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How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Mat Newman  March 20 2013 09:36:43
Another one from Twitter:

Is there any way to show Birthdays and Anniversaries from my Lotus Notes personal Contacts database in my Lotus Notes Calendar"


Natively: No.

But that got me thinking.  Thanks to the "Show Calendars" overlay feature included in Notes a while ago, ANY Lotus Notes database which includes a Calendar view can be overlaid in your personal Calendar.

Problem: The Lotus Notes personal Contacts database (names.nsf on 'local') does not contain a calendar view that will show the Birthdays and Annviersaries you have added to your contact details.

Solution: Create a calendar view in the personal Contacts database.

At the end of this blog post is a download which when opened provides a 1-click option that will add a calendar view to your personal Contacts database in Lotus Notes.

The process:
  1. Open the dowloaded database (notesbaa.nsf),
  2. Read the instructions,
  3. Click the "Add Birthday Anniversary Calendar to your own Contacts" button,
  4. Open your own Lotus Notes calendar
  5. Expand the "Show Calendars" option in the Navigator,
  6. Click "Add a Calendar",
  7. Choose "Notes Application Calendar",
  8. Type a label; eg: "Birthdays and Anniversaries",
  9. Click the browse button to open your own contacts; for me it's "Newman's Contacts" or names.nsf "On My computer",
  10. Choose the (Birthdays and Anniversaries) view,
  11. Choose to view offline if you want the calendar to sync with IBM Notes Traveler,
  12. Choose a colour and icon,
    Add Birthdays and Anniversaries to your Lotus Notes Calendar
  13. Done.

No guarantees. No Liability. Your Mileage May Vary. Use at your own risk. Caveat Emptor.

Download Calendar installer (<-  Right-Click and Save Target)

That's it.  Adding contacts Birthdays and Anniversaries to your own Lotus Notes calendar.  Easy!

Enjoy!
Comments

1Damiano  03/20/2013 19:40:13  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Hi Mat, the sample database is encrypted.

2Andreas Imnitzer  03/20/2013 20:57:06  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Local Access protection, (encrypted) Mate!

3Andreas Imnitzer  03/20/2013 20:59:01  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Sorry, didn't see Damiano's message.

4Mat Newman

03/20/2013 21:21:19  How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

@1, Damiano: Doh! Fixed, download is now unencrypted.

Mat Newman IBM Champion

5Bernd Hort  03/20/2013 22:22:05  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Hi Mat,

Removing all the actions in the view would be a good idea.

Otherwise you get a lot of error messages trying to open the view. ;-)

Bernd

6Mat Newman

03/20/2013 22:55:00  How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

@3, Andreas: Was uploading an update as you posted ;-)

@5, Bernd: Removed. The current download has Actions deleted ...

Mat Newman IBM Champion

7Damiano  03/20/2013 23:05:15  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Thanks Mat.

Federation with this new calendar works well, but not "view offline" mode. Birthday entries will be not available to Lotus Traveler's calendar app.

I try to develop a similar solution for my application in the past days. I verify that if you don't rename calendar view into "$Calendar" name, offline will not work. With a calendar view renamed to $Calendar offline works well.

But if you have an nsf with multiple calendar views, each one with different filter on it, offline mode will work only to calendar view named "$Calendar".

I have Notes 8.5.3 FP1 installed.

Do you know some tips ?

Thanks

8Mat Newman

03/20/2013 23:29:21  How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

@7, Damiano: "($Calendar)" is King! There are also a *lot* of actions/script libraries/functions in addition to stuff 'behind the scenes' that make a fully-fledged ($Calendar) view work the way it's presented in the Mail database. I never really understood why the "Birthdays and Anniversaries" view in the Contacts Database was implemented as a flat list, it should really have been a show-case for how flexible Lotus Notes was at presenting data differently based on presentation requirements for a document given different situations. The thought here is to make the data at least visible within the users Lotus Notes/IBM Notes calendar with the smallest possible foot-print and minimal intrusion.

Of course, IBM could just make this work natively as part of the core functionality of the Notes code stream. It would appear to be a very simple feature to implement.

Mat Newman IBM Champion

9Helm  03/21/2013 2:31:18  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Hello Mat,

do not use this view on a server, like for your roaming users, as a view includes @Today and may kill your performance. It does also not show birthdays for January in December.

10Roel  05/27/2014 23:35:04  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Mat,

Thanks. I've also been struggling with those tricks behind calendar views.

Have you probably found out how calendar items in an 'added calendar' can be shown as 'all day event'?

There must be something on the documents: when the 'other Notes application' is a mailbox it works....

11Sjaak  01/29/2015 22:36:18  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

I've done all the steps described above, but there are no new calendar entries shown in my Calendar view :-(

The new view "Birthday & Anneversaries" is added and functioning in my personal contacts dbase.

Adding the calendar view to my existing calendar is also not giving problems, the displayed viewname is slightly different, it says "(Birthday Anniversary Calendar)(vwBACalendar), then I set the desired colors and so on but then it stops...

The new calendar view is not displayed, not matter what I try.

I noticed that in the Advanced section of Contacts, under Accounts, an entry is added with the name of the just added calendar. It uses HTTP protocol on port 80. Is that right? I cannot remember that my PC runs a webserver

12Sjaak  01/29/2015 22:42:56  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

To add on my last post: when I right click on the added calendar in my Show Calendars box, I do get the option "Option in New Tab" and that does show todays birthday (it just happens to have one today). So the datafeed seems to be working, only not displaying in my calendar view. Any suggestions?

13Franz  04/01/2016 4:32:52  
How to add Birthdays and Anniversaries from your Contacts database to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Hi Mat, I just added the birthday view - and it worked perfectly. But - after I closed / restarted Lotus Notes I neither see the 'Birthdays' entry under 'Add a Calendar...' nor the calendar entries. When I try to add the database once again it says 'Label already exists. Please try using a different label.'

So... The 'Birthday' label is still there - somewhere in the background. Do you have any idea how to make it visible again?

Mat Newman

THE Notes (formerly IBM/Lotus Notes) Guy. Productivity Guru. Evangelist. IBM Champion for IBM Collaboration Solutions, 2011/2012/2013. Former IBMer. HCLite. Views are my own.

#GetProductive #GetHCLNotes

Mat Newman




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