
• export or subscribe to this calendar in iCal, a format supported by calendaring client applications
• go to individual meeting details

Dataset Exchange Working Group Calendar

My Calendar

All users also have a personal calendar listing all the meetings they are invited to. This calendar is linked from their profile page and from Group calendar pages. It is very similar to the Group calendar view, and it can be imported in calendaring clients. From there you can also access events you've created that are still drafts.

Event details

All meetings have a dedicated page containing all the details about them. Sensitive information such as joining instructions are only available to groups participants, additional individual invitees and people with member access.

Details of a meeting

It is also possible to export a single event and import it in a calendaring client.

An event as viewed from a calendaring client

Create and edit events

W3C Group Chairs and Team Contacts can create and edit events. They can either be one-time or recurring events. Scheduling joint meetings is possible by selecting multiple groups in the "Participants" tab. Additional individuals can also be invited to the event (currently limited to individuals with a W3C Account).

Edit general information

By default, new events are created as drafts. Drafts only appear in the Draft view of their creators (linked from their personal calendar). Once an event is set to "Tentative" or "Confirmed", it appears on group and personal calendars and invited participants are notified by email. Users who do not wish to receive those notifications can disable them from their profile.

Next

This service will continue to evolve and we already have a few ideas to make it even more useful, such as:

• handling attendance status (accept/decline invitation to meetings)
• exposing group calendar data in the W3C API
• allowing inviting guests who don't have a W3C account
• providing compact lists of group meeting minutes
• easier handling of meetings restricted to group chairs

The full list of upcoming features is available in GitHub.

We welcome your feedback and wish for this tool to become a great addition to support the work of the W3C Community!