iCal for Booking Notifications: Setup

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Plan Availability: ✓ Soho | ✓ Pro | ✓ Plus | ✓ Enterprise | ✓ Flex |
Locate: Manage > Integrations > Communication > iCal
Prerequisites:

• Admin permissions to manage Integrations and view calendars.
• The iCal for Booking Notifications integration is available to both those using items (Inventory > Items), a key feature of our classic version of Checkfront, and those using products (Inventory > Products), a key feature of our newest version of Checkfront.

 

New to Checkfront - Products ✨ Products (Inventory > Products) is the successor feature to (Inventory > Items) and is available in our newest version of Checkfront. Not yet on our newest version and interested in upgrading? Please contact our Technical Support team for more information. Discover more product-related help articles here: Products (New).

 

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Our iCal notification integration enables you to embed iCal event requests in your booking notifications.

When enabled, an event is attached to the outgoing notification email, with a summary of the booking and the date and time of the event. Similar to a meeting request, your Customers can quickly add the booking to their calendar directly from the notification.

iCal events can be read by most common mail and calendar applications, including Gmail, MS Outlook, and Apple Mail.

 

Looking to add iCal Feeds to your personal, external calendar? Learn more here: Booking Calendar: Add to External Calendar (iCal)

 

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To activate the integration in Checkfront, find the iCal integration (Manage > Integrations > Communication). Click on the iCal tile to open the Setup modal.

 

Enter the email of the Organizer that will appear in the calendar event and click the blue Activate button.

 

The ability to attach an iCal notification can be activated on a per-notification basis. Simply edit the notification as normal and select the option labeled Attach an iCal event request to this e-mail.  

 

Once the email notification is received by the Customer, they will be able to double-click on the iCal link directly below the invoice, to add the booking to their personal calendar.

After clicking on the link, a pop-up window appears from which the Customer can select a specific calendar to add the booking to.

Once added to the calendar, the status of the event reflects the current status of the booking.

• If the booking is Pending, for example, it shows on the calendar as Tentative.
• If the booking is Paid, Reserved, or Deposit, it shows as confirmed.
• If the booking is Cancelled and you send a cancellation email, it will also be updated on your Customer's calendar.

 

The appearance of the iCal link and the process for adding the booking to the calendar may vary, depending on the platform with which your Customer is working.

 

Not all external calendars, such as Outlook and Thunderbird, automatically adjust an iCal event's start and end time to match your Customer's timezone when added to their personal calendar. Some calendars that do are Google Calendar and Apple Calendar.