I am trying to send .ics files using laravel 8 to outlook in the standard way that a normal meeting invite would be sent. I have tried copying exact invitations and many different methods and nothing seems to work here. I believe it is something to do with how I am sending vs what I am sending. I would like to use the Laravel Mail API. I have provided some code below for what I have done so far. I copied an exact .ics that worked on my regular outlook to base the file off, but still not working correctly.
I would appreciate any help.
<?php
namespace App\Mail;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use App\Models\Meeting;
use App\Models\User;
use Carbon\Carbon;
class MeetingInviteMail extends Mailable
{
use Queueable, SerializesModels;
/**
* Create a new message instance.
*
* @return void
*/
public function __construct()
{
}
/**
* Build the message.
*
* @return $this
*/
public function build(){
$from_name = "Company Name";
$from_address = "[email protected]";
$to_name = "Receiver Name";
$to_address = "[email protected]";
$startTime = $start->format("m/d/Y H:i:s"); //these are carbon datetimes
$endTime = $end->format("m/d/Y H:i:s");
$subject = "Meeting Subject";
$location = "Zoom Dial-in TBD";
$domain = 'example.com';
$ical = 'BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Microsoft Corporation//Outlook 16.0 MIMEDIR//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-MS-OLK-FORCEINSPECTOROPEN:TRUE
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16011104T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=11
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010311T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
CREATED:20210504T000631Z
DESCRIPTION: XXXXX
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20210503T210000
DTSTAMP:20210504T000611Z
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20210503T200000
LAST-MODIFIED:20210504T000631Z
LOCATION:https://zoom.us/j/**************************
PRIORITY:5
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:My Meeting
TRANSP:OPAQUE
UID:20210504T000611Z-95378197685@fe80:0:0:0:1080:3fff:fe1c:150dens5
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//E
N">\n<HTML>\n<HEAD>\n<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server ve
rsion 16.0.13901.20436">\n<TITLE></TITLE>\n</HEAD>\n<BODY>\n<!-- Converted
from text/plain format -->\n\n<P><FONT SIZE=2>Company is inviti
ng you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.</FONT>\n</P>\n\n<P><FONT SIZE=2>Join Z
oom Meeting</FONT>\n\n<BR><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="https://zoom.us/j/*******">https://zoom.us/j/*******</A></FONT>\n</P>\n\n<P><FONT SIZE=2>Mee
ting ID: ******</FONT>\n\n<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Passcode: ******</FONT>\
n</P>\n\n</BODY>\n</HTML>
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
';
return $this->from('[email protected]')
->markdown('emails.meeting-invite') //markdown is not significant, not even sure its needed but laravel requires it
->attachData($ical, 'invite.ics', [
'mime' => 'text/calendar;charset=UTF-8;method=REQUEST',
]);
}
}
My Answer:
To send a calendar invite in the standard way using Laravel Mail API, you can create a custom Mailable class that generates the .ics file and attaches it to the email. Here's an example of how you can achieve this:
1. Create a new Mailable class using the following command:
bash
php artisan make:mail CalendarInvite
2. Update the `CalendarInvite` class in `app/Mail/CalendarInvite.php` with the following code:
php
namespace App\Mail;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
class CalendarInvite extends Mailable
{
use Queueable, SerializesModels;
public $subject;
public $startTime;
public $endTime;
public $location;
public function __construct($subject, $startTime, $endTime, $location)
{
$this->subject = $subject;
$this->startTime = $startTime;
$this->endTime = $endTime;
$this->location = $location;
}
public function build()
{
$data = [
'subject' => $this->subject,
'startTime' => $this->startTime,
'endTime' => $this->endTime,
'location' => $this->location,
];
$content = view('calendar.invite', $data)->render();
return $this->view('emails.calendar_invite')
->subject($this->subject)
->attachData($content, 'invite.ics', [
'mime' => 'text/calendar; charset=utf-8; method=REQUEST',
]);
}
}
3. Create a Blade view file `resources/views/calendar/invite.blade.php` with the following content:
html
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Your Company//Your App//EN
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:{{ now()->format('Ymd\THis\Z') }}
DTSTART:{{ $startTime->format('Ymd\THis\Z') }}
DTEND:{{ $endTime->format('Ymd\THis\Z') }}
SUMMARY:{{ $subject }}
LOCATION:{{ $location }}
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
4. Update your controller to send the calendar invite email:
php
use App\Mail\CalendarInvite;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail;
public function sendCalendarInvite()
{
$startTime = now();
$endTime = now()->addHours(1);
Mail::to('recipient@example.com')->send(new CalendarInvite('Meeting Subject', $startTime, $endTime, 'Meeting Location'));
return 'Calendar invite sent successfully';
}
5. Make sure to update your email template `resources/views/emails/calendar_invite.blade.php` with the appropriate content.
By following these steps, you should be able to send a calendar invite in the standard way using Laravel Mail API. Make sure to test the email in Outlook to ensure that the .ics file is displayed correctly as a calendar invite.
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