This tool converts a series of meeting descriptions in YAML format into one or several .ics files suitable for calendaring. It checks for scheduling conflicts in specific locations.
yaml2ical aims to provide an easier way to manage online team meetings.
This project allows to define each meeting with well-defined YAML files, which can be code-reviewed, then continuously-integrated into .ics files for general consumption.
To test this project locally, you must have the following requirements installed:
- Python 3.3+
- iCalendar python library
- PyYaml python library
Before running this tool, first edit some meeting YAML files in the meetings directory. To create a new meeting YAML file, read the YAML Meeting File section below.
$ pip install yaml2ical
$ yaml2ical
usage: yaml2ical [-h] -y YAML_DIR (-i ICAL_DIR | -o ICALFILE)
[-t INDEX_TEMPLATE] [-w INDEX_OUTPUT] [-n CALNAME]
[-d CALDESCRIPTION] [-f]
A tool that automates the process for testing, integrating, and
publishing changes to online meeting schedules.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-y YAML_DIR, --yamldir YAML_DIR
directory containing YAML to process
-i ICAL_DIR, --icaldir ICAL_DIR
output directory (one file per meeting)
-o ICALFILE, --output ICALFILE
output file (one file for all meetings)
-t INDEX_TEMPLATE, --indextemplate INDEX_TEMPLATE
generate an index from selected meetings
-w INDEX_OUTPUT, --indexoutput INDEX_OUTPUT
output index file
-n CALNAME, --name CALNAME
name of calendar to set within the ical
-d CALDESCRIPTION, --description CALDESCRIPTION
description of calendar to set within the ical
-f, --force remove/overwrite previous output files
The following are a few scenarios:
Generate .ics files locally from existing yaml meeting files:
$ yaml2ical -y meetings/ -i icals/
The generated .ics files are not tracked in this git repository,
but they are available locally to import into your calendar. Note,
to remove stale .ics files, use the --force argument:
$ ls icals/ Barbican Meeting-b58d78a4.ics Ceilometer Team Meeting-9ed7b5b4.ics Chef Cookbook Meeting-2418b331.ics
With each .ics file looking something similar to:
$ cat icals/Barbican\ Meeting-b58d78a4.ics BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//yaml2ical agendas//EN BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Barbican Meeting (openstack-meeting-alt) DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20141006T200000Z DURATION:PT1H DESCRIPTION:Project: Barbican Meeting\nChair: jraim\nLOCATION: openstack-meet ing-alt\nAgenda:'* malini - update on Security Guide documentation\n\n * alee_/atiwari - Crypto plugin changes\n\n * arunkant - Target support in barbican policy enforcement\n\n * jaraim - Support for debug mode start i n barbican\, can be merged?\n\n '\n\nDescription: The Barbican project t eam holds a weekly team meeting in\n#openstack-meeting-alt:\n* Weekly on M ondays at 2000 UTC\n* The blueprints that are used as a basis for the Barb ican project can be\n found at https://blueprints.launchpad.net/barbican\ n* Notes for previous meetings can be found here.\n* Chair (to contact for more information): jraim (#openstack-barbican @\n Freenode)\n RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR
Each meeting consists of:
project: the name of the project [MANDATORY]schedule: a list of schedule each consisting oftime: time string in UTC [MANDATORY]duration: duration of the meeting in minutes; defaults to 60start_date: the date the first meeting takes place on or after.- Format YYYYMMDD, all values must be zero-padded.
day: the day of week the meeting takes place [MANDATORY]location: the location where the meeting is held [OPTIONAL]frequency: frequent occurrence of the meeting [MANDATORY]skip_dates: A set of dates that the meeting DOES NOT happen onskip_date: Skip the meeting for specified date. Format asstart_datereason: A comment for why the meeting was skipped
description: a paragraph description about the meeting [MANDATORY]agenda_url: a link to the agenda page for the meetingproject_url: a link to the project home page for the meeting
The file name should be a lower-cased, hyphenated version of the meeting name,
ending with .yaml . For example, Keystone team meeting should be
saved under keystone-team-meeting.yaml.
Any other values listed in the YAML file are also available for use in
templates, making it easy to build links to agenda pages for the
meeting or logs of past meetings. In the template file, use
meeting.extras.name to access the value.
This is an example for the yaml meeting for Nova team meeting. The whole file will be import into Python as a dictionary.
The project name is shown below.
project: Nova Team Meeting
The schedule is a list of dictionaries each consisting of time in UTC, day of the week, the location, and the frequency of the meeting. Options for the frequency are weekly, biweekly-even, biweekly-odd, 'every-four-weeks' and adhoc at the moment.
biweekly-odd are weeks where the ISO week number is an odd value. Correspondingly biweekly-even are weeks where the ISO week number is even. This unfortunately will break down on the transition from 2015 to 2016 as 2015 has 53 ISO weeks (an odd value) and then the first week of 2016 is week 1 (also an odd value).
'every-four-weeks' schedules the next meeting four ISO week numbers after the latest meeting.
adhoc can be used to list the possibility of something in the schedule but will not actually generate any calendar events. This can be used for placeholders and will act as a noop when generating the calendar.
schedule: - time: '1400' day: Thursday location: openstack-meeting-alt frequency: biweekly-even - time: '2100' day: Thursday location: openstack-meeting frequency: biweekly-oddThe project description is as follows. Use > for paragraphs where new lines are folded, or | for paragraphs where new lines are preserved.
description: > This meeting is a weekly gathering of developers working on OpenStack. Compute (Nova). We cover topics such as release planning and status, bugs, reviews, and other current topics worthy of real-time discussion.An extra property containing the agenda for the meeting is saved in
agenda_urland can be accessed in the template file asmeeting.extras.agenda_url.agenda_url: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Meetings/Nova
An extra property containing the project URL is saved in
project_urland can be accessed in the template file asmeeting.extras.project_url.project_url: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Nova
An extra property containing the MeetBot #startmeeting ID for the project is saved in
meeting_idand can be accessed in the template file asmeeting.extras.meeting_id.meeting_id: nova
The following shows a complete YAML file for the IRC meetings for "example project". The project starts holding weekly meetings from October 1st, the project team has a "face to face" meeting on the 26th of October so that IRC meeting should be ommited from the ical schedule
This YAML
project: Example Project Meeting project_url: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Example agenda_url: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Meetings/Example meeting_id: example description: > This meeting is a weekly gathering of developers working on Example project. schedule: - time: '2100' day: Monday location: openstack-meeting start_date: 20151001 frequency: weekly skip_dates: - skip_date: 20151026 reason: Face 2 Face meeting at some locationIs converted into this iCal
BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//yaml2ical agendas//EN BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:CANCELLED: Example Project Meeting (20151026T210000Z) DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20151026T210000Z DURATION:PT1H DESCRIPTION:Face 2 Face meeting at some location LOCATION:#openstack-meeting END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Example Project Meeting DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20151005T210000Z DURATION:PT1H EXDATE:20151026T210000Z DESCRIPTION:Project: Example Project Meeting\nChair: A. Random Developer \nDescription: This meeting is a weekly gathering of developers working o n Example project.\n\nAgenda URL: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Meeting s/Example\nProject URL: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Example LOCATION:#openstack-meeting RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR