Ical Export

This page is about the menu (SETTINGS) CHANNEL MANAGER > ICAL EXPORT and explains how to synchronise MASTERINSOFT with your Google or any iCal calendar

1. Capabilities

MASTERINSOFT.com can export bookings and unavailable dates as an iCal feed.

Google calendar and many other systems can read the iCal feed.

Many holiday rental sites support Ical (short for iCalendar) is a common file format that allows you to share room availability.

iCal can be used for booking sites that provide no or limited API capabilities, or address specialised or niche audiences. Many holiday rental sites support Ical so you can use the MASTERINSOFT Ical Sync for updates. For example:

ebab
only-apartments
and many more

We provide an Ical export to export inventory and an Ical import which imports bookings and for some channels specially constructed two-way iCal based connections.

Do not use iCal to sync with With Google Calendar we have a proper two-way API connection which is faster and more reliable than iCal.

Troubleshooting

If you are using Ical Export and Ical import and it is not setup carefully the same booking can be exported and re-imported repeatedly in a loop. Please see the [ICal_Export| Ical export instructions] for information about breaking the loop. You would enter the URL something like the following into the external system: https://4twa.com/api/ical/bookings.ics?roomid=20318&token=ee09f8d452d680b8da5e584ffad7845f&icalimport1=hide

There is a tool in Ical import to delete all the imported bookings so you can start fresh.

If there there was a booking which has been cancelled and the channel sends a new one for exact the same dates the original booking gets overridden. If required copy the booking and amend one of them manually.

2. Limitations

Only active bookings are exported, cancelled bookings will not appear.

Settings in prices which limit availability are not considered.

Your Calendar program is responsible for routinely updating the calendar, we have no control over how often systems like Google calendar actually perform an update.

3. What you will need

The MASTERINSOFT Calendar URL as displayed in the channel manager menu for each room.

4. MASTERINSOFT.com

4.1 Calendar content

The calendar information consists of a “Summary” and a “Description.

The Summary of each event can be customized using the iCal Summaryfield, this field can contain text and Template Variables.
The Description of each event can be customized using the iCal Property Descriptionand iCal Room Description fields, these fields can contain text and Template Variables.

Both are optional,

We provide 4 different URLs from which you can choose:

iCal: Because the iCal feed is public, by default only non personal data will be included in this URL

If the secret token in the URL is used, the iCal SUMMARY and DESCRIPTION fields of each iCal event can contain more information about the booking.

Include Property and Room Description: This link will show personal information plus the values of the template variables you have entered in the “iCal Property Description” and “iCal Room Description” fields.

Include Property Description: This link will show personal information plus the values of the template variables you have entered in the “iCal Property Description” field.

Include Room Description: This link will show personal information plus the values of the template variables you have entered in the “iCal Room Description” field.

If you add &nourl=1 to the URL the link to the booking will be removed.

4.2 Activate

Select whether to export bookings only, blocked dates or both bookings and blocked dates.

All upcoming bookings are included and blocked dates for one year in advance.

4.3 Seed

The Seed is optional and can be used to change the token values. You only need to use this function if your token is compromised.

Enter a short phrase or word to seed new tokens. After you press SAVE you will see that the Urls for “Include Property and Room Description”, “Include Property Description” and “Include Room Description” have changed. Make sure you have these exact URLs entered in your calendars.

If anyone accesses the calendar with the wrong token only the default non-personal iCal feed will be shown.

5 In your Calendar

The iCal export will work with any calendar capable of importing iCal format data. Google and Mac chosen here as examples because they are often used.

Google.com

Log into your Google calendar.
In the left column select “Other calendars”.
Select “Add by URL”.
Enter the MASTERINSOFT Calendar URL (see above).
Click Add Calendar and the bookings for that room should import.
Repeat for any other rooms.

Mac

In Calendar, choose File > New Calendar Subscription.
Enter the calendar’s web address, and then click Subscribe.
Enter a name for the calendar in the Name field and choose a color from the adjacent pop-up menu.
Repeat for any other rooms.

6. Data Options

These options can be used to setup two way syncing to a google or other calendar without re-exporting imports and creating duplicate bookings. See also the options for iCal import to ignore duplicates.

Paramenter	Use
&icalimport1=hide	add this to not include bookings imported from channel Ical Import 1.
&icalimport2=hide	add this to not include bookings imported from channel Ical Import 2.
&icalimport3=hide	add this to not include bookings imported from channel Ical Import 3.

Additional parameters can be added to the calendar URL to further specify the export data.

Paramenter	Use
&end=lastnight	Exports the end date of the booking as the date of the last night, i.e. one day before the checkout date
&dates=checkin	Only shows check-in days, not the rest of the booking
&dates=checkout	Only shows check-out days, not the rest of the booking
&showtime=true	Adds time to the calendar dates. Default checkin is added at 2PM and checkout at 10AM This option should only be used if your software requires dates including time information.
&starttime=hh:mm	Specifies the event start time, for example 16:00 when using &showtime=true
&endtime=hh:mm	Specifies the event end time, for example 11:00 when using &showtime=true
&timezone=Europe/London	Specify the timezone if your calendar needs it, the timezone must be a valid ical timezone value. Valid timezone values can be found in the TZ* column at this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
&hiderequest=true	Hides request status bookings to prevent request status bookings appearing in the ical
&includerooms=true	Include the details of bookings included from other rooms as per the room dependency “Include Bookings From” settings.
&unavaildates=365	The he default days in the future is 365 days, this can be overridden with this parameter to any value between 0 and 750 days in advance.
&nourl=true	Hides the view booking link.

7. Troubleshooting

Check-out date shows available

Some calendars will fix dates particularly the check-out date midnight. This will cause the check-out date to show available. You can fix this by adding &showtime=true as explained above.

8. Disconnect

To disconnect set “Export” = Disable
Remove the link from your calendar

9. Notes

If you want to use a custom URL you can use a URL shorten-er service which lets you customize the link.