iCal – RSS Feeds – Offer Automatic Delivery of Calendar Events
You can offer two methods of subscribing to automatic delivery of your calendar’s events:
- iCal is based on the iCalendar standard format for sharing calendar events with compatible programs like Apple calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendars, Mozilla Thunderbird, iPhone calendar, and other programs.
- RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication – a technology that allows users to subscribe to automatic delivery of information from web sites.
Use the feed administration screens to offer iCal and / or RSS subscriptions of your calendar’s public events.
Note: For information on how to get iCal feeds of private events click here for our knowledgebase article.
iCal Feeds Tab (Click Admin Menu > iCal & RSS Feeds)
Follow the steps below to set up iCal feeds for your calendar:
1. To make iCal feeds available, you must check the box titled “Check To Enable iCal Feed”
2. Enter a “Title For The iCal Feed” for Apple iCal program, this will be the default name of the calendar created on your computer. Your title cannot exceed 100 characters in length.
3. Enter “Number of Days Ahead To Retrieve“. This number determines how many days ahead that events will be included in the iCal feed. This is to prevent excessive data transfer during feed updates to your computer.
4. Enter “Number of Days Back To Retrieve“. This number determines how many days back that events will be included in the iCal feed. This is to prevent excessive data transfer during feed updates to your computer.
5. Location Options: There are two options for including location address detail in the iCal feed:
Select Location Format: Choose what to include in the iCal ‘LOCATION’ field, either location name only, location name and address, or location address only. This format will appear in the ‘Location’ field in most programs such as MicroSoft Outlook and Mozilla Sunbird.
For Google calendar, choosing the ‘Location Address’ option will ensure the ‘map’ option in Google calendar will work with Google Maps. If you choose the ‘Location Name & Address’ option, then the Google Map link will only work if the location name is a recognize place name in Google Maps.
To append event location details at the end of event descriptions, check the box titled “Include Location Details In Event Description“.
6. Click on the list of public categories to “Choose Which Categories To Offer“. Each category highlighted in this list will be included in the feed.
7. At the bottom of the iCal Feeds screen, you will also see a text area containing the web link (url) for that feed. This code should be copied and pasted into Apple iCal, MS Outlook Internet Calendar or other program supporting iCalendar feeds.An iCal/RSS button will also be displayed on your calendar nav bar. Users & Visitors can click on this link and receive instructions on how to subscribe to the iCal feed.
Click on the following links for instructions on how to set up iCal, Outlook and Google Calendar subscriptions:
Setting up iCal feed into Mac or iCloud
Setting up iCal feed into Outlook
Setting up iCal feed into Google Calendar
RSS Feeds Tab
Follow the steps below to set up RSS feeds for your calendar:
1. To make RSS feeds available, you must check the box titled “Check To Enable RSS Subscriptions”
2. Enter an “Overall Title For The RSS Feeds” for your RSS feeds. This title will appear at the top of your RSS feeds as they are viewed by your users. Your title cannot exceed 250 characters in length.
3. Enter “Maximum Length For Event Descriptions“. This number determines the length of event description details that will be shown on RSS feeds. Any descriptive text beyond this maximum will be truncated from the description in the RSS feed.
Users may see the full description by clicking on the event title which will then open the full event description. The maximum length you may enter is 600 characters.
Entering zero for this value will prevent any text from the event detailed descriptions from being shown in the RSS feeds.
4. Enter “Number of Days Ahead To Retrieve“. This number determines how may days ahead from the present date to include events based on the event start date. The maximum for this value is 100 days ahead.
5. Enter “Maximum Number of Events To Retrieve“. This number determines the maximum number of events that will be contained in any RSS feed update. The maximum for this value is 200 events.
6. “Add To Beginning of Event Titles“. Check the boxes to add either of the following to beginning of event titles as they appear in the RSS feed:
Data and Time Stamp: Adds a string to the front of the RSS title of the form YY.MM.DD HH:MM which allows a date and time sorting by sorting on the title.
Event Category Name: Adds the event’s category name in capital letters to the front of the RSS title.
7. You can optionally check the box “Offer Feeds Containing All Categories“. This will create one RSS feed that contains all events for all public categories. This feed will be in addition to any individual category feeds specified in the next step.
8. Click on the list of public categories to “Select Which Individual Category Feeds To Offer”. An individual feed will be created for each category highlighted in this list.
9. As you define your feeds in steps 1 thru 7 above, you will see a list of defined feeds appear in the box “Currently Defined RSS Feeds“.
These feeds consist of the RSS icon 
followed by a textual description of the feed. You may click on either the icon or text to open the feed for review.
10. Below the icon you will also see a text area containing the web link (url) for that feed. This code can be copied and placed as a hyperlink on any web page. Your users can then click on the hyperlink and subscribe to the RSS feed.
See your webmaster if you are not familiar with setting up hyperlinks.
11. In addition to placing hyperlinks to RSS feeds on your web pages. The RSS button will also appear on your calendar nav bar which provides the RSS subscripiton links. Users & Visitors can click on this link and receive instructions on how to subscribe to the RSS feed.
Note: Internet Explorer 6.0 and other older browsers do not support RSS subscriptions. We recommend you upgrade your browser for better internet browsing.
Still have questions?