In a world of multiple online service providers, having open cross-platform compatible data exchange would make all our lives so much more productive. While we can use services like IFTTT to automate some actions across apps and platforms, when it comes to our calendars there is already a fully open standard that you can use.
Quick Links:
Calendars can be shared as iCal files or in webcal: links. The ‘live’ links that you can share or subscribe to, have an address that starts with webcal:// rather than https://. iCal files are sent as normal files and contain the entire calendar.
The usefulness of live webcal: links is that as events are added or updated to the main calendar, your calendar will automatically sync and stay up-to-date.
The iCal Files are ideal for offline use or when the calendar entries are fixed and don’t need updating centrally.
To subscribe to a live calendar in Google, go to your calendar on the internet and click on the (+) symbol, from the options you can choose;
Select From URL and enter the webcal address you have to add the calendar to your list of ‘Other Calendars’ of if you are importing a static file, select Import and browse for the iCal file. (If you are importing a static iCal file, you have the option to add the calendar entries from the file to one of your existing calendars or to a new blank calendar, if you are using a webcal link Google will always addit as a new calendar)
Google Calendar will show all your visible calendars overlaid with different colours for events in different calendars.
Click the colour box in-front of the calendar name to switch a calendar view on or off.
Click the three dots after the calendar name to get more options on the calendar, such as what colour to use, and what to call the calendar.
If you have a calendar that you want to share either publicly (anyone can add the calendar) or to specific people only (such as a family or team calendar);
You can use iCal files and webcal links both on the web version of outlook and the desktop client.
Open Outlook.com and navigate to your calendar, click on the ADD CALENDAR option in the menu above the calendar.
The options are:
Select FROM FILE if you want to import and iCal File, or select FROM THE INTERNET to add a webcal address.
If you’re already using the new outlook.com, the steps are a little different:
To add a static iCal file:
To add a webcal link:
If you don’t have the email you want to share to, or want to share via other apps, send the email to yourself with the appropriate rights, then pickup the link from your email and re-share it.
If you’ve already swapped to the new outlook.com, the ability to share a calendar has not been added yet. We suspect the function will be added either to the right-click options on a calendar name, or as an option below the DISCOVER CALENDARS used to add a shared calendar.
The Outlook desktop app has many sharing options that are very useful if you’re connected to a corporate Exchange server, and some ‘share via email’ options.
Right-click on a calendar in the app and choose SHARE to see what features are available, you can specify a date range of events to share, and other access settings, but unless your calendar is hosted on a publicly accessible server, you won’t be able to shave live updates.
Apple calendar supports both iCal files (.ics) and webcal links. To add them to your calendar:
View Comments
Can the iCAL links be shared to mobile phone users? we have several users on mobile devices and would like to share out calendars with them, is this easy to sort out or do we need some special servers?
thanks. Crave.
iCAL links should work fine on mobile devices, but that does depend on the calendar app being used (stock apps appear to process the ICAL links fine)
There may be more efficient ways to achieve this, depending on your setup. Contact us by email or phone and we can arrange to do a free consultation to check what you have at the moment and suggest possible solutions.