Whether you want to share calendar events with your team members or invite your end users to an upcoming event over email, using an accurate and tempting calendar style or template is imperative. While it greatly influences others’ decisions, designing the desired calendar format or sharing event details individually can be a hassle. Besides, when you work with a myriad of different calendars, like Google Calendar and Outlook, synchronizing the events and other details between them is indeed cumbersome and tiring. Not only does it take a lot of time and effort but also includes manual work, thereby leaving room for errors.
The difficulties increase further when you want to integrate an advanced calendar function with your business website. Depending on conventional forms doesn’t often yield the expected results, which is why it’s time you sync your website calendar with iCal. iCalendar acts as a standard format for storing and exchanging information about events, appointments, and other tasks, thereby being accepted universally across most platforms. So, if you want to connect this advanced calendar format with your business website, this comprehensive guide below is for you.
Why connect iCal with your website?
Whether you have an appointment scheduling module or a hotel booking api integration website similar to AirBnB or VRBO, using the booking calendar widget sync with iCal for your website will provide many benefits, some of which you may not have even considered. So, before you reach any conclusion, let’s have a look at some of the benefits you can have once you connect the website with iCal.
Streamlined event management
All the events on your website will be automatically synced with the calendars being used by all your end users. Hence, they won’t ever miss an important event, like a survey or an online polling session for new product ideas. Similarly, if your website is concerned with hosting multiple events of different categories, like appointments, online training sessions, and others, you can use the centralized platform of iCal to track and access all those event details. Users will also be able to access the event information and add it to their calendar seamlessly from a centralized location.
Enhanced user experience
No doubt integrating your website with iCal will improve the overall user experience being delivered. Users won’t have to manually enter the event or booking information into their calendar, like Google Calendar or Outlook as they will be handled internally by iCal. For instance, once a user books a hotel or schedules an appointment through your website, the details will be added to their calendar with ease. Also, if any change is made to the event, like a change of time or location, the details will be automatically updated in the personal calendars of all users who have subscribed to the iCal feeds.
Streamlined event tracking
Once you sync iCal with Calendly or any other calendar system, you will be able to able to track events and other appointments and bookings in real-time without hassle. Whether it’s sharing the events with other users or tracking the participation rate, iCal synchronization will made these easier and effortless. On top of this, iCal integration will send out automatic reminders about the upcoming events, bookings, online sessions, and appointments so that you won’t miss the date.
Automation
As a website administrator, you no longer have to worry about manually updating your users’ calendars with the event details on your website. Instead, the process can be automated by connecting your website with iCal since the latter will transfer and store the event’s information directly on a personal calendar system without requiring manual interference.
Simplified availability management
If your website is concerned with multiple events or bookings, you can maintain your availability through iCal integration. Users can easily see the slots when you will be available and accordingly make the bookings or schedule the appointments. Besides, it will also help you to prevent double bookings due to lack of availability visibility, thereby eliminating unnecessary cancellations and reduced user experience.
Cross-platform compatibility
Also, you can easily sync iCal with Google Calendar, Outlook, and other types of system-specific calendars without any restrictions. There won’t be any compatibility issues even when you change the device and try to log in to the website. For instance, once you access Google Calendar from your iPhone, all the event details that were added to the account on your previous device will be migrated to the iPhone automatically through iCal.
How to connect iCal with your website?
After exploring the benefits of iCal connection with your website, are you convinced that it will be of a huge help to you?
If that’s the case, let’s find out the most effective ways of integrating this specialized feature with your business website and get started with the wide range of benefits being offered.
Providing an iCal Feed for all the website events
You can directly provide the iCal Feed subscription option to your users so that once they subscribe, the website events will automatically get updated on their calendars. To do so, follow the below-mentioned steps.
- First, you need to create a standard iCal file with an extension of .ics that will include all the necessary event details. If you are using Google Calendar, Outlook 365, or Apple Calendar, you will find the built-in option to generate an .ics file.
- If the website hosts multiple events or uses a dynamic calendar, create a subscription link for the iCal feed. Once users click on the link, they can subscribe to the feeds and all the website events, bookings, and appointments will be synced with their system calendar.
- Once the link is created, add the same to your website’s calendar or the dedicated event page followed by a button saying “Subscribe to Calendar”.
- Also, you can directly offer a downloadable .ics file for specific events so that users can easily sync iCal with Google Calendar on iPhone or their Outlook 365 account.
Using a plugin for iCal integration
You can also leverage AirBNB or VRBO iCal sync with WordPress theme Listings or any other specialized plugin present in the libraries of WordPress websites to sync this special feature with your website. To use the WordPress plugin for iCal, below are the steps to be followed.
- First, you need to install the necessary plugin from the WordPress library and activate the same.
- Once done, you will have to configure your calendar and all the associated events.
- Go to the plugin settings and enable the export option or the iCal Feed button.
- You can choose to display a specialized button like “Add to Calendar” so that your users can easily download and sync the website events with their calendars.
Custom iCal Feed with server-side code or PHP
If you have custom applications or want to access advanced calendar synchronization feature for your website, generating a iCal file using server-side scripting language like PHP will be the best option. Writing a proper PHP script and compiling the same will automatically generate the .ics file and include all the necessary details, like event title, start and end timing, and many more. Your end users will be able to download the .ics file by clicking on the script URL directly.
Conclusion
Whether you want to sync iCal with Outlook 365 or Google and Apple Calendar, the wide range of benefits can never be denied. From creating custom PHP script or using the built-in WordPress plugins, there are numerous ways of connecting this advanced iCal feature with the website so that all the events, bookings, and appointments can be automatically synced with the system Calendar.
If you need expert assistance with iCal integration, Bolder Technologies is here to help!
