What ifreebusy.com Does

ifreebusy.com allows you to publish and subscribe to calendars and freebusy information, convert between the two formats, and use your published schedules to effectively book meetings with others.

Instructions:

1. Register with us. (We're currently not accepting additional users)
   
   
2. Upload your calendar or freebusy files to http://www.ifreebusy.com/<username>/<filename> or http://www.ifreebusy.com/<username>/<filename>?authtoken=xxx (see the User Guides to the right for detailed instructions).
   
   Only registered users may upload calendar or freebusy files, and a username/password is required. Files which contain complete calendar data (files ending in '.ics' which are published by Mozilla and Apple iCal, for example) require a username/password or your authtoken to access (we don't want others viewing all of your calendar details).
   
   Freebusy files, which only specify the times you are unavailable, may either be accessible by the public or restricted to users with whom you have shared a token. A token is a string of characters which is appended to your freebusy url (see below for further details).
   
   
3. Calendar access: view and manage your calendars at http://ifreebusy.com/<username>/calendars (requires password to access). You can also restricted access to your freebusy information via this page.
   
   
4. Freebusy access: view your calendars combined into freebusy view at http://ifreebusy.com/<username>/freebusy. Unless you specify it, this does not require a password to access, so you can send this link to others to view before they schedule a meeting with you. If you have specified in your account section that you want to restrict access to your freebuy information, others will only be able to view if they append a token to the URL. The 'fbtoken' is available in your account section; you can email it to your contacts. If you have set your freebusy access to 'restricted', all of your freebusy data will require the token (including .ics files which are converted via .ics?freebusy).
   
   
5. Combining freebusy schedules: add others to the freebusy view by entering their ifreebusy.com username in the input box at the bottom of the schedule or by appending their ifreebusy.com username to the freebusy URL (e.g. http://ifreebusy.com/<username>/freebusy?user1+user2). If the additional users' freebusy information is restricted (i.e. requires a token to access), you cannot use the URL to specify their username. Instead, you will have to use the form at the bottom of the calendar grid, and enter in their username and fbtoken (e.g. 'username?fbtoken=xxxx').
   
   
6. To convert between formats (note that if the freebusy information is restricted, you may have include a fbtoken in the url):
   • calendar files with the .ics extension can be converted to freebusy information by appending '?freebusy' to the url of the calendar.
   • freebusy files with the .vfb extension can be converted to simple icalendar files by appending '?tocal' to the url of the calendar.
   • consolidated freebusy format for all your calendars: /<username>/freebusy/vfb
   • consolidated freebusy information in hcal format for all of your calendars: /<username>/freebusy/hcal

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