Need to sync to Google Calendar and have it auto update when changes are made.

[Jeff]

In our old calendar system we were able to downloaded and synced the whole calendar to ical, google calendar, etc. When changes were made in WordPress it automatically updated on our computers. The issue is that, currently, if people download the calendar and there is a change announced, many will be confused by the time on their calendar because it doesn’t update on their computers. Is there is a way the whole calendar downloads and automatically updates? It seems so simple but we can’t find it.

[Geoff]

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for getting in touch and for checking out The Events Calendar–I hope it’s a good fit for what you’re looking for here with calendar syncing. 🙂

Yes, we do have an iCal Importer add-on for The Events Calendar. Not only will this enable you to import events into your site from any iCal file or URL on a manual or scheduled basis, but it also creates an iCal URL for your site, which can then be used for other calendars to subscribe to The Events Calendar on your site.

Do note that this is not the same as simply downloading the static .ics file from the site and importing that file into another calendar application–that is also possible in The Events Calendar, but is a one-time export/import of events which is different from an ongoing feed.

Is this what you were looking for? Please feel free to let me know if you have other questions here and I’d be happy to help.

Cheers!
Geoff

[Jeff]

Just to clarify… we want users to be able to subscribe to The Events Calendar and have all events feed to their calendars on their computers. We need this to auto update as well so when we make changes in The Events Calendar it changes in their calendar as well.

[Geoff]

Yes, that should indeed be the case. The iCal Importer provides a URL to the .ics file for the calendar which, if used in a calendar application, should pull the latest information.

For example: [your-site]/events/ical

Cheers!
Geoff

[Jeff]

Great! And it will automatically pull/sync events daily so users don’t have to manually check, correct?

[Geoff]

Yes, as long as the application reading the iCal feed URL supports constant checking–otherwise, the URL itself wouldn’t be pushing that information along but will happily provide it if requested.

[Jeff]

Is there a trial version I can try?

[Geoff]

There is no trial version, but we do offer a full refund on all purchases within 30 days of receipt. That would definitely give you a good amount of time to test drive and see if that feature will fit the bill. Sorry, I totally should have mentioned that at the front of this thread because you would totally benefit from it. 🙂

Cheers!
Geoff

[Jeff]

Thank you for your patience… I just need to confirm that I’m explaining myself clearly because this would be for a client (a k-8 school). The iCal Importer product description on the website says it feeds FROM other calendars INTO The Events Calendar. We need it to work the opposite way. So we create all events in The Events Calendar, then anyone with, say, Google Calendar, can subscribe to The Events Calendar and have an ongoing feed. We are a school and oftentimes events dates change and we need parents who have subscribed to automatically get the updates in their Google Calendars once we’ve made the time change in our The Events Calendar. Can you confirm this will work?

[Geoff]

Hi Jeff,

No worries at all–I actually really appreciate your effort for full clarity and apologize if I haven’t been fully clear to this point!

iCal Importer was not designed for calendar applications to pull events into on a sync, automated basis. However, it is a happy by-product for this calendar applications that do recurring checks since there is an iCal URL handy to draw from.

In other words, the site will not push events, but its is possible for applications to request it.

I would suggest trying it out. If it doesn’t support the functionality your looking for fully, we’ll give you no hassle for returning it.

Cheers!
Geoff

[Jeff]

Great, thank you for the time to answer all of my questions. I think I’ll give it a whirl. BTW, is this a feature that you may add in the future?

[Geoff]

My pleasure!

Yes, that is indeed something that has been suggested in our feature request forum and that we’ve moved to under review now that iCal Importer has been released–that just came out in the last month, so now we can start considering new features for it. 🙂

Thanks again for reaching out! I’ll go ahead and close this thread but do please feel free to hit us back up if any other questions pop up and we’d be happy to help. And, of course, please don’t hesitate to email us back with your receipt for a refund within 30 days if the plugin doesn’t work out for some reason 🙂

Cheers!
Geoff

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