How do the iCalendar capabilities benefit users?

What will be an ideal response?

Adding calendars and appointment scheduling capabilities to email clients allows users to receive alerts for upcoming events, synch with a smartphone, or flag recurring events that stretch out over months or years. Like contacts, calendar events can be transmitted and exchanged using standardized file formats. The iCalendar format is widely used to transmit calendar data. The .ics extension indicates that the plain text file contains iCalendar code so the programs can recognize it. The calendar's collaborative features eliminate much frustration for event managers. Consider, for example, the struggle to schedule a team meeting, even with the help of email. Asking people for the times and dates they have available can be fruitless and time-consuming, with many false starts and delayed responses. But if everyone is sharing calendars, "free" time for all is easier to identify. Personal preferences, cultural factors, and corporate norms all affect the use of calendaring software and how much it adds to overall productivity.