iCal

cp9293
May 17, 2013 8:24 PM
Joined Apr, 2012 307 posts

Hi,

How would I be able to use the ical for third party agents? This is for my housekeeper, for example. She would just have some information?

Where do I start?

Thanks,
Claudia

Michelle J
May 18, 2013 8:31 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jan, 2011 403 posts

Hi Claudia,

Navigate to the property you'd like to share, click on the iCal tab and create a feed. During creation, you'll be presented with some options for what you'd like them to see. If you want them to see the guest name and party size, select those options. The 'description' shows the party size.

Then you'll see a URL to copy/paste. Your housekeeper can put that into her calendar system. Most major calendar systems accept iCal feeds. Sometimes, it's known as "subscribe to calendar" or "add internet calendar".

If your housekeeper uses any of these calendar systems, it will work:

* Outlook
* Google Calendar
* Apple iCal or iCloud calendar
* Zoho Calendar
* Yahoo! Calendar
* Cozio

And a lot of others.

Hope this helps,

-Michelle

cp9293
May 18, 2013 12:49 PM
Joined Apr, 2012 307 posts

That is great! Thanks.

I tried to look at my ical calendar after I did it, but I can't seem to find it on how the housekeeper, or anyone else would see it. It would it be the same view as the ownerRez calendar?

On my phone I saw it as a list. On that list, can we have it show, in the gray area, the day and date of arrival (displayed already) AND the day and departure date?

Also, can we separate the options of full name and email address to be 3 options... First Name, Last name, email address? I don't think I want them to have the email address of the guest, nor the last name.

Thanks,
Claudia

Michelle J
May 18, 2013 12:55 PM
OR Team Member Joined Jan, 2011 403 posts

Hi Claudia,

iCal is a text format. The housekeeper can't look at the iCal text itself - it's just a big file full of data. They need to import the iCal feed (URL) into whatever calendar system they use.

So if they use Yahoo! Calendar for instance, they can "subscribe to a calendar" and enter the iCal URL you give them.

Does that make sense?

I'll see if we can split up the names into multiple options. Thanks for the feedback. That makes sense that, for security purposes, you may only want them seeing part of the name and not the email or phone number.

-Michelle

cp9293
May 18, 2013 1:42 PM
Joined Apr, 2012 307 posts

How do I get the all of my bookings out of my ical on my phone? I disabled the ical under property. However, it remains on my calendar, on my phone.

Claudia

* Correction, some are still on my ical, on my laptop. How do I get rid of those? On both laptop and phone?

cp9293
May 18, 2013 5:33 PM
Joined Apr, 2012 307 posts

How do I change which calendar I want it to go to?

Claudia

Michelle J
May 20, 2013 7:44 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jan, 2011 403 posts

cp9293 said:

How do I get the all of my bookings out of my ical on my phone? I disabled the ical under property. However, it remains on my calendar, on my phone.


Remember that iCal is an export/import format, so if you want to unsubscribe or remove it from your calendar system you need to tell your calendar system to turn it off. There is most likely a button or switch that says to "unsubscribe" or "disable" the iCal feed that you hooked up to your calendar.

It is possible that some calendar systems may simply import all the iCal events into the existing calendar store and you have to manually delete all of them one by one. I hope that isn't the case, but it's possible.

Michelle J
May 20, 2013 7:47 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jan, 2011 403 posts

cp9293 said:

How do I change which calendar I want it to go to?


The URL that we give you for each iCal feed determines what your calendar system will "see" in terms of your booking data. Each of our iCal URLs are unique - they each show all the booking data for that property from the first of the current month on.

If you want your calendar system to change iCal feeds, tell it "unsubscribe" or "remove" the feed that you gave it before and then give it a different/new iCal feed.