Connecting external calendar feeds allows your school or district to keep families informed across all devices without double-entry. The Edlio App supports automated iCalendar (.ics) feeds from Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Calendar, and student information systems (SIS).
Adding a New Calendar Feed
To connect an external calendar feed to your mobile app:
Navigate to Features > Calendars from your Edlio App dashboard.
Click the blue + New button in the top right corner.
Configure your calendar settings in the creation form:
Complete the following fields:
Image: Select an identifying icon from the Library or upload a custom graphic.
Name*: Enter a clear, family-friendly display name (e.g., Varsity Athletics, District Academic Calendar).
iCal URL: Paste the public or shared
.icsorwebcal://web address of your external calendar.iCal Encoding: Leave as default No item selected (UTF-8) unless your calendar provider specifies an alternate character encoding format.
Options Panel: Configure specific calendar display and timezone rules:
Ignore Locations in iCal: Omits room or location fields from displaying in the app feed.
Disable auto time zone / Use Site's time zone: Forces events to display in the school campus's local time zone regardless of the subscriber's phone settings.
iCal adjustment (-1 hour in/out of DST): Accommodates external feed offsets during Daylight Saving Time transitions.
Open Links In External Browser: Launches event attachment URLs in Safari/Chrome rather than in-app.
Unpublished: Hides the calendar from the mobile app while keeping configuration saved in your dashboard.
⚠️ Important Note on iCal Public URLs: When linking a Google or Microsoft calendar, ensure the sharing permissions on the source calendar are set to public. Private secret addresses that require login authentication cannot be retrieved by the synchronization engine.
Sync Frequency and Manual Refreshes
External calendar feeds are synchronized automatically on a recurring schedule throughout the day (indicated by the Next scheduled processing banner). If you make an urgent schedule change on your source calendar (such as a weather cancellation) and need it reflected immediately on mobile devices:
From the Calendars root table, click the Sync (Refresh icon) on that calendar's row, or click Process Calendars in the top bar to refresh all feeds simultaneously.
Alternatively, open the calendar view and click the Process iCal button in the blue notification banner.
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