GroupWise to UMCal Conversion

1. Pre-Install Requirements

Conversion Tools Needed

• Windows GroupWise Export Tool
• Windows GroupWise to UMCal Converter - not yet updated for the coming DST changes; write to umcal@umn.edu if you have a need for this tool

General Requirements & Info

• You must have Java version 1.4 or higher installed.
  http://www.java.com
• Groupwise will not export repeating meeting information. Instead it will export each meeting as an individual event. There are three ways to handle this:
  
  • Delete all recurrences of a meeting (keeping only the original). After importing, in UMCal, re-create the recurrences
  • Keep Groupwise content the way it is. After importing, in UMCal, find the last meeting of the set and set up the recurrence into the future.
  • Leave well enough alone. All of the meetings will carry over from Groupwise to UMCal. The only information lost is the little bit that keeps the meetings linked as a recurring meeting.
• The exported file (from Groupwise) MUST be named gwexport.txt
• Non ascii characters will be replaced by a "-" these substitutions will be noted in error.txt
• If you receive a file named error.txt instead of the expected files ( ical.ics , summary.txt ), a problem occurred with the conversion - open the file error.txt and follow the instructions
  
  • Delete the files error.txt and gwexport.txt and start over from the beginning
  • Email the files error.txt and gwexport.txt to umcal@umn.edu We will try to determine why the converter isn't working for you.
• The conversion utility will give you the additional file summary.txt as its output. There are some useful applications to this text file:
  
  • Before importing ical.ics into UMCal, you can open summary.txt in Excel and take a quick look at the meetings that were exported. With summary.txt opened in Excel, you can sort meetings to find recurring meetings (if they all still have the same title)

2. Exporting from GroupWise

Running GWIMPEMP.exe

1. Download GWIMPEMP.exe. Doubleclick the application, click on "Export Tab"
2. Select the following settings
   

   Important: You MUST make all the selections for this to work

   
   From the fields list:
   • Subject
   • Start date
   • Start time
   • End date
   • End time
   • Place
   • Message
   Data source:
   >> Appointments
   Time format:
   >> 24 hour time
   Delimiters:
   >> Tab
   Quote Substitue:
   >> Remove
   End of line:
   >> CR/LF
   Year format:
   >> CCYY-Four digit with century
   
   

3. Converting the GroupWise file

Running calconverter.exe

1. The GroupWise export file should now be in the folder with the calconverter.exe application. Double click calconverter.exe.
   
   


2. Enter your internet id when prompted. This will allow UMCal to import the entries with a Confirmed status.
   
   


3. After a minute (longer if your export contained a very large number of meetings), you should see two files:
   
   • <internetid>.ics - This is the file that you will use to import into UMCal
   • Summary.txt - This file can be opened in Excel to see a summarization of your meetings
   
   
   


4. If you run the calconverter and it creates a file named error.txt the conversion process failed. You can open the file to see a list of the errors that occured and follow the instructions in the file.
   
   

4. Importing into UMCal

Importing through Desktop client

Note: You may import data into a resource calendar instead of your personal calendar. However, if the resource is set to not allow conflicts, you will receive a message stating that you do not have the rights to invite the resouce when the first conflict arises. If your resource is set to not allow conflicts, please email umcal@umn.edu and ask that conflicts be turned on for the resource, making sure to include the resource name.

1. Open the Oracle calendar application (aka UMCal).
2. Click the File menu and select Import Data.
3. Select iCalendar file from the list of file types.
   
   


4. Click Continue
5. Click the Browse button. Navigate to the converted file, named <internetid.ics>, located in the director you ran GWIMPEXP.exe from.
   For Period select All. Then click Ok
   
   


6. In this example, the green meetings were already in UMCal and the blue meetings were imported from GroupWise
   
   

5. Opening Summary.txt in Excel

Viewing Summary.txt

1. Open Excel, click File and select Open. From the open file dialog box navigate to the summary.txt file.
   
   


2. The Text Import Wizard will be displayed. The default settings are fine to use. Click Finish
   
   


3. Each meeting will appear on a seperate line. The meeting's title will be in the first column and the meeting's date will be in the second column.