Upon registration, a dynamic Internet Calendar Subscription (ICS) feed is created for each employee.
This feed allows employees to have their shifts appear in their favourite calendar, without having to add them individually each time. Whats more, if a shift is cancelled, it is removed from their calendar without them needing to do anything.
Encouraging your employees to use their calendar feed is a good way of helping ensure that staff always know when they’re due on-site.
The Internet Calendar Subscription URL for each employee is unique, and takes the form:
https://my.quoox.com/calendars/xxxxxx-xxxxxx/shifts.ics
The easiest way to share a calendar feed URL with an employee is to include the [[EMPLOYEE.SHIFTWEBCALURL]] fill-in field for the URL in the automated shift notification email. The Quoox mail system will then insert the correct URL instead of the placeholder. This placeholder is included in the standard template by default.
Internet Calendar Subscriptions are also, sometimes, known as WebCals. Most modern calendar applications such as Outlook, Google Calendar, and Apple’s iCalendar can parse ICS feeds. Once setup, the feed will then work in the background without any further user interaction being required.
In all instances the employee should subscribe to the feed, rather than import it. Importing a feed would bring the current shifts into the system, but the calendar would not update with future shifts or amendments.
Links are provided below to 3rd party guidance on how to import a WebCal into different calendar applications:
- Microsoft Outlook (Office 365 or online version)
- iCloud or iOS
- Google Calendar (web or Android)
- Microsoft Outlook (Desktop version)
- Open the calendar view in Outlook
- In the left hand bar, right click on “My Calendars”
- Select “Add Calendar”
- Select “From Internet”
- Enter the unique employee ICS URL, as outlined above
- If prompted, give the calendar a name (E.g. “Work shifts”), and elect to subscribe to the feed
