Everything you need to know about calendar subscriptions (ICS links)

With our calendar subscriptions, you can easily integrate absences from absence.io into Outlook, iCal, or Google Calendar. Currently, you can subscribe to absences for an individual user, a department, a team, a location, or the entire company. There's also the option to filter ICS links and exclude specific absence types, for example. You can find more information in this article.

Below, we'll demonstrate this using the example of "absences for the entire company":

Step 1:

Go to Settings > Integrations and generate an ICS link. Copy this link. The top link is the admin link. This displays all private reasons for absence. There is also a second link for employees, which does not show these reasons for absence (highlighted in green).

You can find the link for a team, department or location on the respective overview page, e.g. in the department overview.

Each user can find their own link in their profile under Integrations. Only this link can be accessed independently by users. However, links for the company, departments, teams, and locations can also be forwarded to employees at any time so they can subscribe to them in their calendars.

Step 2: 

iCal

To subscribe to an iCalendar feed using Apple's Calendar program:

1.  Open the Calendar program (in Applications).
2.  Go to the file menu and select "New Calendar Subscription".
3. Type or paste one of the two feed URLs above into the Calendar URL field and click on "Subscribe".

Outlook

1. Copy the URL (web address) from "CALENDAR SUBSCRIPTION".
2. iCal URLs usually start with webcal://, webcals://, http:// or https:// and end with .ics.
3. Go to outlook.com and open your calendar.
4. Click on "Add calendar" in the top bar of the Outlook Calendar.
5. Choose "from the Internet".
6. Now paste your desired URL into the first field and enter the name of the desired user subscription below.
7. Click on "Save".
8. First, your absence.io calendar will be displayed alongside your personal calendar. Right-clicking and selecting "Overlay" will display both calendars in a single view.

Google Calendar

To import events from iCalendar or CSV files, just follow these steps:

1. Click the down-arrow next to "Other calendars".
2. Select "Add by URL".
3. Paste the ICS link and click on "Add calendar".
4. Now the calendar shows up in the left sidebar.

We appreciate any kind of feedback!

Your absence.io Team