Apple iCalendar to Office 365 Migration

Got a request for migrating Apple to Office 365.

It was for 80 users, so not a viable site for us to write a full-state migration.  

Always wanting to put useful information up here we thought we'd sketch how to do small migrations like this on your own.  Since last I looked at iCalServer 1.0.6, Apple Calendar Admin did not make migration an easy thing.

The Quick and Dirty Way

You will need to execute an AppleScript like this one: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20317282  to produce ICS exports.  We have not tested this script so we cannot  guarantee it works, but you get the idea:  you need to extract your data in some meaningful form.    Next you need to read this file into Outlook via client-side import.  Yep -- one user at a time.

You will lose guest lists, guest responses, recurrence patterns, and live meetings.  Not to mention any resource bookings.  

But it is inexpensive and immediately actionable.

The Right Way

The right way is where we read the iCalendar calendar data store and insert into Office 365 of Exchange directly.  I.e., the right way is server-to-server rather than script-to-client. This also allows users to be remapped, and then inserted into Office 365 / Exchange while maintaining full-state calendar information

This amount of engineering is impossible to justify for small sites.  

If however, you have a few thousand users you need to migrate feel free to contact us.

(Later addition: We did this, as the video shows)