The Gabriel TYPO3 Arch Angel extension automates several tasks to keep your calendars up to date and to remind your users about upcoming events.
When Gabriel has been configured, external calendars such as those from Google Calendar are checked every 30 minutes to see if new events have been added. If new events have been entered in Google Calendar, they'll be imported into the Backend and displayed in the Frontend.
Gabriel also creates reminder emails for Frontend users who subscribe to an event. Once you have installed and configured the extension (see the Manual included with the extension), you can set the following options in the Constant Editor (see Illustration 36):
- Illustration 36: Setting Constants for the Gabriel Extension
Email Address: This is the email address that will appear in the From line of the reminder.
Email Name: The name that will appear in the From line of the reminder.
Email Organization: The name of the organization sending the reminder.
Reminder Time: The number of minutes before an event that a reminder email will be generated. The default is 30 minutes. If you want a reminder sent out one day in advance, enter 1440.
Technical Stuff: Setting up the Gabriel extension requires access to Cron at the server level. If you have access to your hosting control panel, you can quickly set up Gabriel.
Create a non-admin Backend user in TYPO3 with the name _cli_gabriel. This user needs no particular privileges.
Create a Cron job for the Gabriel script: [FULL PATH such as /home/public_html] /gabriel/cli/gabriel_cron.phpsh and set it to execute every five minutes or so. Save the Cron job, set the Constants (above), and Frontend users who have subscribed to events will automatically receive a reminder email.
