Everyone hates to enter data twice. A few weeks ago we added a feature that lets you update Dopplr from a Google calendar. Now we’re happy to help you update Dopplr via your Apple Macintosh desktop iCal calendar. Here’s how:

In your iCal calendar, create a new calendar and name it something such as “Travel” or “Dopplr travel” or whatever you like:

Now create a new event in that calendar:

Double click (or click Command-I) the event that now shows up in your calendar and fill in the appropriate information:

This part is important to get right. It helps a great deal if you enter the location information precisely, or Dopplr may guess wrong and create the wrong location on the Dopplr site (which would be bad for serendipity with your trusted friends and colleagues). Remember that Dopplr works with the place names of cities and towns, so make sure you don’t put in a full street address or other details.

In the example above, we’ve created a marketing meeting on June 2-4, 2008, in the windy city of Chicago, which is in Illinois in the U.S. Notice that we wrote “Chicago, IL, United States” — not because Dopplr would be likely to get that particular city wrong but rather to illustrate how we recommend you enter the place name. (If you enter a simple city name and we get it wrong in Dopplr, don’t worry — you can fix it, and we’ll tell you how below.)

Also in this example, we’ve put in a note, “Make sure ad rep is there” as a reminder to ourselves. It and the title of the event “Marketing meeting” will be published on Dopplr, but only in your private trip notes there. In other words, nothing you create in your personal calendar — apart from the dates and places — will be viewable by your Dopplr fellow travellers.

OK, click “Done” and the trip will show up in your calendar. Then go to the menu and select Calendar-Publish:

You’ll see the box below. Select “Publish on: a Private Server” from the pull-down item.

Of the options in Publish calendar, Dopplr cares only about one: “Publish titles and notes.” While you may have selected the others, and may well use them in your desktop calendar, they won’t have any effect in Dopplr. You may also want to check “Publish changes automatically” so you won’t forget to update; the only disadvantage is that Dopplr may first record a trip to “New Event” before you finish entering the details, but that’s ok, because when you do finish it’ll update.

When you select “a Private Server” you’ll see this input box:

OK, now go to your Dopplr page and be sure you’re logged into your account. Click on “Your account” at the top and then on “Import trips from external calendars” on the page where we have various account settings. (direct link)

Near the end of that page you’ll see a paragraph that says:

Alternatively, you can publish a calendar from iCal to the following private server URL (no username or password required):
https://www.dopplr.com/upload/[and a long set of letters and numbers]…./

Copy that link into the Private Server address in the iCal form (we smudged the url but you get the idea):

Apple insists on a username and password. Make something up; you don’t need to put in your Dopplr username/password, as we don’t require it for this step. But you do need to type in something.

Click “Publish” and you’re done. You’ll see a note before you get back to iCal telling you how to let people know if you want them to be able to subscribe to this calendar outside of Dopplr (though we confess we’re not sure why you’d want to do that).

Now you’re set. In iCal, make sure to “Refresh” the exported calendar — right-click on the travel calendar you’re exporting and choose “Refresh” to update our server. (Remember, you can also tell iCal to “Publish changes automatically”.)

Now go back to your Dopplr page. Voila, the trip(s) should be there, as below:

When you click “More details on this trip” you find, in the private note — not the one seen by fellow travellers — the notes you put into iCal when you created the trip. You can still add a note for them to see in the “Add note” box at the bottom of the trip page.

Important: We strongly recommend that you edit trip dates and places only in iCal (or other external calendar). If you edit in Dopplr you’ll break the link back to the external calendar, and there’s nothing we can do to fix that.

If Dopplr does bring in the wrong place name, we recommend that you fix it this way:

Click the “Edit this trip” link (on the right in the above image). Let’s imagine we really intended to go to a different Chicago (and had put it in the original iCal trip as just “Chicago,” which Dopplr would interpret to be the big Illinois city as the most likely candidate. Type “Chicago” (without the quotes) in the Destination: field and wait a couple of seconds. You’ll see some activity followed by this screen:

This invites you to see other places called Chicago, and gives you a link to click to see them. Click it and you’ll see this:

Copy the name of the city you actually intended — in this case we’ll choose Chicago Heights, IL, United States — into your clipboard. Copy just the text, not the hyperlink. Now — very very important — cancel your edit. Do not click the “Done” button.

Next, go back to iCal and paste in the correct city name. Like this:

Click “Done” and the iCal trip event will be updated. So will Dopplr:

We wish we could make this part easier. But iCal and other external calendars tend to publish in one direction only.

Let us know how it works for you. We’ll be adding tweaks and fixes.