See your events in Google, Outlook, or Apple Calendar

What it does. Puts your Better Cater bookings on the calendar you already use. Google Calendar, Outlook, and Apple Calendar can each subscribe to your schedule. Any other app that reads ICS feeds works too.

When you’d use it. You want Saturday’s two events sitting next to everything else on your phone. Or you keep your own schedule in Outlook and want catering dates blocked out so you don’t book a dentist appointment on top of a wedding.

Get your subscribe URL

1. Click your profile icon in the top right, then click Settings.
2. Click Calendar Feed in the settings list.
3. Click Copy URL to put the address on your clipboard.

Add it to your calendar

Every app calls this subscribing to a calendar by URL. Paste the address you copied, then confirm.

• Google Calendar: Settings → Add other calendars → From URL
• Apple Calendar: File → New Calendar Subscription
• Outlook: Add calendar → Subscribe from web

The same three paths are printed on the Calendar Feed page under “How to subscribe”.

What you’ll see. A new calendar in your app’s list, holding the same entries you see on your calendar in Better Cater. Better Cater names the feed after your business, though some apps ask you to name it yourself as you add it. Each entry shows the event name and the guest count, and opening one shows the status, the client and their email address, which location it’s out of, the venue, and a link back to the event in Better Cater.

Good to know.

• It goes one direction. Better Cater publishes the feed and your calendar app reads it, so you make your changes in Better Cater and they flow out.
• Your calendar app decides how often it re-reads the feed, and it isn’t instant. Several hours is normal and a new booking can take a day to show up. Apple Calendar lets you pick a refresh interval as you add the subscription.
• Google only accepts a calendar URL from a browser on a computer. Add it there once and it turns up in the Google Calendar app on your phone.
• The address is a secret link, so treat it like a password. Anyone holding it can view your schedule. Don’t paste it into a shared document or a group chat.
• If the address gets out, click Regenerate Token on the Calendar Feed page. The old address stops working straight away, so you’ll need to paste the new one into every calendar you had added it to. Regenerating is also how you shut off an address you no longer want out there.
• Everyone on your team has their own address and each one carries the whole business calendar, so regenerating replaces yours alone and nobody else’s subscription breaks.
• Notes you’ve put on the calendar come across too, with [Note] in front of the title.
• The feed carries every event on your calendar, including ones whose date has passed, so expect old jobs to land in your calendar app as well. A cancelled event stays on it too, marked cancelled. Archiving an event is what takes it out of the feed.
• An event with no end time runs to the last step on its timeline, or fills two hours when it has no timeline either. Fill in “End time (optional)” on the event if you want the block to match the real day.