External calendars: connect your diary via ICS

What is possible and what is not

There are three things: importing busy times from an external calendar, importing a one-off ICS file as confirmed bookings, and exporting each provider’s diary. There is no sync with Google Calendar or Outlook, and no connection by signing in with an account. “External calendar” is simply the name the panel gives to a connection through an ICS link. If you edit or delete an event in the external calendar, the bookings in 4appointments do not change. Anyone who uses Google Calendar or Outlook keeps managing personal commitments in that app and uses 4appointments for the booking diary.

• Import busy times: an external ICS link blocks those times in availability.
• Import a one-off ICS file as confirmed bookings, within the limits below.
• Export: each provider’s diary can be subscribed to by ICS link.
• No two-way sync, no sign-in with Google or Microsoft, and no native iCloud connection.

Importing busy times and bookings from an ICS file

In the “External calendar” section, a team member can subscribe to the calendar they already use, and its busy events then block those times, so nobody books over them. The link must start with https, each member can subscribe to up to three calendars, and each calendar is read again roughly every 15 minutes, so updates are not instant. Events marked as free are ignored. If you keep a diary elsewhere and want to move it across in one go, you can also import an ICS file as confirmed bookings. That import is one-off and has limits: only events starting within the next 60 days are brought in, the file cannot exceed 2 MB, and past or overlapping events are ignored. The event title becomes the client name, and no email addresses or phone numbers are imported, so add them by hand. No live link remains after the import, so events created later in the old calendar do not come across. Check the result before giving up the old diary.

Taking the bookings onto your phone

Each provider has their own ICS link for export. If you subscribe to it from your phone’s calendar, the bookings appear alongside your personal commitments. How often the calendar refreshes is decided by your calendar app, not by 4appointments. The free note the client wrote when booking may appear in the event description. Each team member’s link shows only their own bookings.

• Subscribe from your phone’s calendar app using the provider’s ICS link.
• Bookings then show next to your personal commitments.
• How often they refresh depends on your calendar app.
• Keep the link private: anyone who has the address can read your bookings.

Common questions