Create reminders in Reminders.app via policy?

[junderwood]

My HR team is asking if we can have every user receive a default "on-boarding" list in the Reminders.app on their new Mac. Does anyone know an easy way to script or package a list of reminders (with notes in each reminder) in Reminders.app that I can run as a policy?

I tried using Composer to take a snapshot and package the changed files when creating a list on a clean Mac. Pushing that package out (DMG FEU) doesn't seem to do the trick.

[mm2270]

I highly doubt this is possible, but I can’t for sure say it isn’t possible.
I’m not even sure what format the Reminders.app stores it’s data in, but if I had to take a guess it’s probably in one of those SQLite dbs that Apple likes to use these days.

What did your Composer capture grab? Where did it see changes to files or added data?

[junderwood]

Composer grabbed a lot actually, part of the reason I was hoping someone might know a more surgical way, haha... See below for what it grabbed (/Volumes/OB being the package I created):

/Volumes/OB Reminders/Library
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Library/Preferences
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Library/Preferences/com.apple.apsd.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Library/Preferences/com.apple.powerlogd.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/private
/Volumes/OB Reminders/private/var
/Volumes/OB Reminders/private/var/audit
/Volumes/OB Reminders/private/var/audit/20191217222819.not_terminated
/Volumes/OB Reminders/private/var/audit/current
/Volumes/OB Reminders/private/var/networkd
/Volumes/OB Reminders/private/var/networkd/netusage.sqlite-wal
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Application Scripts
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.reminders
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Application Support
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.RecentApplications.sfl2
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Container.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Desktop
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Documents
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Downloads
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Application Scripts
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.reminders
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Application Support
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Application Support/AddressBook
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Application Support/iCloud
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Application Support/SyncServices
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Audio
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Caches
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Calendars
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/ColorPickers
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Colors
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/ColorSync
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Components
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Compositions
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Dictionaries
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Favorites
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Filters
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/FontCollections
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Fonts
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Images
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Images/People
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Input Methods
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/KeyBindings
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Keyboard Layouts
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Keychains
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Logs
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Mail
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/PDF Services
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Preferences
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.reminders.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security_common.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/QuickLook
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Saved Application State
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Sounds
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Library/Spelling
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Movies
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Music
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.reminders/Data/Pictures
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/ByHost
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.identityservices.idstatuscache.D038B41D-FC0F-5C9E-A912-248166E073E1.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.loginwindow.D038B41D-FC0F-5C9E-A912-248166E073E1.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.appstored.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.GEO.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ncprefs.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.parsecd.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.spaces.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.xpc.activity2.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Saved Application State
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Saved Application State/com.jamfsoftware.Composer.savedState
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Saved Application State/com.jamfsoftware.Composer.savedState/data.data
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Saved Application State/com.jamfsoftware.Composer.savedState/windows.plist
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Spelling
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Spelling/dynamic-text-tmp.dat
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/Spelling/dynamic-text.dat
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/SyncedPreferences
/Volumes/OB Reminders/Users/updadmin/Library/SyncedPreferences/com.apple.syncedpreferences.plist

[larry_barrett]

Reminders can be exported as a .ics file. If you have the same "list" for all new employees, I'd either do one of two things:

Method 1: Air drop it to the new hires computer. This also is an opportunity to talk about your company expectations for Airdrop usage. Double click the file to import it into the Reminders app.

Method 2: E-mail it to them. Double click the file and it will import it into Reminders app.

I do not think you can force it into the app without interaction. That being said, you "should" be able to package up the .ics file so it's included during setup, but you're still going to have to click on it, choose which list to put it under etc.

[junderwood]

@larry_barrett Thanks, those are definitely options on the table we're considering... Just trying to make it as slick and seamless as possible.

Also, that doesn't work in 10.15. The new Reminders.app doesn't seem to open an ics file created from Reminders.app in 10.14.

[larry_barrett]

@junderwood Just found the exact same thing. :)