A useful feature of Calendar Server is the notification service. This service will send an e-mail or an SMS to the calendar owner. These messages are sent to the calendar owner if he/she has been invited to an appointment or as a reminder of an upcoming appointment. These reminders are directed to a person's cell phone by using their phone carrier's email address assigned to their phone.
The notification services are also useful for developers to implement their own software applications. Calendar reminders and change events are published to a Java Message Service using Sun Java System Message Queue.
Developers may use the WCAP interface to write their own applications which access calendars, tasks, and look up "free busy" information on users. This interface returns calendar data in a number of formats including XML and iCalendar. JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format was added to support AJAX development in the latest patch of Calendar Server 6.3.
History and use
Sun's Java System Calendar Server has a long history, drawing technology from Sun Internet Calendar Server (SICS) and Netscape Calendar Server (NCS). The software has undergone several name changes; in addition to the above, it has also been marketed as iPlanet Calendar Server and Sun ONE Calendar Server. The code base has been carried on throughout these name changes with only feature/packaging enhancements and bug fixes.
Calendar Express was the original web-based client interface for the Calendar Server. This HTML client allowed Calendar owners to create appointments, invite others to meetings, and to subscribe to other calendars. The Calendar Express web-client was dropped from support starting with Sun Java System Calendar Server 6.3. This client functionality has been replaced by Sun Java System Communications Express.