iCal Importer – display of vFREEBUSY 'events'

[Arina Winkelman]

Hello,
I am developing a WP vacation rental website. We have a third party booking system, which is generating one ics file (URL) for each rental unit to show the availability. We would like to have an availability calendar, for each rental unit, to simply display available/rented time frames. (No booking request is required on the WP website.)

These ics files currently use the standard event data which means trying (via css or other method) to ‘hide’ the event details on a calendar. That is quite awkward.

However, the iCal spec supports a VFREEBUSY event type which simply shows the date is ‘busy’, (no actual event details). I can get the third party system to generate the ics files using VFREEBUSY. In that case, would it be possible to use your Events Calendar to display ‘free/busy’ dates only, using the data that is imported via the iCal Importer?

Thanks …

[Josh]

Hey Arina,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

This technically could be possible, however it would require some customization to the import process as well as the front-end display of events.

You would need to tie that “busy” status to some sort of meta for the event within WordPress. This could be a new custom meta or maybe even a “busy” Event Category term that gets selected for the event.

If you chose the category route, you would then be able to target those “busy” events on the front-end of your calendar and make them display differently than the other events via CSS.

I’m sorry I’m not able to give you a more direct response on this one. However, hopefully this will help to get you pointed in the right direction.

Thanks!

[Arina Winkelman]

Hi Josh,

Thanks for the response. Each ics file is for a single rental unit, so it could be imported into the matching rental unit category. We will not be having any ‘regular’ events to display in the calendars. So it should be possible to customize the front end display for all ‘events’, across all individual rental calendars, to simply indicate ‘busy’ (no title, no link for event details, etc). Is my understanding correct?

Does the iCal Importer actually ‘process / import’ the ical attribute of vFREEBUSY, or does it only process the more typical event details?

Thanks again, Arina

[Josh]

Hey Arina,

That should be doable. It sounds like your default style would be for “busy” and you would then have a custom style for those times/days that are “free”?

I can verify with our developers but currently I don’t believe the vFREEBUSY gets imported. There really isn’t anything to attach that piece of information to at this point.

Thanks!

[Arina Winkelman]

Hi Josh,
Yes, there would be only be two styles: ‘busy’ (day with events, aka booking) and ‘free’ (day with no events/bookings).

Thank you … it does sound like it is possible to use your Event Calendar and iCal Importer to display an ‘availability’ calendar for each rental unit.

Encouraging 🙂

[Josh]

Hey Arina,

No problem! Happy to help.

I’ll go ahead and close this thread for now. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to open a new thread.

Thanks!

[Author]

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