| Network Working Group | C. Daboo |
| Internet-Draft | Apple |
| Updates: 5545 (if approved) | K. Murchison, Ed. |
| Intended status: Standards Track | FastMail |
| Expires: December 12, 2019 | June 10, 2019 |
VALARM Extensions for iCalendar
draft-ietf-calext-valarm-extensions-00
This document defines a set of extensions to the iCalendar VALARM component to enhance use of alarms and improve interoperability between clients and servers.
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The iCalendar specification defines a set of components used to describe calendar data. One of those is the "VALARM" component which appears as a sub-component of "VEVENT" and "VTODO" components. The "VALARM" component is used to specify a reminder for an event or task. Different alarm actions are possible, as are different ways to specify how the alarm is triggered.
As iCalendar has become more widely used and as client-server protocols such as CalDAV have become more popular, several issues with "VALARM" components have arisen. Most of these relate to the need to extend the existing "VALARM" component with new properties and behaviors to allow clients and servers to accomplish specific tasks in an interoperable manner. For example, clients typically need a way to specify that an alarm has been dismissed by a calendar user, or has been "snoozed" by a set amount of time. To date, this has been done through the use of custom "X-" properties specific to each client implementation, leading to poor interoperability.
This specification defines a set of extensions to "VALARM" components to cover common requirements for alarms not currently addressed in iCalendar. Each extension is defined in a separate section below. For the most part, each extension can be supported independently of the others, though in some cases one extension will require another. In addition, this specification describes mechanisms by which clients can interoperably implement common features such as "snoozing".
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
When XML element types in the namespaces "DAV:" and "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:caldav" are referenced in this document outside of the context of an XML fragment, the string "DAV:" and "CALDAV:" will be prefixed to the element type names respectively.
Section 3.6.6 of [RFC5545] defines the syntax for "VALARM" components and properties within them. However, as written, it is hard to extend this by adding, e.g., a new property common to all types of alarm. Since many of the extensions defined in this document need to extend the base syntax, an alternative form for the base syntax is defined here, with the goal of simplifying specification of the extensions.
alarmcext = "BEGIN" ":" "VALARM" CRLF
alarmprop
"END" ":" "VALARM" CRLF
alarmprop = *(
; the following are REQUIRED,
; but MUST NOT occur more than once
action / trigger /
; one set of action properties MUST be
; present and MUST match the action specified
; in the ACTION property
actionprops /
; the following is OPTIONAL,
; and MAY occur more than once
x-prop / iana-prop
)
actionprops = audiopropext / disppropext / emailpropext
audiopropext = *(
; 'duration' and 'repeat' are both OPTIONAL,
; and MUST NOT occur more than once each,
; but if one occurs, so MUST the other
duration / repeat /
; the following is OPTIONAL,
; but MUST NOT occur more than once
attach
)
disppropext = *(
; the following are REQUIRED,
; but MUST NOT occur more than once
description /
; 'duration' and 'repeat' are both OPTIONAL,
; and MUST NOT occur more than once each,
; but if one occurs, so MUST the other
duration / repeat
)
emailpropext = *(
; the following are all REQUIRED,
; but MUST NOT occur more than once
description / summary /
; the following is REQUIRED,
; and MAY occur more than once
attendee /
; 'duration' and 'repeat' are both OPTIONAL,
; and MUST NOT occur more than once each,
; but if one occurs, so MUST the other
duration / repeat
)
A "VALARM" calendar component is re-defined by the following notation:
This extension adds a "UID" property to "VALARM" components to allow a unique identifier to specified. The value of this property can then be used to refer uniquely to the "VALARM" component.
The "UID" property defined here follows the definition in Section 3.8.4.7 of [RFC5545] with the security and privacy updates in Section 5.3 of [RFC7986]. In particular it MUST be a globally unique identifier that does not contain any security- or privacy-sensitive information.
alarmprop /= *(
; the following is OPTIONAL,
; but MUST NOT occur more than once
uid
)
The "VALARM" component defined in Section 3 is extended here as:
There is currently no way for a "VALARM" component to indicate whether it has been triggered and acknowledged. With the advent of a standard client/server protocol for calendaring and scheduling data ([RFC4791]) it is quite possible for an event with an alarm to exist on multiple clients in addition to the server. If each of those is responsible for performing the action when an alarm triggers, then multiple "alerts" are generated by different devices. In such a situation, a calendar user would like to be able to "dismiss" the alarm on one device and have it automatically dismissed on the others too.
Also, with recurring events that have alarms, it is important to know when the last alarm in the recurring set was acknowledged, so that the client can determine whether past alarms have been missed.
alarmprop /= *(
; the following is OPTIONAL,
; but MUST NOT occur more than once
acknowledged
)
To address these needs, this specification adds an "ACKNOWLEDGED" property to "VALARM" components to indicate when the alarm was last sent or acknowledged. This is defined by the syntax below.
acknowledged = "ACKNOWLEDGED" acknowledgedparam ":" datetime CRLF
acknowledgedparam = *(
; the following is OPTIONAL,
; and MAY occur more than once
(";" other-param)
)
ACKNOWLEDGED:20090604T084500Z
Users often want to "snooze" an alarm, and this specification defines a standard approach to accomplish that.
To "snooze" an alarm, clients create a new "VALARM" component within the parent component of the "VALARM" that was triggered and is being "snoozed" (i.e., as a "sibling" component of the "VALARM" being snoozed). The new "VALARM" MUST be set to trigger at the user's chosen "snooze" interval after the original alarm triggered. Clients SHOULD use an absolute "TRIGGER" property with a "DATE-TIME" value specified in UTC.
When the "snooze" alarm is triggered and dismissed the client SHOULD remove the corresponding "VALARM" component, or set the "ACKNOWLEDGED" property (see Section 5.1). Alternatively, if the "snooze" alarm is itself "snoozed", the client SHOULD remove the original "snooze" alarm and create a new one, with the appropriate trigger time and relationship set.
VALARMs are currently triggered when a specific date-time is reached. It is also desirable to be able to trigger alarms based on location, e.g. when arriving at or departing from a particular location.
alarmprop /= *(
; the following is OPTIONAL,
; but MUST NOT occur more than once
proximity /
; the following is OPTIONAL,
; and MAY occur more than once, but only
; when a PROXIMITY property is also present
structured-location
)
This specification adds the following properties to "VALARM" components to indicate when an alarm can be triggered based on location.
Typically, when a "PROXIMITY" property is used there is no need to specify a time-based trigger using the "TRIGGER" property. However, since "TRIGGER" is defined as a required property for a "VALARM" component, for backwards compatibility it has to be present, but ignored. To indicate a "TRIGGER" that is to be ignored, clients SHOULD use a value a long time in the past. A value of "19760401T005545Z" has been commonly used for this purpose.
proximity = "PROXIMITY" proximityparam ":" proximityvalue CRLF
proximityparam = *(
; the following is OPTIONAL,
; and MAY occur more than once
(";" other-param)
)
proximityvalue = "ARRIVE" / "DEPART" /
"CONNECT" / "DISCONNECT" / iana-token / x-name
PROXIMITY:ARRIVE
BEGIN:VALARM UID:77D80D14-906B-4257-963F-85B1E734DBB6 TRIGGER;VALUE=DATE-TIME:19760401T005545Z ACTION:DISPLAY DESCRIPTION:Remember to buy milk TRIGGER;VALUE=DATE-TIME:19760401T005545Z PROXIMITY:DEPART STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI:geo:40.443,-79.945;u=10 END:VALARM
The following example shows a "VALARM" component with a proximity trigger set to trigger when the device running the calendar user agent leaves the vicinity defined by the structured location property. Note use of the "u=" parameter with the "geo" URI to define the precision of the location determination.
VALARMs, if not monitored properly, can be used to "spam" users and/or leak personal information. For instance, an unwanted audio or display alert could be considered spam. Or an email alert could be used to leak a user's location to a third party or to send unsolicited email to multiple users. Therefore, CalDAV clients and servers that accept iCalendar data from a third party (e.g. via iTIP, a subscription feed, or a shared calendar) SHOULD remove all VALARMs from the data prior to storing in their calendar system.
This document defines the following new iCalendar properties to be added to the registry defined in Section 8.2.3 of [RFC5545]:
| Property | Status | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| ACKNOWLEDGED | Current | RFCXXXX, Section 5.1 |
| PROXIMITY | Current | RFCXXXX, Section 7.1 |
This document creates a new iCalendar registry for values of the "PROXIMITY" property:
| Value | Status | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| ARRIVE | Current | RFCXXXX, Section 7.1 |
| DEPART | Current | RFCXXXX, Section 7.1 |
| CONNECT | Current | RFCXXXX, Section 7.1 |
| DISCONNECT | Current | RFCXXXX, Section 7.1 |
This specification came about via discussions at the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium. Also, thanks to the following for providing feedback: Bernard Desruisseaux, Mike Douglass, Jacob Farkas, Jeffrey Harris, and Ciny Joy.
| [I-D.ietf-calext-eventpub-extensions] | Douglass, M., "Event Publishing Extensions to iCalendar", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-calext-eventpub-extensions-13, May 2019. |
| [RFC2119] | Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997. |
| [RFC4791] | Daboo, C., Desruisseaux, B. and L. Dusseault, "Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV (CalDAV)", RFC 4791, DOI 10.17487/RFC4791, March 2007. |
| [RFC5545] | Desruisseaux, B., "Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar)", RFC 5545, DOI 10.17487/RFC5545, September 2009. |
| [RFC5870] | Mayrhofer, A. and C. Spanring, "A Uniform Resource Identifier for Geographic Locations ('geo' URI)", RFC 5870, DOI 10.17487/RFC5870, June 2010. |
| [RFC7986] | Daboo, C., "New Properties for iCalendar", RFC 7986, DOI 10.17487/RFC7986, October 2016. |
| [RFC8174] | Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017. |
| [BTcore] | Bluetooth Special Interest Group, "Bluetooth Core Specification Version 5.0", December 2016. |
| [RFC5546] | Daboo, C., "iCalendar Transport-Independent Interoperability Protocol (iTIP)", RFC 5546, DOI 10.17487/RFC5546, December 2009. |
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