How to Send an iCal File as an Exchange Appointment
Creating an iCal is rather straightforward, so is sending out an email with the iCal file attached therein. What is required in our case is to automate sending out an appointment thru’ MS Exchange in a way that it behaves as though an appointment has been manually sent by someone thru’ Exchange. This would mean that the appointment has to appear in the Exchange Calendar whether or not the recipient remembers to accept the appointment. This is not possible with a typical iCal sent as an attachment in an email as the recipient would need to open the iCal file and save it before it appears in the Exchange Calendar (sort of an import function). Apart from making use of Exchange API, a much simpler solution would be to (still) send the iCal as an attachment in an email but “trick” Exchange into recognising the mail as an Exchange appointment. Credits to this website for first uncovering the solution. First and foremost, understand the difference between an Appointment and a Meeting Reques...