Calendar feeds

Each Timely location can publish a private, live-updating calendar feed in iCalendar (.ics) format. Subscribe to the URL in any calendar app and your shifts appear as events that update automatically when you edit the schedule.

Generating the feed URL

Settings → Integrations → Calendar → Generate calendar URL.

Each location gets its own URL. The URL contains a private token — treat it like a password. Anyone with the URL can subscribe to that location's schedule (read-only — they can't edit anything from a calendar app).

Click Copy URL. You're ready to subscribe in any of the apps below.

Subscribing in Google Calendar

1. Open Google Calendar in a browser (the mobile app doesn't support adding URL-subscribed calendars directly).
2. Left sidebar → Other calendars → click the + → From URL.
3. Paste the URL, click Add calendar.
4. The calendar appears in your sidebar. Toggle visibility, change color, etc.

Google Calendar refreshes the feed roughly every 4-12 hours — it's not always immediate. Schedule edits in Timely will appear within a working day, usually faster.

Subscribing in Apple Calendar (Mac)

1. Open Calendar.app.
2. File → New Calendar Subscription.
3. Paste the URL, click Subscribe.
4. Set the auto-refresh interval. Every 15 minutes is the most aggressive option Apple offers; that's what we'd recommend.

The feed appears under the Subscriptions section in the sidebar. Apple Calendar on iOS picks it up via iCloud sync within a few minutes.

Subscribing in Outlook

1. Outlook on the web — gear icon → View all Outlook settings → Calendar → Shared calendars → Subscribe from web.
2. Paste the URL, name it, pick a color, click Import.

The Outlook desktop app gets the feed via the same Microsoft account sync.

What's in the feed

Each shift appears as an event with:

• Start / end time — in the location's timezone (TZID is set explicitly, so it survives DST and remote subscribers in different timezones).
• Title — the employee name and any tags applied to the shift.
• Location — the Timely location name.
• Notes — break minutes (if any) and the publish timestamp.

Approved time-off periods appear as all-day events on those dates.

Privacy

The feed contains the schedule for the entire location — every employee, every shift. So sharing the URL with one employee effectively shares everyone's schedule with them.

For per-employee feeds (each employee sees only their own shifts), the publish email already includes a personalized calendar link. Send employees the publish email and they can subscribe to their own private feed from there.

Regenerating the URL

If a feed token leaks (e.g., you forwarded the email to the wrong person, or shared it on a doc that ended up indexed), regenerate it: Settings → Integrations → Calendar → Regenerate URL.

This invalidates the old token. Anyone subscribed via the old URL will see "feed not found" in their calendar app and need a new URL.

Limitations

• Read-only — calendar apps can't push edits back to Timely.
• One feed per location — multi-location managers need to subscribe to each location separately.
• Refresh intervals vary by client (Google: 4-12h, Apple: 15min minimum, Outlook: ~1h). Edits to the schedule in Timely take effect immediately on the Timely side, but the calendar app's refresh is what controls visibility.