Calendar Syncing

You can sync your Sosius calendar with other Calendar applications using the iCalendar methods outlined below.

What is iCalendar?

The iCalendar format is a standard that allows publishing of calendars or schedules on the web. Recipients of these files can view the calendar or schedule via a compatible calendar program. Common compatible calendar programs include Mozilla Sunbird and Lightning, Microsoft Outlook, Apple iCal and Google Calendar.

Modern calendar programs can also subscribe to iCalendar feeds and will periodically reload the iCalendar to receive new and updated events. This process is similar to subscribing to an RSS feed and in contrast to the older concept of importing a one-time snapshot of a calendar. Older calendar programs (including Outlook 2003) allow you to import iCalendar data, but will not subscribe. For Outlook 2003, you can use the Remote Calendars plug in to subscribe to iCalendar feeds.

Subscribing to iCalendar feeds allows you to view up-to-date copies of multiple calendars that may be overlaid against your own personal calendar.

Most modern browsers and calendars support the webcal:// identifier (link provided above), older ones may only support the http:// identifier (link provided below). The setup of each Calendar program differs, but will essentially involve specifying one of the provided webcal:// or http:// iCalendar links in your Calendar configuration.

1. Subscribing to your Sosius Calendar.

[External calendar <- Sosius calendar]

Each calendar on Sosius includes a iCalendar feed which can be subscribed to. Use this setup when you use Sosius as your primary calendar and want to view all of your Sosius events in another calendar.
You can use the desktop calendars mentioned above or another web calendar that supports subscribing such as Zoho Calendar or Google Calendar.

To find the iCalendar url, go to your Calendar and click on the Sync button.

Note that you can also subscribe to all of your events on Sosius and not just an individual calendar, click on the Subscribe button on the Events widget on your Dashboard.

2. Subscribing your Sosius Calendar to External Calendars.

[Sosius calendar <- External calendar]

Calendars on Sosius also allow subscriptions to external Calendars that have iCalendar feeds (e.g. your Google Calendar¹ or Zoho Calendar). Use this setup when you use the external Calendar as your primary calendar but would like to view these events in your Sosius calendar.

Go to your Sosius calendar and click on the Sync button. Click on the Add New Sync button to subscribe your Calendar with external feeds.

Events in the remote calendar will automatically be maintained in this Calendar. Sosius currently performs external calendar synchronization automatically on a 15 minute basis.

3. Publishing events to your Sosius calendar using Email Publishing.

[External calendar -> Email -> Sosius calendar]

You can use email publishing to publish events from your desktop calendar program to this Sosius Calendar. Use this setup when you share your Sosius calendar with others and would like to transfer specific events from your desktop calendar to your Sosius calendar.

Go to the Calendar on Sosius that you'd like to publish events to and click on the Sync button. Follow the instructions at the bottom section of the page.

It normally takes a couple of minutes once the email has been received to process and appear in your Sosius calendar. You will receive an email notification informing you of the outcome.

¹ Google has long standing issues with calendar syncing, see this thread and this one. If you use your Sosius calendar as your primary calendar and sync it with another web calendar, then we recommend using Zoho Calendars.