Edit iCal Profile

When you select New, Insert, or Edit from Profiles Setup, the Edit Profile Definition dialog will appear.  This is where you define all of the details of the profile.

Make sure that the desired Profile Type is selected (this can be changed any time), and enter a Description.  Then continue to the other options as applicable.

Description

The Description is only shown in the Setup Profiles list, so you should make it simple but also descriptive enough for easy recognition.

Enabled

Check this box to make it active -- otherwise it's ignored by the various iCal export and import functionality.

Profile Type

There 3 different Profile Types to choose from:

•Export to iCal file & upload

•Import form iCal file

•Attach iCal file to Confirmation E-mail

Depending on the Profile Type selected, various additional parameters will appear that must be filled in....

Local working folder

Normally you will leave this blank.  It will use the same folder as the database to create iCal files as needed.  If you have specific requirements, e.g. if Exporting iCal files and want them to go to a certain location for manual uploading, then you can select that folder here with the Browse button (or enter it manually).  Also, if you're importing from multiple services and there's a chance that they might use the same file name, then you should specify a different local working folder in each service's Profile.

Use a separate file for each site

Most online reservation services will expect a separate file for each Site / Unit, so this box should be checked unless they can handle all Sites in one iCal file.  Of course this selection will also affect the expression for the file name, and probably expressions for some other fields as well.

Expression for file name

This tells Campground Master how to create the iCal file name for each site (or single file if not using a separate one for each site).  In many cases it will be sufficient to click the "Use Default" button to have it insert the default expression.  Note that iCal files should always end in ".ics" to give them the standard "ics" file extension.  

If not using a separate file for each site, the default will simply be "iCal_export.ics" or "iCal_import.ics" (note that the quotes are necessary since it's an Expression, so don't remove those if you change the file name).  Otherwise the default will use the site information as below:

For Exporting iCal files:

The default in this case will use the file name you specified in the Site Data Field "Site_Online_iCal_Export_File", or if that's empty it will create a generic one with "iCal_" followed by the site's Abbreviation field.  If the online service(s) you use allow you to specify the iCal upload file for each site, then this may be sufficient.  You will of course have to supply the resulting file names to your online service for uploading (as part of the complete URL where they can be retrieved from, which also involves your FTP setup).  If different services need different files (e.g. if you have multiple Profile definitions for separate services), then you will also need to make sure they create separate files, and will therefore need to have different Expressions for the file name.

For Importing iCal files:

The default in this case will simply be the Site Data Field "Site_Online_iCal_Import_File", so that field will have to be filled in for each site with the file name you're given by the service.  If that field is empty for a site, then an iCal file cannot be imported for the site.  Of course you can modify the expression to use any filename you want, or get the name from a different Site field (which would be necessary if you're importing from more than one service, and of course will need to have a different Profile for each service).  Also see the Download URL, which determines where the file is downloaded from.

Also note that the resulting file name here (for each site) can be important for identifying the site in the Parsing Set, for importing the reservations.  It will be matched up to the site if you use the pseudo-field "Import Filename from iCal" in a parsing rule to identify the site.

Upload to web site (FTP)?

Check this box for Export profiles if you want Campground Master to be able to upload the exported files.  Of course the FTP setup will need to be done, under Connections & Options / iCal.

Download URL

This must be set for Import profiles, and should be the full URL of the download path except for the filename itself (which will come from the "Expression for file name").

Expressions to use for creating the fields of the iCal file...

The following expressions are used to create the iCal field information when exporting iCal files (or attaching to E-mail confirmations).  The specifics will depend on each online service you use.  You can try the "Use Default" button on each one and see if that works, however each service may have specific requirements.  In any case the "Use Default" is a good starting point.

For explanations of what these fields are and what can be used, please refer to iCal specifications on the web or get details from your online reservation provider.  The details are much too complicated to cover here, and our technical support cannot explain it to you beyond what examples and defaults are available here.

UID field

This field is usually not important for exporting, except that some services can use it to identify reservations that came from them for conflict resolution.  So the default will insert the "Resv_Online_Request_ID" field, which should be the UID provided by the originating service.

SUMMARY field

While this is typically used for a description of the Site/unit, this might be used for other things.  The default will insert the "Site_Online_iCal_Summary" field or the "Site_Online_iCal_ID" if one of them exists, otherwise will simply insert the Site Name and possibly the Site Type.

LOCATION field

While this is typically used for the name of the property, this might be used for other things.  The default will insert the "Site_Online_iCal_Location" field if it exists, otherwise will simply insert the Park Name.

DESCRIPTION field

This is optional and usually ignored when Exporting/uploading to online services, but the default will insert some basic information about the reservation, or simply "Unavailable" if the site is otherwise not available.  

However when Attaching the iCal file to Confirmation E-mails, this is particularly important -- the guest's calendar program may show the information included here, so it will include the park name, site name (or type), dates, guest name, phone, E-mail address, and number of adults and children.

Custom fields

This is usually not used (the default will be blank).  It's a very advanced function, used only if an online service requires special fields in addition to those covered above.

Important:  While all other fields will automatically handle "escaping" characters like comma and colon for proper iCal formatting, the Custom field will not do automatic escaping (it wouldn't know when characters are required as-is and which need escaped).  Therefore you will need to be very careful about the creation of any custom field expressions!

Go to Site Data Fields / Go to Parsing Sets Setup

These buttons are simply a convenient way to get to the respective functions, instead of getting out of the Profile editing and going through the menus again.

Maximum future days to export

This is very important, since days past this will automatically be considered available for online reservations!  In general, this should be as large as needed to include all future reservations you might have, however there are some practical reasons to limit it.  In particular, since "unavailable" dates are also exported, not just reservations, then a larger number could result in a larger iCal file just to accommodate those.  Therefore if the service you're exporting to will only take reservations up to a year in advance, for instance, then there's no reason to make it much larger than 366 days.  (If you're only uploading occasionally, like once per week, then be sure to add enough extra days to cover the gaps.)

"Import iCal only for..." (or "Create iCal only for...") Filtering

The rest of the dialog entries are used to "qualify" a profile.  This determines whether the profile definition applies to any given site, so it's important to get this set up properly.

Note that iCal files can only be filtered by the Site, to determine whether the iCal file is created or not.  You cannot selectively include or exclude reservations from the iCal file itself, with one exception -- the box "Site is considered unavailable if there's an Owner reservation" can be checked or unchecked depending on whether you want Owner-type reservation dates included as unavailable (see below).

Site Types, Site Classes, or Sites

If this profile only applies to certain Site Types, click the Site Types button and select the applicable types from the list that appears.  If no site type is selected, the profile will apply to reservations of any site type (assuming other filters don't exclude it).  If you select one or more site types here, then that profile will only apply when a reservation is for one of those site types.

Likewise, you can have a profile apply to specific Site Classes, using the Site Classes button, or even one or more specific sites using the Sites button.  However you don't need to set all three (types, classes, and sites) -- usually only one of these selections is enough to sufficiently qualify the profile.  For instance if you select "Normal RV" for the Site Type, there's no need to select "RV's" for the site class because it's redundant -- all "Normal RV" sites will have an "RV's" class anyway, so there's no need to make the profile check this too.

Advanced Condition Expression...

If the profile can't be properly qualified using the other Applies-if conditions, date selections, etc, then you can use Expressions to create a condition as complex as needed.  Note that this involves the Advanced Customizations functionality and is only recommended for very technical users, so refer to that section for more detailed information.

If a Condition Expression is entered here, it must be satisfied (result in True) in addition to all other conditions in the profile definition in order for the profile to be used.  Thus you can use the other Applies-if conditions to handle the simple stuff, and use the expression to only do the filtering that can't be otherwise handled by the profile definition.  

The expression will have ThisSite( ) context which will be the specific site being checked.  

Site is considered unavailable if there's an Owner reservation

If this box is checked, Owner-type reservations will block the site's availability.  If you allow sub-leasing of Owner sites when not otherwise occupied, then leave this unchecked to consider the site available for other reservations.

Special dates to show Not Available

You can define the dates to specifically show as "unavailable" for the sites exported in the iCal file(s) for this profile.  Defining dates for a Profile definition is just like defining dates that a Site is available or Rates are applicable (see Edit Site Details or Edit Rate Definition).

Notes

The Notes field is just for your own notes, perhaps an explanation of why a profile is set up the way it is.   The notes can be any length.