Enhancing the BB calendar
with Microsoft Excel
Batch Import and Export
Peter Jacobs
Catholic University Leuven Association
Belgium
© Blackboard, Inc. All rights reserved.
Toledo project
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started in september 2001
11 institutes for higher education
56.000 active students
4.000 active professors
20.000 different users a day
over 1.000.000 hits a day
hosting the eloV server, used by 35.000 students
from 200 K-12 schools
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Blackboard calendar
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Basic features
Good integration with courses (access rights, UI)
Personal view (aggregation)
Real need for shared calendar
Integration with MS Outlook, other calendars?
Easy batch import and export?
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Batch import/export of events
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CSV: difficulties with separator, date format
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MS Excel 97/2000/XP:
a standard and well known format, no ambiguities
No dependency on Microsoft software!
e.g. Open Office
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Upload file
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<form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
select an Excel file:<br>
<input size="50" name="excelfile" type="file"><br>
<INPUT type="submit" value="import Excel file">
</form>
Process with Apache commons fileupload
commons-fileupload-1.0.jar
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Result is an InputStream
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Apache commons fileupload 1.0
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if (FileUpload.isMultipartContent(request)) {
DiskFileUpload upload = new DiskFileUpload();
// upload.setSizeThreshold(yourMaxMemorySize);
upload.setSizeMax(1000000);
// upload.setRepositoryPath(yourTempDirectory);
List items = upload.parseRequest(request);
Iterator iter = items.iterator();
while (iter.hasNext()) {
FileItem item = (FileItem) iter.next();
if (!item.isFormField()) {
if (item.getFieldName().equals(formFieldName)) {
inputStream = item.getInputStream();
…
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Apache POI - HSSF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSSF
» Read and write Excel 97/2000/XP files
» Workbook, sheet, colors, borders, shapes, …
» Data formats!
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HSSF - create Excel workbook
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HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook();
HSSFSheet sheet = wb.createSheet("new sheet");
HSSFRow row = sheet.createRow((short)0);
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HSSFCell cell = row.createCell((short)0);
cell.setCellValue(“this is a string”);
row.createCell((short)1).setCellValue(1.2);
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OutputStream os = response.getOutputStream();
wb.write(os);
os.close();
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HSSF – create date cell
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HSSFCellStyle csDate = wb.createCellStyle();
HSSFDataFormat dateFormat =
wb.createDataFormat();
csDate.setDataFormat(
dateFormat.getFormat("m/d/yy h:mm"));
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cell = row.createCell((short)0);
cell.setCellStyle(csDate);
cell.setCellValue(new Date());
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HSSF – read workbook
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POIFSFileSystem fs = new POIFSFileSystem(inputStream);
HSSFWorkbook hssfworkbook = new HSSFWorkbook(fs);
HSSFSheet sheet = hssfworkbook.getSheetAt(0);
int rows = sheet.getPhysicalNumberOfRows();
for (int r = 0; r < rows; r++) {
HSSFRow row = sheet.getRow(r);
if (row != null) {
int cells = row.getPhysicalNumberOfCells();
for (int c = 0; c < cells; c++) {
HSSFCell cell = row.getCell((short) c);
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HSSF – read cell
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if (cell != null) {
Object value = null;
switch (cell.getCellType()) {
case HSSFCell.CELL_TYPE_FORMULA:
value = "Error: formula";
break;
case HSSFCell.CELL_TYPE_NUMERIC:
value = new Double(cell.getNumericCellValue());
break;
case HSSFCell.CELL_TYPE_STRING:
value = cell.getStringCellValue();
break;
default:
}
}
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Blackboard – course calendar entry
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CalendarEntry entry = new CalendarEntry();
entry.setType(Type.COURSE);
entry.setStartDate(startDate);
entry.setEndDate(endDate);
entry.setTitle(title);
entry.setDescription(new FormattedText(
description, FormattedText.Type.DEFAULT));
entry.setCourseId(courseId);
entry.setCreatorUserId(userId);
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Blackboard – create or delete calendar entry
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CalendarEntryDbPersister calendarPersister =
CalendarEntryDbPersister.Default.getInstance();
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calendarPersister.persist(entry);
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calendarPersister.deleteById(entry.getId());
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Blackboard – load course calendar entries
CalendarEntryDbLoader calendarLoader =
CalendarEntryDbLoader.Default.getInstance();
» BbList calendarEntries =
calendarLoader.loadByCourseId(courseId,
(Calendar) startDate.clone(),
(Calendar) endDate.clone());
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loadByUserId(…), loadByCourseIdAndUserId(…),
loadByType(…), …
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Issue: time zone
Only import with implicit time zone
» Create user preference?
» iCalendar format has extensive capabilities for
time zones and UTC
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iCalendar
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/iCalendar
Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Outlook 2007,…
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BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/Paris
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Paris:20060727T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Paris:20060727T173000
SUMMARY:Toledo presentation
END:VEVENT
…
END:VCALENDAR
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To do
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Layout, navigation (breadcrumbs)
Name of calendar entry creator
Location parameter
Time zones
Recurring events, multi day events
Other import/export formats
Other types of events: institution, personal
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More to do
Performance, caching iCalendar
» Date boundary checking
» Formatted text, HTML, …
» Update calendar events (unique id)
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More info
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http://perswww.kuleuven.be/peter_jacobs/bbcalendar/
[email protected]
Mailinglists
BB-OPEN_SRC
BBADMIN-L
BLKBRD-L
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