Recurring Event Components

RRULE

• The RRULE defines how the recurring event should iterate, and is best documented in the original spec, shown here: Recurrence Rule
• You can see more examples of RRULE here: 3.8.5.3. Recurrence Rule
• In FileMaker, the RRULE is stored in the parent event in the recurrence field.

  EXDATE

  • EXDATEs are children of a recurring series that have been deleted.
  • These manifest as EXDATEs in the ICAL_DATA field for Apple Calendar, and the "exdates" property for Google and Exchange
  • EXDATEs are a date-time property for standard events with times, and a date only property for all-day events.
  • You can read more about EXDATE documentation here: Exception Dates
  • EXDATEs are stored in the parent record in the recurrence field.

    Overrides

    • Overrides are children of a recurring series that have been modified. They are still part of the series, but they do not obey the RRULE as some property has been modified.
    • These are the most complicated thing to deal with in recurring events.
    • In FileMaker, these will be represented as a new record for the event, but they will have a recurrence-id that links them back to the parent in some way.
    • In most cases, it will be easier to write an EXDATE to the parent event to delete the event you want to override, then create a new event that represents the override.

      Recurrence in Apple Calendar

      Zulu has partial support for recurring events in Apple Calendar. These are the abilities and limitations:

      • If you create a recurring event in Apple Calendar, you will see the RRULE show up in the iCAL_DATA field in FileMaker.
      • You can delete occurrences from Apple Calendar, and you will see EXDATEs show up in the ICAL data
      • However, if you try to modify an occurrence, the event will revert back to the series definition. Overriden events are not allowed in Apple Calendar integrations.

        Recurrence in Google and Exchange

        Google and Exchange have almost identical implementations when handling recurring events.

        Consider the following:

        • A recurring event is created in Google with the rule that it should recur daily, ending after 4 times
        • This page was last modified on 8 July 2019, at 15:51.
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