12.10. Free-busy queries

Freebusy queries are used to obtain freebusy information for a principal. The result contains information only for events to which the current principal has sufficient access and may be affected by components and rules available only to the server (for instance office hours availability).

These queries are carried out by using a CalWS-SOAP freebusyReport request with an href specifying a principal. The freebusyReport request is not valid when the href specifies any entity other than a principal. The query follows the specification defined in CalConnect CC/S 0903:2009 with certain limitations. As an authenticated user to the CalWS service scheduling read-freebusy privileges must have been granted. As an unauthenticated user equivalent access must have been granted to unauthenticated users.

Freebusy information is returned by default as xcalendar vfreebusy components, as defined by IETF RFC 6321. Such a component is not meant to conform to the requirements of VFREEBUSY components in [rfc5546]. The VFREEBUSY component SHOULD conform to IETF RFC 5545, Section 4.6.4. A client SHOULD ignore the ORGANIZER field.

Since a Freebusy query can only refer to a single user, a client will already know how to match the result component to a user. A server MUST only return a single vfreebusy component.