ics Alarms are not appearing in Google Calendar or Outlook

Question

I'm a bit surprised I did not find a solution or answer to this question because there appears to be a lot devs out there experiencing it.

I'm generating an ics file with the help of DDay.ical but the VALARMS are not setting reminders in google calendar or outlook 2007.

Here a snippet from the ics file

Thank you very much in advance for your assistance sniffing out an explanation or fix.

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:REQUEST
PRODID:-//ddaysoftware.com//NONSGML DDay.iCal 1.0//EN
BEGIN:VEVENT
CREATED:20110911T134152Z
DESCRIPTION:\n\n-----------------------------------\nClient Name:No Client 
 was selected\n Email: \n Phone:\n Alt Phone:
DTEND:20110911T203000Z
DTSTAMP:20110911T183854
DTSTART:20110911T200000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20110911T134152Z
LOCATION:Facebook Ad
ORGANIZER;CN=XXX XXXXXX;SENT-BY="MailTo:XXXXXXX@gmail.com"
 :
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:Marketing - Print Ad @ Facebook Ad
UID:cd9a1618-aeb1-4ec2-8f6a-64989950ea9c
BEGIN:VALARM
ACTION:Display
DESCRIPTION:1:45
TRIGGER:PT15M
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Answer 1

For the VALARM not working, double check that the end-of-line being used is \r\n, not just \n as is incorrectly shown in many examples on the web.

For more detail see my answer to a similar question here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16540934/834431

Answer 2

I had this same problem in Outlook 2010. For some reason if you open the .ics file directly (and create a new calendar), it will strip all reminders. However, if you to the 'file -> import' ('file -> open -> import' in 2010) method, select the .ics file, and 'import' into your existing calendar, it will retain the reminders. I think this is totally messed up on Microsoft's part, but hopefully this works for you. I can't answer about the google calendar, but perhaps it's similar?

here's a link to how to import the calendar in outlook to get it to integrate into your current calendar: http://help.unc.edu/CCM3_022163