ICS / Google Calendar Import (MVP, import-only)

Issue: #6323

This feature lets you import an iCalendar (.ics) file — for example a Google Calendar export — into a WeKan board. Each calendar event (VEVENT) becomes a card whose start and due dates are populated, so the imported events show up on the board's Calendar and Gantt views.

Scope: This is the MVP and is import-only (one direction: .ics file → WeKan cards). Two-way Google Calendar sync is NOT included. For the read-only export direction (WeKan → an iCal feed that Google Calendar can subscribe to), see the separate wekan-ical-server project.

What gets imported

For each VEVENT block:

If an event has no DTEND, dueAt falls back to DTSTART so single-point events still render on the calendar.

The parser

The core is a small, dependency-free, pure parser at server/lib/icsImport.js. It uses only string operations and regexes (no npm packages), which keeps it easy to unit-test and safe to reuse.

It correctly handles:

• Multiple VEVENT blocks in one file.
• Line unfolding (RFC 5545): physical lines beginning with a space or tab are continuations of the previous line.
• Date values YYYYMMDD (all-day events) and date-time values YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ. Both are interpreted as UTC for deterministic, timezone-independent parsing.
• Escaped TEXT values: \, → comma, \; → semicolon, \n / \N → newline, \\ → backslash.
• Properties with parameters, e.g. DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20261225.
• Empty or garbage input — returns an empty array, never throws.

Public functions

import { parseIcs, icsEventToCard, icsToCards } from '/server/lib/icsImport';

// 1. Parse raw .ics text into plain event objects.
const events = parseIcs(icsText);
// => [{ summary, description, start: Date|null, end: Date|null, uid }, ...]

// 2. Map one event to a WeKan card-shaped object.
const card = icsEventToCard(events[0], { boardId, listId, swimlaneId });
// => { title, description, startAt, dueAt, boardId, listId, swimlaneId }

// 3. Do both in one step.
const cards = icsToCards(icsText, { boardId, listId, swimlaneId });

icsToCards does not touch the database — it only produces card-shaped plain objects. Persisting them is the caller's responsibility (see below).

Creating cards: the Meteor method

A thin server method wires the parser into the existing Cards API: server/methods/icsImport.js, registered in server/imports.js.

// Client (or server) call:
Meteor.call(
  'importIcsToBoard',
  boardId,
  listId,
  swimlaneId,
  icsFileText,            // the raw contents of the uploaded .ics file
  (err, res) => {
    // res => { created: <number>, cardIds: [...] }
  },
);

The method:

• Requires a logged-in user.
• Verifies the user can see the board, is a member (not read-only).
• Verifies the target listId and swimlaneId belong to the board (no cross-board writes).
• Creates one card per event with startAt / dueAt set.

To wire a full upload UI, read the selected .ics file's text on the client (e.g. with FileReader) and pass it as the icsText argument. A dedicated upload form in the board import dialog is deferred (secondary to the parser MVP).

Tests

Unit tests (mocha + chai, self-contained) are at server/lib/tests/icsImport.tests.js and cover: single and multiple events, all-day vs date-time forms, folded lines, escaped text, icsEventToCard field mapping and the dueAt → start fallback, and empty/garbage input.

Run with:

meteor test --once --driver-package meteortesting:mocha

Not included (deferred)

• Two-way Google Calendar sync (live updates in either direction).
• A board-import upload UI/dialog (call the method or icsToCards directly for now).
• Recurrence rules (RRULE), attendees, alarms, and timezone (VTIMEZONE / TZID) conversion — date-times are treated as UTC.