Detection of duplicate events

[Jason]

Could you clarify what the detection takes into account for checking whether an event in an import is a duplicate event?

I’ve done a test and imported 2 different ical event feeds on the same domain. The 2 different feeds do have common events. It did not duplicate the common events between the 2 feeds. I was hoping it wouldn’t duplicate them but it would add the second category (different per feed) to the common event. I’m just curious as to what it is checking to determine whether to import an event or not. Is it looking at domain and title of the feed and event?

Thanks

[Geoff]

Hi @Jason,

Thanks for reaching out!

Great question. iCal Importer will indeed treat the same event from two different feeds as unique events. That’s because it checks for duplicates based on the feed it is importing from.

Checking for duplicates from multiple feeds is a great idea. While iCal Importer does not offer that now, it does spark some interesting conversation for how we might be able to handle duplicates across all of our importing plugins. I’ve flagged this topic for our team to talk about more. I can’t promise anything will come out of it, but it will certainly be discussed.

In the meantime, would you also be willing to open a new thread in our feature request forum? This is also a good way to make sure things stay on the radar and it allows others to chime in and vote for the same feature.

Sorry for the bad news, but does this at least help answer your question? Please let me know.

Thanks,
Geoff

[Jason]

Hi Geoff,
Actually I’m experiencing that it doesn’t treat the same event from 2 different feeds uniquely. So I have 2 feeds…1 for our MBA events…and 1 for our undergrad events.

MBA events feed: https://spike.wharton.upenn.edu/calendar/feeds.cfm?eventtag=1&v=1
UGR events feed: https://spike.wharton.upenn.edu/calendar/feeds.cfm?eventtag=2&v=1

They have the same domain but as you can see a query param pulls different events based on the eventtag. I setup 2 feeds one for each applying an MBA category to the first and a UGR category to the second. There are common events between the 2 feeds. For the events that are common between the 2 it does not pull in distinct events…it only pulls in 1 event. So it doesn’t seem to be considering events distinct dependent on the full URL of the ical URL. Is it only looking at the domain? What other fields does it look at to detect a duplicate (title, start date, etc)?

[Geoff]

Oh, gotcha! Thanks for clarifying.

Yes, it does look specifically at several variables:

• event name
• dates
• times
• venues

So, in other words, it is not looking specifically at the domain when performing its check, but for unique identifying features in the post type itself.

Geoff

[Jason]

Hi Geoff,
Interesting…so a few follow up questions. When it pulls a recurring ical feed how will it treat an event that has been updated? For instance if the event name has changed will it treat that as a new event or will it update the existing? If just the venue changes will it treat that as a new event or update the existing?

I would have hoped that there was some underlying ID that it was matching on so that it would know when there is an update to an event as opposed to a new event. I know that some ical feeds have a UID attribute with each event but you probably can’t depend on that I guess.

[Geoff]

Hey Jason!

Nice follow-up questions.

For instance if the event name has changed will it treat that as a new event or will it update the existing?

It seems that the check is on multiple variables rather than a single one so–if a possible duplicate is detected, it will warn you which it is and make sure you want to proceed with the import.

I know that some ical feeds have a UID attribute with each event but you probably can’t depend on that I guess.

Exactly, the UID is not always a consistent way to check. It would be possible to do a check on that but I imagine it would need to be used in combination with other variables for more reliability. Not quite as solid as something like a Facebook or Eventbrite ID, which would be truly unique on import.

Geoff

 

[Jason]

Hi Geoff,
I’m not sure I follow you on the first answer. The feeds I’m talking about are recurring daily so there is no user interaction to import the feed. I’m trying to determine what I can expect when the recurring feed runs. If there is an update to an event that already came through in a previous feed what will the behaviour be? If the title, day/time, or location has changed will it treat that as a new event?

Thanks

[Geoff]

Hi Jason,

I do not expect that a duplicate event would be detected in the case of multiple feeds that recur daily–at least, the plugin was not designed to that intentionally. If the event is indeed detected as a duplicate from multiple feeds, then it is because the post attributed (title, date, etc.) are indicating it is a duplicate event–not a specific post ID or iCal UID.

If the title, day/time, or location has changed will it treat that as a new event?

Yes, it will be treated as a new event if that information has changed.

Thanks,
Geoff

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Author]

Posts