Note: this is an earlier, still incomplete version of the user guide. Updated documentation is in preparation; some screens and labels may differ from the current application.

Calendars

This guide explains public, team, resource, and personal calendars in Simbioza: administration, access rights, subscriptions, colors, views, events, recurrence, iCalendar exchange, CalDAV, and mobile use.

Contents

1. Calendar types and roles
2. Public calendars without signing in
3. Calendar administration
4. Access rights and public visibility
5. Personal calendars
6. Multiple calendars, subscriptions, and colors
7. Month, week, day, and timeline views
8. Creating and editing events
9. iCalendar import and export
10. CalDAV
11. Mobile view
12. Administrator and regular user
13. Final verification and troubleshooting

1. Calendar types and roles

Simbioza displays every calendar that the current user may read in one place. Read access controls visibility; write access controls whether the user may create, edit, and delete events.

2. Public calendars without signing in

When at least one calendar is publicly readable, an unauthenticated visitor receives the public view at /calendars. Personal, team, and resource calendars without public access are not exposed.

The public page supports month, week, day, and timeline views and export of the public calendar. It does not offer event creation, subscriptions, or personal color settings. A public calendar name links to its standalone view.

3. Calendar administration

Open Settings → Calendars → Calendar administration. The upper table contains shared team and resource calendars; the lower table contains personal calendars. Both support search, sorting, page size, and pagination.

3.1. New team or resource calendar

1. Select New shared calendar.
2. Choose Team calendar or Resource calendar.
3. Enter a clear name and description and select the base color.
4. Keep Active enabled. A disabled calendar and its events are unavailable to users.
5. Add users or groups and enable Read and Write independently.
6. Save the calendar and open it from the main calendar page for verification.

3.2. New personal calendar from administration

An administrator may select a user and create an official, personal, or custom personal calendar. The name is generated from the user's display name; a custom calendar uses a unique suffix so the same user may own multiple personal calendars.

4. Access rights and public visibility

The calendar dialog combines the basic properties, public visibility, and ACL entries. User and group rights are additive: any valid source may grant read or write. Write access permits event operations; changing the calendar itself and its ACL remains an administrator or Calendars-group task.

4.1. Public settings

• Authenticated users may read grants read access to every signed-in user without an individual ACL row.
• Public read permits reading without signing in.
• Public order controls ordering among public calendars; lower numbers appear first.
• Show events on the public page includes events in the aggregate public view.
• Show link on the public page exposes the calendar name as a link to its standalone public view.

5. Personal calendars

Each user opens Calendars → Calendar profile. A personal calendar does not have to be created automatically; the user can create one when needed. The owner can export it, import ICS data, share read or write access with a user or group, and create additional official or custom calendars.

In the example, Petar Novak has read-only access. He can see Ana's personal calendar and events, but it is not offered when he creates a new event.

6. Multiple calendars, subscriptions, and colors

My Calendars overlays events from every selected calendar. The color next to each calendar distinguishes its events and can be changed for the current user without changing the base color for anyone else.

6.1. Visibility and color

• Clear the checkbox next to a calendar to hide it temporarily.
• Select its color square to choose a personal display color.
• Visibility and color choices persist for later visits.
• The export icon next to a calendar downloads its .ics file.

6.2. Subscriptions

Select Subscribe to review every readable calendar. The table states whether the current access level is read-only or read-write. Unsubscribing removes the calendar from the personal list; it does not delete the calendar or change the ACL.

6.3. One-calendar view

Every calendar name in the sidebar is a link. Select it to display only that calendar; All calendars returns to the combined overlay.

7. Month, week, day, and timeline views

• Month provides the broadest overview and shows multiple calendars, all-day events, and recurrences clearly.
• Week arranges seven days by hour and makes overlaps easy to spot.
• Day enlarges a single day for a detailed schedule.
• Timeline presents events as a chronological list.
• Today returns to the current date; the arrow buttons move to the previous or next period.

8. Creating and editing events

Select Add Event. The calendar selector lists only calendars to which the current user may write. In the example, the regular user may write to her personal and team calendars while the resource and public calendars remain read-only.

8.1. Event fields

• Title is required.
• Calendar determines the event's rights, audience, and color.
• Event type adds a semantic label and icon. Built-in types are available, and an authorized user can add a new type.
• Start and end include the date and time. The end cannot precede the start.
• All day hides time fields and spans the selected date or date range.
• Location and description are optional but visible to everyone who can read the calendar.

8.2. Recurrence

An event can repeat every day, week, month, or year. The series may have no end, stop after a selected number of occurrences, or end on a date.

8.3. Editing and deleting

Select an existing event to edit it. For a recurring event, the dialog identifies the selected occurrence and the start of the series. Saving updates the source event and its series; deletion follows the same series-level behavior.

9. iCalendar import and export

Simbioza uses the standard iCalendar .ics format for exchanging events with other systems.

• Export is available next to each readable calendar and in Calendar profile.
• Import into an existing calendar requires write access.
• Import as a new calendar creates a new team/resource calendar for an administrator or a new personal calendar for a user.
• Events are matched by stable UID. Skip existing preserves current records; Update existing replaces them with values from the imported file.

10. CalDAV

CalDAV connects Simbioza calendars to an external calendar client. The address is displayed under Calendars → Calendar profile → CalDAV.

10.1. Prerequisite: local authentication

CalDAV uses the user's local login identifier and local Simbioza password. There is no separate CalDAV password. A user who normally signs in only through SSO must first have local authentication enabled and a local password set. Enter that password only into a trusted calendar client and never expose it in documentation or screenshots.

10.2. Client setup

1. Copy the displayed CalDAV URL, for example https://your-host/application/caldav.
2. Add a new CalDAV account in the external client.
3. Use the local login identifier as the username and the local password as the password.
4. Accept only a valid HTTPS certificate and review the discovered calendars.
5. Create a test event in a writable calendar and verify two-way synchronization.

The CalDAV endpoint implements the basic discovery, read, and write operations required by common clients. Advanced properties may behave differently between clients, so test the intended client before an organization-wide rollout.

11. Mobile view

On a narrow screen, the month grid becomes compact. Selecting a date reveals a chronological list of its events; the calendar legend and personal colors remain available below the schedule.

12. Administrator and regular user

13. Final verification and troubleshooting

1. Check the public page in a private browser window without an active login.
2. Test at least one read-only user and one user with write access.
3. Enable all colors in the combined view and inspect overlaps.
4. Open a calendar name, then return with All calendars.
5. Create a normal, all-day, and recurring test event.
6. Export ICS, import it into a test calendar, and verify existing-UID behavior.
7. For CalDAV, verify local authentication, HTTPS, and two-way synchronization.
8. Check the layout on a mobile screen.

If a calendar or event is missing

• Check that the calendar is active.
• Check the user's direct and group read access.
• Check that the user is subscribed and that the visibility checkbox is enabled.
• Check the displayed date range and view.
• For event entry, check write access; read access is not sufficient.
• For public display, check public read and the separate public-index/link settings.