Table of Contents

iCalendar Integration

Jennifer Trower Updated by Jennifer Trower

Read Time: 4 mins

The Calendar Integration allows users to sync scheduled jobs, blockers, and time off to their external calendars. You can enable or disable the feature directly from your Sonar instance with a few simple steps.

Permissions

In order to make use of the iCalendar integration, the corresponding role permission must be enabled first. Please take a moment to review this permission and ensure that the relevant roles have it added before proceeding with any walkthrough steps below.

If you're a Super-Admin of your Sonar instance, no permission changes are required for your account. For more information on Roles and Permissions overall, please review this linked article.
As this is a system setting, this permission is needed to enable Calendar Sync Settings access to a role.

If you are not a Super-Admin, you need both the View all your calendar settings and Create calendar settings permissions enabled to create an iCal link.

Calendar Sync Settings

To access the Calendar Sync Settings within your instance, navigate to Settings > Integrations > Calendar Sync Settings. From here, you're able to enable and disable the feature and customize your calendar sync history period.

  1. Enable External Calendar Syncing: This toggle enables or disables this feature within your instance.
  2. Calendar History Sync Maximum: This option allows you to select the number of months to sync calendar history.
By default, only 1 month will sync for your calendar history, unless a different option is selected. All future items will be synced automatically upon enabling the feature.

Once you toggle the Enable option and select the number of months to sync calendar history for, click Save.

My Info Overview

To locate the individual user URL for Calendar Integrations, navigate to the User Icon > User's Name. For this example, the user's name will be Sonar Developer. On the My Info Overview page, locate the Calendar Integrations on the right side of the screen beneath the Activity section.

Clicking the blue “Create iCalendar Feed” button will generate the iCalendar feed link. After the initial creation of the iCalendar Feed, there are 2 options provided within the section.

  1. Copy Link: This option copies the provided link to the clipboard and allows you to sync Sonar calendar events to a calendar that supports the iCalendar protocol (e.g: macOS Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, or Google Cal).
  2. Regenerate iCalendar Token: This option will regenerate a new token that can be used if security is compromised.
If you regenerate the iCalendar Token, you will need to complete the setup process within your external calendar again.
The iCalendar URL is not controlled by the Sonar firewall.

iCalendar Integration to Your External Calendar

The iCalendar integration will work with any calendar with the iCalendar protocol. Below are a few examples of calendars that will work with this link and the directions for implementing the iCalendar Feed into your external calendar.

  1. iOS Calendars: to view the setup instructions for adding an iCalendar link to an iOS calendar, see below.
Steps for adding the iCalendar link into an iOS calendar.
1. Go to Settings > Calendar > Accounts > Other
2. Choose Add Subscribed Calendar
3. Paste the iCalendar link in the Server field and click Save.
4. Then click Done.


Once you have added the calendar to the device, updating your sync settings is recommended. You can do this by completing the following steps.
1. Go to Settings > Calendar > Accounts > Fetch New Data
2. When the new page generates, select the Every 15 minutes option.

Your calendar has been added and is ready to sync every 15 minutes to keep your information up to date.
  1. Microsoft 365 provides detailed instructions on how to add a calendar in Outlook. You can use this link to get set up.
  2. Google provides detailed instructions on how to add a calendar. You can use this link to get set up.

Viewing Synced Events on Your Device

Once the iCalendar has been added to your external calendar. The sync process will take place for your scheduled events, schedule blockers, and scheduled time off and will be visible.

Clicking on an event allows you to view the date and time of the scheduled event and the job type, along with a URL link that opens the event within your Sonar instance.

Sonar does not have control over the sync settings for external calendars. The events could take up to 24 hours to sync with some external calendars.

How did we do?

Webhooks in Sonar: Basic PHP Example

Contact