Create a set schedule for Contacts & Calendar Cleaner

[Byron Shaheen]

You can use Apple's Automator to set a schedule for Contacts Cleaner
and Calendar Cleaner to run. For example, here's how to set Contacts
Cleaner and Calendar Cleaner to run at midnight everyday. Keep in
mind, this won't actually go through the process of fixing anything,
but you will find out if anything needs to be fixed the next time you
are at the computer. Here's how to do it:

--It's best to hide all open windows so nothing gets hidden while
going through this process--

For Calendar Cleaner:

*Open Automator (in the Applications folder)
*Select the 'Workflow' template
*In the search field, search for "Launch Application"
*Double-click "Launch Application" from the list
*In the drop-down menu find and select "Calendar Cleaner"

--If you don't see 'Calendar Cleaner in the list, that's because it's
in a folder. You need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the
list
and select "Other...". You'll then be able to navigate to the folder
where 'Calendar Cleaner' is located and select it.--

*Click the "Run" button in the top right of the Automator window
*Calendar Cleaner should open if the above steps were done correctly
*We need a way to initiate the scan, so click the "Record" button in
the Automator window
*Click "Scan" in the Calendar Cleaner app
*Click "Scan" again in the Calendar Cleaner app
*Stop the recording in the Automator pop-up controller

--The Automator workflow is not complete and MUST be saved as an
application. This is very important! Here's how to do that:

*In Automator, go the the 'File' menu and select "Save As..."
*Choose whatever name you'd like. (I use "Cal Cleaner Sched)
*Choose where you want to save the file/app. (I use the 'Documents'
directory)
*Set the 'File Format' to "Application". (This is extremely
important)
*Click 'Save'

--Now you have the Automator application that will run Calendar
Cleaner and perform a scan of your data--

--Now you need a way to run the application at a specified time. The
following will run the custom application at midnight everyday.--

*Open iCal
*Create a new calendar in iCal that is only for this purpose. This
way you can hide the calendar when you're done and won't see all
these
scheduled events cluttering up your calendar everyday.
*Create a new event for today in this new calendar
*Choose a name for the event (I use "Cal Cleaner")
*Set the from time to 11:59PM (don't worry about the "to" time)
*Set it to repeat "Every Day"
*Set the event alarm type to "open file"
*Just below the "open file" selection, choose "Other..." and navigate
to the Automator application you saved in the previous steps and
click
the "Select" button
*Just below that selection choose "minutes after"
*Set it to "1 minutes after"
*Click "Done"
*Un-check the calendar from the list so all these new daily events
are
hidden from your calendar view

You can perform the same steps to create an Automator app that will
run Contacts Cleaner at a set schedule. The next time you come to
your computer, after the Automator apps have run, you will see both
Calendar & Contacts Cleaner open and any conflicts they may have
found. You can then fix these things and quit the applications if
any
conflicts were found. If no conflicts were found, simply quit that
applications and they will run again at midnight.

Hopefully this helps anyone that may want to automatically run and
check for conflicts using the Contacts & Calendar Cleaner apps.

Thanks,

Byron

---
Byron Shaheen
byron.shah...@spanningsync.com
http://spanningsync.com