Calendar sync

Calendar feeds send HallPro’s bookings out to Google, Outlook and Apple calendars. Calendar sync brings bookings in: connect the hall’s own calendar, and anything somebody writes into it blocks the room in HallPro within the hour.

HallPro reads the calendar by its private address — Google’s “secret address in iCal format”, Outlook’s ICS link — so nobody has to sign HallPro in to Google, and there is nothing to set up at Google’s end. The steps for each are on the screen.

What comes in is an outside booking: the room is taken, hirers are told “already booked” without saying by whom, and it shows in the Dashboard’s week with the calendar’s name. It has no hirer, invoice or deposit. Anything that clashes with a HallPro booking is listed on the Calendar sync screen.

Repeating events are understood — every week, the second Tuesday, the last Friday — and so are dates cancelled or moved within them. Events marked free in the other calendar do not block anything, and HallPro’s own bookings are ignored if they come back round, so a calendar that is also subscribed to HallPro’s feed is not counted twice.

If a calendar cannot be reached, HallPro keeps what it last read and says so, rather than suddenly treating the hall as free. On the Premium plan.

For example: Ashcombe’s chair has always put the choir’s Thursday rehearsals straight into the hall’s Google calendar. With the calendar connected, Thursday evenings show as already booked to anybody asking for the main hall — and the committee’s phones show every HallPro booking too, because the same Google calendar is subscribed to HallPro’s feed.

Questions people ask

How quickly does a new booking in Google show up?
Within the hour, or straight away if you press “Read it now”. Google itself can take a little while to update the address after a change.

Can HallPro write into our Google calendar?
Not directly. Subscribe the calendar to HallPro’s feed on the Calendar feeds screen, and HallPro’s bookings appear alongside yours. That is the two-way part.

An outside booking should be a proper HallPro booking.
Add it on the Bookings screen, then take it out of the other calendar. It stops blocking as soon as HallPro next reads it.