The calendar subscription feature allows parents and community members to automatically receive your school's events in their personal calendar applications. As a school administrator or teacher, you can guide parents through this process to help them stay informed about important school dates and events.
Where parents can access calendar subscriptions
There are two ways parents can subscribe to school calendars:
1. School-wide calendar
When parents visit your school website, clicking the View All Events button opens the full calendar view where they can access the subscription feature for all school events.
2. Individual teacher calendars
Parents can also subscribe to individual teacher calendars by:
Finding the teacher through the staff directory.
Visiting the teacher's personal page.
Locating the calendar section on the teacher's page and clicking View All Events.
Guiding parents through the subscription process
On any calendar page, parents will find a Subscribe link in the upper right corner. When clicked, this opens a dropdown menu with calendar application options:
Subscription options explained
Download .ICS (Recommended): Downloads an open standard calendar file (.ICS format). On modern smartphones (iPhone and Android) and desktop computers (Mac and Windows), clicking or opening this downloaded file automatically prompts the native calendar app (Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook) to add or subscribe to the schedule with one tap.
iCal, Outlook 2007+: Triggers the Webcal protocol (`webcal://`) to automatically open Apple Calendar on Mac/iOS or desktop Microsoft Outlook and establish a live, recurring calendar subscription feed.
Google Calendar: Designed for parents who manage their primary schedules inside web-based Google Calendar, instantly adding the school event feed to their Google account.
đĄ Best-Practice Adoption Tip: Promote the Download .ICS (Recommended) option at Back-to-School night and in your parent newsletters. Downloading the .ICS file provides the fastest, most reliable one-tap subscription experience across Apple, Android, and Windows devices without requiring parents to manually copy and paste calendar feed URLs.
Benefits of promoting calendar subscriptions
Reduces missed appointments, conferences, and sporting events.
Decreases the need for repeated paper flyers or reminder emails about dates.
Keeps families informed about bell schedules, holidays, and teacher planning days.
Improves overall parent engagement and attendance across campus activities.