Calendar Subscriptions
Publish a group's calendar on your website and let families subscribe to it from Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook
Calendar Subscriptions
A calendar nobody sees does not help anyone. This guide covers the two ways your events reach the people who need them: a calendar page on your public website, and a live subscription that drops your events into their own calendar app.
A subscription is not a one-time copy. Once someone subscribes, events you add, move, or cancel in Hubara show up in their calendar on their own, with no further action from you or from them.
Putting a Calendar on Your Website
Add a page using the Calendar page template. It shows the public events for one group -- and automatically includes events from that group's subgroups -- in a Month, Week, Day, or Agenda view. The fields you fill in are covered in Page Templates.
Two things decide what visitors actually see on that page:
- Only public events appear. An event with its Public event switch off never reaches the public site. See Managing Calendar Events.
- Cancelled events are hidden from the public page, while staying visible in your dashboard so you keep the record.
Above the calendar, visitors get two buttons: Add to Google Calendar and Add to Apple Calendar. Those buttons are the easy path -- most families will never need the manual steps below.
The Subscription Address
Behind those two buttons is a web address, one per group, ending in /calendar.ics. That address is what you hand to anyone who wants to subscribe, and what you put in a newsletter or a welcome email. It is public -- no sign-in is needed to subscribe, which is exactly what makes it usable by families. The address may appear with a webcal:// prefix instead of https://. Calendar apps accept either one. When you link to it from a page on your website, use the https:// form.
Get the address from the buttons rather than typing it out. The Add to Google Calendar and Add to Apple Calendar buttons on the group's public calendar page build the correct address every time, from the group itself.
- To subscribe, just click the button.
- To copy the address for an email or newsletter, add the calendar with the button once, then open that calendar's settings in your calendar application -- the address it was added from is shown there and can be copied.
Note: Do not build the address by hand from the group's page address. The part of the address before
/calendar.icsis the group's own identifier, and it is not always the same as the path to that group's page on your website. A group whose calendar page sits at/north/calendarmay well publish its feed under a different identifier. The two only match when someone happened to set them up that way, and guessing from the page address is the most common reason a subscription address comes back "not found".
The three sections that follow are the manual route, for when the buttons are not available -- Outlook has no button, and someone reading a printed newsletter has only the address. Each one starts from the subscription address you obtained above.
Adding the Calendar in Google Calendar
- Open Google Calendar on a computer.
- In the left-hand column, click the + next to Other calendars.
- Choose From URL.
- Paste the subscription address.
- Click Add calendar. The calendar appears in the left-hand column and fills in within a few minutes.
Adding the Calendar in Apple Calendar
On a Mac:
- Open Calendar.
- From the File menu choose New Calendar Subscription.
- Paste the subscription address and click Subscribe.
- Give it a name and choose how often it should refresh, then click OK.
On an iPhone or iPad:
- Open Settings, then Apps > Calendar (on older versions, Calendar directly).
- Tap Accounts, then Add Account, then Other.
- Tap Add Subscribed Calendar.
- Paste the subscription address and tap Next, then Save.
Adding the Calendar in Outlook
- Open Outlook on the web and go to the Calendar.
- In the left-hand column, click Add calendar.
- Choose Subscribe from web.
- Paste the subscription address, give the calendar a name, and click Import.
What the Subscription Contains
Knowing what does and does not travel saves a lot of confused email.
| Public events only | Events with Public event switched off are never in the feed. |
| The group and its direct subgroups | Subscribing to a parent group's calendar brings in the public events of the subgroups directly beneath it. A subgroup of a subgroup is not included -- subscribe to that group's own calendar as well. |
| Past events as well as upcoming ones | The feed keeps history, so subscribers can look back at what happened. |
| Title, description, location, date and time, and tags | Times are published in your organization's timezone, so each subscriber's calendar app converts them correctly for wherever they are. |
| Cancelled events, marked cancelled | A cancelled event stays in the feed flagged as cancelled, so it shows as cancelled in the subscriber's app rather than silently disappearing. This is a good reason to cancel rather than delete. |
| A link back to each event | Every public event links back to your group's calendar page on your website, opened to that event, where subscribers find its details, forms and files. This needs a published calendar page for the event's group or its parent group. Without one, the link opens your home page. |
| Links attached to an event | A link attachment is published with the event, so a subscriber's calendar application can show it alongside the description. |
| Not uploaded files or registration forms | Uploaded files and registration forms are not copied into the feed. Subscribers reach them through each public event's link back to your website. |
Note: Subscriptions refresh on a delay. Hubara serves the feed with a 15-minute cache, and calendar applications add their own refresh interval on top -- Google Calendar in particular can take several hours to pick up a change. A change you make now is not a change every subscriber sees now, so do not rely on a same-day edit reaching everyone. For time-critical changes, send a message as well -- see Sending Messages.
Adding a Single Event
Someone who wants one event rather than the whole calendar can click that event on the public calendar page and use the Google Calendar or Apple Calendar button in the event's details. That copies the single event into their calendar. It is a one-time copy, not a subscription -- later changes to the event will not follow it. A public event's copy includes the same link back to your website, with the event's details, forms and files.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to check |
|---|---|
| The subscription address says the group was not found | You are most likely using the group's page address. The path to a group's page on your website and the identifier in its calendar address are not always the same. Get the address from the Add to Google Calendar or Add to Apple Calendar button on that group's calendar page instead of typing it. |
| The subscription address returns some other error | Try again in a few minutes. If it keeps failing, report the address you used to whoever supports your Hubara site. |
| Event times in the subscribed calendar are off by an hour or more | Check the organization's timezone under Calendar Settings. Until one is saved, the feed publishes in Eastern Time. Subscribers see a change only after their calendar app next refreshes the feed. |
| A subscriber sees an empty calendar | The group may have no public events. Check the Public event switch on the events you expected to see. |
| An event I added isn't in someone's calendar yet | Give it time. The feed itself refreshes every 15 minutes, and calendar applications refresh on their own slower schedule. |
| An event I edited still shows the old details for subscribers | Same cause -- their calendar application has not refreshed yet. |
| A cancelled event is still in someone's calendar | That is intended. It stays visible marked as cancelled so people notice it was called off. |
| A file I attached isn't showing up for subscribers | Uploaded files are not part of the feed. Subscribers reach them through the event's link back to your website. To show a file in the calendar app itself, add it as a link instead. |
| Subgroup events are appearing in the parent group's calendar | That is intended -- a group's feed and public calendar page both include its subgroups' public events. |