Exporting Activity Information as iCalendar

Activities in Aeon — class visits, group orientations, scheduled instruction sessions, and the like — have a date, a location, and a description. When you want a researcher, a participant, or a colleague to have that event on their calendar, you don't retype it into Outlook or email them the details in prose. You export the activity as an iCalendar file straight from its detail view, then share that file. The recipient opens it and the event drops into Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or any other app that reads the iCalendar standard.

The file Aeon produces is a standard .ics file. It carries the activity's name, begin and end dates, location, and description — nothing more, nothing less.

When you'll use this

• A researcher or group has confirmed a visit and you want to send them a calendar invite they can accept with one click.
• You're coordinating an instruction session and need the time and room on a shared or personal calendar.
• You want a portable copy of an activity's schedule details to forward to staff outside Aeon.

This is fully supported in the web client

Earlier (desktop-client) documentation described calendar export as a desktop-only command. In Aeon 7 you do this directly in the web staff client — the Calendar button is right on the activity toolbar.

Exporting an activity as a calendar file

1. Open the activity you want to share. (Find it in the activities list, search for it, or follow a link to it.) Its detail view opens with the toolbar across the top.
2. In the toolbar, click Calendar (the calendar icon).
3. Your browser downloads an .ics file named after the activity number — for example, an activity numbered 14 downloads as Activity14.ics. A brief confirmation, "Calendar file downloaded," appears.
4. Send the downloaded file however you like — attach it to an email, drop it in a shared folder, or open it yourself to add the event to your own calendar.

That's the whole flow. There's no separate save dialog inside Aeon; the file lands wherever your browser saves downloads, and you take it from there.

What goes into the file

The exported event includes:

Calendar field	Comes from the activity's…
Title / subject	Name
Start date and time	Begin date
End date and time	End date
Location	Location
Description / notes	Description

A couple of details worth knowing:

• If the activity has no end date, Aeon gives the event a default duration of one hour from the begin date so the calendar entry still has a sensible block of time.
• If the activity has only an end date (no begin date), the event uses that end date as its start.
• Times are written in UTC in the file itself; the recipient's calendar app converts them to their own local time zone on import.

When the Calendar button is unavailable

The Calendar button is greyed out — and export is blocked — in these situations:

• The activity has no dates. An activity needs at least a begin date or an end date to export. With neither, there's nothing to put on a calendar, and the button stays disabled. (If you reach the export some other way without a date, Aeon stops you with "Activity must have a begin or end date to export.")
• You have unsaved changes. If you've edited the activity but haven't saved yet, the button is disabled until you Save (or Discard). This ensures the file reflects what's actually stored, not an in-progress edit.
• Another staff member is editing the activity. While the activity shows Locked by someone else, the toolbar is read-only, including the Calendar button. You can still open and read the activity; export becomes available again once they release it.

Save before you export

If the Calendar button looks disabled while you're working on an activity, check the top of the detail pane for an Unsaved changes indicator. Export is intentionally blocked until you save, so the calendar file always matches the saved record. Save your work, and the button becomes active.

Permissions

Exporting a calendar file is a read-only action — it doesn't change the activity. You do not need edit rights on activities to use the Calendar button; anyone who can open the activity can download its .ics file. (Editing, cloning, and deleting an activity do require the corresponding Activities permission levels, but export does not.)