Connecting a calendar you already keep

Updated

Most families already keep a calendar somewhere: a personal Google calendar, a work calendar in Outlook, the team’s published schedule. You don’t have to retype any of it. Hand Ourday the calendar’s link once and it follows along from there.

  • It stays current on its own. Ourday checks the link about every half hour. Add or move something in your calendar and it shows up here without anyone touching it.
  • Changes get surfaced, not buried. A same-day change gets a heads up. Everything else shows up in the next Today.
  • Overlaps get caught. Events from a connected calendar can mark you as busy, so when someone plans something on top of it, Ourday says so.
  • Briefings build themselves. Whoever should see that calendar gets it woven into their Today and This Week automatically.

Sending individual events still works great for one-off things: “dentist for Maya Tuesday at 3” will always land. The link is for the calendar you already maintain somewhere else.

Every calendar service calls it something slightly different, but you’re looking for an iCal link: a web address that usually ends in .ics.

How to give it to Ourday

Text the link to your family’s Ourday number, or email it to your family’s Ourday address. That’s the whole move. Ourday reads the calendar, tells you how many events it found, and asks a couple of quick questions:

  • What to call it. Something like Work, Personal, or the team name.
  • Whose schedule it is. Yours, a kid’s, or something you manage for someone else. This is how events land on the right person.

Then it tells you exactly how it set things up and asks if that sounds right.

What you can shape, just by saying so

There’s nothing to dig through. Reply in plain words, at setup or any time later:

  • Who sees it. A connected calendar starts with the person who added it. Others can know you’re busy without seeing what you’re doing, or you can share the details: “let Michelle see the details” or “keep this one just on me”.
  • Whether the kids see it in their briefings. Ourday asks about this when it matters, and you can change your answer whenever.
  • Whether it marks you busy. Most schedules should, so overlaps get flagged. If one shouldn’t, say “don’t use this one for conflicts”.
  • The name. “Rename that calendar to Marching Band.”
  • Letting it go. “Stop following my work calendar.” What already happened, stays happened. We don’t quietly rewrite your family’s history when calendars change.

One thing worth knowing

A private calendar link (Google calls it a secret address) lets whoever has it read that calendar. Send it straight to Ourday and it stays between you and your family’s Ourday. If you ever reset the link with your provider, just send us the new one.