I have a Meteor application which displays a calendar (using fullcalendar.io), and subscribes to bookings within a given date range. The app uses FlowRouter and grabs the date from the URL, and then uses this to subscribe to the bookings (URL date through to URL date + 14 days). This all works fine and I can skip through the days in the calendar, loading events for each day with no refresh as they are coming from minimongo. What I would like to do is to refresh this subscription in the background when the user switches date. This is possible using flow router e.g.:
FlowRouter.go('/diary/2017-04-11')
or by setting the subscription date in a Session / Reactive variable.
This will load the events from 2017-04-11 to 2017-04-25. The issue is that as the entire subscription is recreated there is a slight delay whilst it is loading. What I am trying to achieve is a 'moving window' - for example, if I am subscribed to events from 2017-04-10 and I change the publication to 2017-04-11, then only the 1 extra day gets loaded, rather than all data getting removed and replaced. This would ensure that I am able to skip through the days of the calendar without any load times. If the user selected a date > 14 days in the future manually then they would see the load time, this is perfectly acceptable.
it sounds like your subscriptions are tied to the template that's loaded with each route change. then, when you switch routes, the template is reloaded and the subscription along with it.
there are a couple options for cache managers, which would allow you to keep a sub active across templates.
e.g. https://github.com/kadirahq/subs-manager
note that, while this will allow your client to keep subs active as i've described, it will probably work in an "additive" function. so it won't by itself solve your moving window problem, but it will pick up new items from the publisher as you navigate.
second note: with this package, you're not limited to a single manager. i've found that it works best if you keep one manager / sub. once i started loading multiple subs to a manager, it started behaving strangely.
Related
I have a fully functional and working code (written in C#) which purpose is to track some hits to the specified GA property. This code has been tested and still works successfully. It adds some predefined dimensions (like App Version) to each hit and a several custom metrics to a certain hit types (like event with a certain Event Action).
So far so good everything works flawlessly when taking into account the first property to which these hits are being sent. Also everything is fine when I set up a brand new GA property and track my hits to it - that is, I'm able to see events in Realtime reports, and events show up in custom reports after a while so that I can see my custom metrics.
The issue is that when I try to send absolutely the same hits to the existing property which had been created and configured ages ago - there is no both dimensions (even predefined) and custom metrics in my custom reports. I see these events in realtime and behavior reports, and I'm even able to create a custom report against events count - but that's it. I'm able to use for example Day of the month as a primary dimension, but when I try to use App Version as a dimension or my custom metrics as report metrics - it says "There is no data for this view.".
I've already tried everything I could, have read almost every post about custom definitions in Google and viewed almost each related SO question and answer - still with no luck.
We use measurement protocol
There is a correct User Agent being sent with each hit
17 days has passed since my first attempt to track these hits with existing property
There is no filters and segments at all
There is only one view
For me it looks like a property misconfiguration, but I've inspected each configuration page (I have all possible rights granted) and have not found anything related.
Will appreciate any help with this issue.
UPD: The hit itself (with the sensitive data replaced):
t=event&ec=session&ea=connection_end&el=b225d53a-6bb2-8021-f7b5-ae7004ae0a00&cm1=174960&cm2=1751494&cm3=479033&tid=UA-XXXXXXX-X&cid=4119e77f-be87-4530-04d3-33882f8eea77&v=1&av=XX.XX.99.555&an=my-awesome-app&aid=app.awesome.my
UPD: Here is what I'm trying to achieve (screenshot was made at the test property, where everything works like a charm):
My question: how do I update "this and all future" instances in a recurring event which is limited by count so that the total number of events stays consistent?
What is the problem:
Trying to modify recurring event and I follow the below guide:
https://developers.google.com/calendar/recurringevents
Basically to update all future recurring events using a target event, the doc says one need to do two calls:
update existing event to make so it ends before the target event date
create a new recurring event with the same fields except of those need changes.
That works fine until there is an event that is limited by the number of occurrences.
Let's say there is a recurring event limited by 10 occurrences and target event is 5th event.
Now I need to split the original so that the first 4 events goes to the original one (so I update COUNT from 10 to 4) and then I create a new recurring event that holds the rest 6 events (so COUNT is 6 in this case)
My first observation is that this is not how the split events are displayed in google calendar - if I test that manually, the both events still show 10 occurrences but the second one doesn't produce any extra events (I'd expect 14 events from developer perspective, yet there are 10 as any user would expect). That implies there is a different approach here? Is it?
Also if I end up counting manually the number of events, there are still issues with cases like deleting one of the events first (let's say, the 4th event) - now how do I know that I need to show 6 instances in the new one and not 7?
Those thoughts make me think there is a better approach, but I can't find any other alternatives. Any advice on that?
UPDATE
It seems like google does it differently: for example after changing a title for "this and future" events in calendar view, it doesn't seem to produce two different recurring events since if you try to delete "all" events, that will remove all of them completely (rather than deleting only one chunk, either before or after the target event)
It seems like they are creating a bunch of exceptions or maybe "recurring exception" or something to do that. Can't find any examples on how to do that as of now thought.
Can't find any good solution for this after a few days of research and while I need to move forward I ended up with a sort of "compromise" between "good enough UX for my case" and "breaking best practice".
So I ended up updating each event individually which goes against google's warning as shown below but I limited the max count by 50. This is not necessary what others want to do, but this is good enough for the real world use case in my app.
Warning: Do not modify instances individually when you want to modify
the entire recurring event, or "this and following" instances. This
creates lots of exceptions that clutter the calendar, slowing down
access and sending a high number of change notifications to users.
And if user needs to schedule more than that, the user is asked to use "end date" instead.
Again, not ideal by any means so if anyone knows how to handle that correctly or knows how google handles that, you are very welcome to share it! (meh... and I need that for outlook too now...)
UPDATE: just got an idea: as an improvement, one can edit either "all future events" or alternatively the master event + "all previous events" depending on the index of the target event. In this case one can limit the number of requests by 2 (so in case of 50 events I'll need to do 25 requests maximum)
So if user wants to change the title from "Hello" to "Goodby" and if the user picked event number 5 in the series of 50 events to change all future events, we can change the master event to "Goodby" which will change the title of all events, and then update the first 4 events to the original "Hello".
Obligatory summary of comments and chat:
Updating events:
To update specific events in a recurring event you need to update the individual instance by specifying the event instance ID.
This is just the event ID concatenated with a datetime stamp (you can see this when making an Events: instances request for your eventID; if your event ID is xxxxxxxxxxxx then an instance ID would be something like xxxxxxxxxxxx__20200603T170000Z).
Unfortunately there's no direct update-instances endpoint so to update multiple instances in one request you'd need to use batching
The API doesn't have a dedicated method for updating recurring events regardless of the recurrence type, and I presume this is the reason the documentation says to edit the previous recurring event by cutting it down and inserting a new one, as per Google's warning:
Do not modify instances individually when you want to modify the entire recurring event, or "this and following" instances. This creates lots of exceptions that clutter the calendar, slowing down access and sending a high number of change notifications to users.
Batching:
Making a batch update on event instances does keep count consistency. If you edit instances in a batch and then use the 'this and all future events' option when deleting one of the instances of the recurring event they do all get deleted as they're still a part of the recurrance. There is no new event being created in either scenario, the event instances are being changed.
If you play around with Events: instances and use Events: update to change only some instances of an event, then you can see that they all stay part of the same recurrence chain and there is no count change.
For arbitrary large counts, even if you have a recurring event with 9999999 instances, each event still has an ID which you can retrieve from Events: instances. It's stored as a single event for event use, but the IDs of the instances are the identifiers which are different.
Honestly, it's not great that you have to edit each one manually; for large counts like 9999999 it's basically infeasible because you'll have to make a batch request for each set of 100 instances you want to change, but it's the only option available via the API at the moment.
Feature Request:
You can however let Google know that this is a feature that is important for the Calendar API and that you would like to request they implement it. Google's Issue Tracker is a place for developers to report issues and make feature requests for their development services, I'd urge you to make a feature request there, the Calendar API feature request form can be found here.
I've setup a Zapier automation to fire an event every time a new deal is made on a 3rd party CRM. The automation triggers fine, and retrieves the GA Client ID stored in the CRM. The goal of this automation is to add the value of the deal to the client's session history. This works completely fine on a new test GA View I made as well as the original one (the one left without any filters).
However, there's one GA View which has both, anti-bot/spider setting and 3 filters set up. I tried disabling all four of them, yet the event still wasn't being fired - not in real-time, nor User Explorer. Wondering what could be the cause of this. All views are, of course, of the same property. Are there any other filters (besides the anti-bot/spider setting and view filters) or options I may have missed that are view-specific that would cause events sent by Zapier not to fire on just this one view?
Any help is appreciated!
The update of the settings, in the specific case relating to the filters, may not be immediate. If you leave the filters disabled, you can certainly check if after midnight (or after a few hours after midnight) you see that data in the reports.
This happens because after midnight the data is reprocessed again, so for that day (which has therefore become the previous one), if you have removed the filters, you should find all the data.
I created an IFTTT recipe that logs the time I arrive and leave work every day, but it always records it in 1hr blocks.
I'm using iPhone's location to track when I arrive and leave. Everything seems to be working, but calendar events are showing as 1hr blocks rather than just a timestamp.
For example, if I arrive at 8:05am it will show as a block on my calendar from 8:05 to 9:05 rather than just showing for one minute. I'd rather it just say "I arrived at work at 8:05". Thanks in advance!
Am I right in assuming you used the default "Track your work hours in Google Calendar" applet made by Google ?
It uses the Quick add event action to add this event to your calendar. Instead, create your own version of the applet that uses the Create a detailed event action. This allows you to set the following parameters (specifically, it includes Start time and End time):
You can set the start time and end time to the same value, but it will, of course, still read as an event that runs from e.g. 9:05 to 9:05.
If you want to record just a single timestamp, you will need to use a different service to store your data. Perhaps record the data in a Google spreadsheet ?
Any queries, post a comment and I'll get back to you.
I have a question regarding "Add Calendar By URL" function in Google Calendar:
How often it is updated (most sources I've found says 24h per day). Does caladress.ics?noCache workaround still works?
How it is updated? If I have a large calendar (e.g 2008 - 2016) and add a single event, does Calendar reupload the whole calendar or check for diff? If check for diff, is there any limitations?
Is there any limit to how long events could be? E.g is it possible to set 5 year event?
1. How often it is updated (most sources I've found says 24h per day).Does caladress.ics?noCache workaround still works?
Based from the Google thread, updates may take a few hours for the new information to be parsed and viewable by your users.
Note: It might take up to 12 hours for changes to show in your Google Calendar.
You can use no-cache to indicate that the returned response cannot be used to satisfy a subsequent request to the same URL without first checking with the server if the response has changed. Here is the documentation and example.
2. How it is updated? If I have a large calendar (e.g 2008 - 2016) and add a single event, does Calendar reupload the whole calendar or check for diff? If check for diff,is there any limitations?
Calendar is updated based on how you will implement the "incremental synchronization" of calendar data. It can be Initial full sync or Incremental sync.
Initial full sync is performed once at the very beginning in order to fully synchronize the client’s state with the server’s state. You can optionally restrict the list request using request parameters if you only want to synchronize a specific subset of resources.
While Incremental sync allows you to retrieve all the resources that have been modified since the last sync request. You need to perform a list request with your most recent sync token specified in the syncToken field. Keep in mind that the result will always contain deleted entries, so that the clients get the chance to remove them from storage.
3. Is there any limit to how long events could be? E.g is it possible to set 5 year event?
For the limitation, the Google Calendar API has a courtesy limit of 1,000,000 queries per day. You can see the calendar usage limits here. It is possible to set an event as long as you haven't reached the limit for the number of events you can create.