Import iCal feeds of non-Meetup events

[egillespie]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Some Lansing tech events are organized online in places where there is no API or calendar that can be scraped in an easily-automated way. For example, freeCodeCamp events are scheduled on Facebook, but the OpenGraph API does not support querying events for a page.

Currently the API and functions to gather data do not have any way to support events scheduled outside of Meetup.

Additionally, some events represent the Lansing Codes community as a whole and not any one particular group. For example, Demo Camp and Coworking Wednesdays. These events also are not scheduled on Meetup.

Describe the solution you'd like

Since the API already (partially) supports reading iCal files, one or more Netlify function could be created to look up events on other public calendars and import the events into the Lansing Codes database.

For example, the lansingcodes@gmail.com Google Calendar has a public iCal feed that could be imported to include community-wide events. If organizers wish to create their events in a registered public calendar, this would be an effective, albeit slightly manual, means of adding non-Meetup events to the Lansing Codes database so they appear in Slack, the website calendar, and other places.

Describe alternatives you've considered

A helpful (but large effort) alternative would involve an authentication and authorization mechanism where approved organizers can use a web interface to schedule events. This would likely involve changes to both this api repository and the www project.

The effort in creating such a user interface may be too high since there are already ways to create and share events on public (but edit-restricted) calendars such as Google Calendar.

Additional context

The list of public iCal feeds should be represented in JSON, similar to the groups.json file in this repository. It would need to include the URL of the feed and the group that manages the calendar. Some decision about what should go in the event's url value would also need to be made so that links in Slack and on the website for these events will function correctly.

For the Lansing Codes community-wide events, a new group type may need to be created (maybe all?) that does not correspond to an entry in groups.json. Consumers of the events (www, slackbot, etc.) would need to be updated to show the details of these events correctly by using the name "Lansing Codes" as well as an appropriate icon.