I'm working with highermath on a site D7 site that will be using Evanced Events Importer, but I'm encountering an issue that I believe might be fixable with documentation alone, and I'm hoping you know the answer:

Our EXML feed doesn't appear to be giving us the correct data based on your documentation, and what the module itself needs.

Either we don't know how to get the proper feed (we are using the feeds given to us by the library itself), or the module is requiring data that is not part of the feed. Can you please help us figure out what is wrong?

Here is the most generic feed URL we have:
http://host.evanced.info/fcpl/evanced/eventsxml.asp?lib=all&nd=7
(for 7 days out)

But if you look at it you'll see that key tags are missing, especially Event ID. The other ones that aren't here are the categories and signup status, but those are less critical. Here is a breakdown of the tags that are in this EXML feed:

<title/>  
<date/>  
<time/>  
<enddate/>  
<description/>  
<location/>  
<library/>  
<link/>

The "link" tag does contain a URL that *ends* with the Event ID, so perhaps it is possible to patch the module to grab that information from the link, but that doesn't seem like the best approach.... And the fact that the categories are missing (they are using Age Groups and Event Types as well) is a big loss for integration with the site.

Thank you for your assistance.

Comments

slanger’s picture

slanger commented
Assigned: Unassigned » slanger
Status: Active » Closed (works as designed)

Hi rainbreaw:

Yes, I have an answer for you.

If you look at the README.txt file that came with the Evanced Events Importer module, you'll see that there's a section entitled The EXML Feed. Beneath that, there's a subsection named Where is the EXML Feed located? Looking at the example there, you'll notice that there are a few URL parameters missing from your feed -- the most crucial one being "&dm=exml".

By default, the feed provided by Evanced is in plain XML format, which is not so different than your basic RSS feed. When you add "&dm=exml" to the end of your feed URL, you're specifying that you want the feed to be output in Extended XML format -- providing the most robust amount of data per event. The feed can also be displayed in RSS, ATOM and iCal feed formats; however, all of those leave out important data. This is why the module is designed to work with the EXML feed.

Another parameter in the example that you may want to add is "&alltime=1". This ensures that if your feed begins on today's date, it will show all events for that day -- even the ones that may have already taken place earlier this morning (by default, the feed will drop off events after they've occurred). This will help prevent the module from making unintentional deletions.

In the "Read Me" file, review the subsection entitled EXML Feed: Parameters to learn more about the options available to you.

Working from your example, the following URL should give you what you're looking for:
http://host.evanced.info/fcpl/evanced/eventsxml.asp?lib=all&nd=7&alltime=1&dm=exml

I hope that helps!

rainbreaw’s picture

rainbreaw commented

THANK YOU so much! I feel silly for missing this - the documentation was great and got me most of the way with ease, so I'm a bit embarrassed that I didn't RTFM well enough to make use of this part.

That being said, when you do update the readme next, perhaps a slight edit to that particular part of the document will help the next person like me. Maybe something like:

Where is the EXML Feed located?
-------------------------------
The EXML feed that you require for your installation will likely be **different** from the one you might have used previously if you integrated Evanced Events usign PHP on your site. Most importantly, you'll want to make sure that you have included the parameter **dm=exml** in your URL.

Based on your installation of Evanced Events, you should be able to find the EXML feed here:

/eventsxml.asp?dm=exml&
Example: http://www.example.com/evanced/lib/eventsxml.asp?lib=all&nd=30&alltime=1...

Again, thank you for the quick and super helpful response. I knew I was missing something key.

rainbreaw’s picture

rainbreaw commented

Of course, the above being said, the more I look at the documentation the more I realize I didn't read that part carefully. I think you do make the above clear, I just didn't really catch it, perhaps because I was frustrated with the compact feed at that moment. Thank you again.

slanger’s picture

slanger commented

You're welcome -- glad I could help. :-)