Skip to content

News

Update

Improvements

  • Added the limit condition to restrict the number of synchronized events. For example, this allows synchronizing only the first event for each day or week.

Update

Changes

  • We changed several Transformers and Conditions in order to improve their usability and increase consistency:
    • The overwrite, append, prepend and clear transformers were replaced by a single textchange transformer where you specify the desired operation by setting mode to OVERWRITE, APPEND, PREPEND or CLEAR.
    • The text condition was changed so that the field to search is specified via field. Previously, it was specified via scope, but we figured that consistency with the textual transformers (old and new) and the filled condition would be better.
    • The statusset transformer was renamed to statuschange.
  • With these changes, ChronoLink now has a textchange transformer corresponding to the text condition and a statuschange transformer corresponding to the status condition. This clear structure should make it easier to remember the names.
  • The configuration of existing connections was updated automatically.

Improvements

  • We updated the Examples page and added more interesting code snippets. We also improved its structure to make the content easier to understand.

Housekeeping

  • When encountering temporary connection errors, ChronoLink waits a random amount of time before retrying. The maximum delay was now reduced from 4 to 2 hours.
    • The minimum delay remains at 1 hour.
    • As before, the retry mechanism is fully automatic.

Update

Improvements

  • Added three new conditions you can use to customize your synchronization connections:
    • duration to detect short or long events
    • isallday to distinguish all-day events from those with start and end times
    • filled to check whether an event has a description or a location

Housekeeping

  • Updated the Clockodo integration due to announced changes of their interface. ChronoLink functionality is not affected.

New Website

The ChronoLink website got a big makeover. Apart from a nicer, fresher look, this is what we improved:

  • The documentation is no longer buried in several PDFs, but tightly integrated into the regular website.
  • All examples for Conditions and Transformers now have a "copy to clipboard" button, making it really easy to use them when configuring your sync connections.
  • There is a built-in search function.
  • The web site can be switched to dark mode.
  • Each heading has its own direct link which you can copy and paste to chat apps, forum posts, emails and the like.
  • We created a proper imprint page.

Update

Fixes

  • Recently, Microsoft changed the response they send after deleting an event in a way incompatible with ChronoLink. Since then, connections failed whenever they had to delete an event (for example, when an event had been deleted from the source calendar).
    • This has now been fixed. Affected connections will resume within 24 hours.

Housekeeping

  • Building on the improvements to the retry mechanism from the February 5 update, we have now shortened the minimum retry delay from 24 hours to one hour. The maximum retry delay was likewise lowered from 30 hours to 4.

New Data Center

Today, ChronoLink moved to a new data center in Germany. For now, this new infrastructure just makes it easier to improve performance. However, this move also enables us to deal with any future growth of our user base in a more cost-efficient way.

All accounts and connections of our beta testers have been migrated.

Update

Fixes

  • ChronoLink now saves all-day events correctly.
    • Previously, they had the proper start and end time, but did not work correctly in Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook regarding notifications or when travelling to another time zone.
  • When an error occurs during a scheduled run, ChronoLink now automatically plans another run for the next day. This retry attempt is useful because in most cases, connection errors are temporary.
    • Previously, a connection did not run again until you either triggered it manually or edited and saved it. You can still do that to force an immediate retry.
    • As before, if the last run failed, the connection is displayed with a ⚠️ status icon. The retry run will still happen, and if it is successful, the connection status is displayed as ✔️ again and the regular schedule resumes.
    • We have collected several kinds of temporary connection errors so far. Over time, we will add detection code for them, allowing ChronoLink to retry affected connections with a significantly shorter delay.

Housekeeping

  • The connection queue system was rewritten from scratch. While nothing of this is visible to users, it is an important prerequisite for the next round of performance improvements. More on that in a future update.

Update

Improvements

  • When users try ChronoLink for the first time, we want them to see the results of a synchronization connection as quickly as possible. To achieve this, we are reducing the default synchronization time frame:
    • For new accounts, events dated more than 14 days prior to the signup date will no longer be synchronized.
      • Users who are interested in historic data can contact support to change this.
      • Existing accounts continue to synchronize all events starting January 2021 (unless the connection settings include a daterange condition with a later start value).
    • Connections now have a setting that specifies how far ahead they should synchronize. The default value is "2 weeks ahead".
      • Existing connections were set to "3 months ahead", which is identical to previous ChronoLink behavior.

Fixes

  • Non-meeting events created in the desktop version of Microsoft Outlook are now synchronized properly.
    • Previously, ChronoLink skipped those events because it mistook them for meeting invitations without a response by the calendar owner.

Moving to Open Beta 🥳

For the past few months, our main focus was preparing ChronoLink for Google's verification process. A few days ago, we finally had all the pieces we needed and applied for verification, and yesterday, ChronoLink was approved by Google!

This approval changes two things:

  1. Google accounts no longer have to be manually pre-registered as testers - instead, anyone can now sign up to ChronoLink totally on their own.
  2. Google calendar authorizations no longer expire after 7 days - instead, it will remain active until it is revoked explicitly via ChronoLink or via Google’s account management page.

With these changes, our Google integration finally is as easy to use as the one for Microsoft.

Therefore, as of today, ChronoLink formally moves from Closed Beta (invite only) to Open Beta (self signup). 🎉

So if you don't have a ChronoLink account already, feel free to create one with just a few clicks! Please find more information in these two newly published documents: