External Calendars

Range Mate supports letting calendar clients subscribe to publicly available calendars. Here's how to create and manage them.

Creating calendars

This is only available to club admins

1. Go to the Event's page

2. In the top right, there is a calendar icon; tap it

3. This will take you here:

1. From here tap "New Calendar" and complete the required fields.

2. You can control things like:

   1. The name of the calendar

   2. How many days in the past and future it will show

   3. Filtering by location, guest events and junior events

   4. Private flag

Important: setting a calendar to "private" just means that members can't see it an subscribe to it. If you choose to give a member the URL of the calendar, it will work for them.

What is a calendar?

A calendar is simply a unique, hard to guess link that can be accessed by calendar clients. They look like this: webcal://your-club.range-mate.co.uk/calendars/2b66300a-e99d-4e02-b5b6-288162293ceb.ics

What data is synced to events?

Each event show the following:

1. Name of the event, formatted to include your club name. For example "Full Bore Shoot with Club Short Name".

2. The W3W location of the event in the Location field

3. The event's description is added to the "Notes" of the event

4. The start time of the event

Subscribing to calendars

You can subscribe to calendars by simply clicking the "Subscribe" button in the Range Mate application, which will open the default calendar app on that device. Or, depending on your client, you may need to copy the URL and add it manually. Here are some instructions for common calendar providers:

• Apple Calendar (iCloud)

• Google Calendar

• Outlook

FAQ

Are calendars two-way sync?

No. A calendar is a read-only view of the events you've selected in the filters. A two-way syncing calendar isn't really feasible given how much additional data Range Mate needs for an event to exist, such as Price. For this reason, new events will likely always require creation from within Range Mate.

How often do calendars update?

Changes are available immediately, but depending on the client may take time to appear. Webcal links like this are "polling", so clients have to ask for updates. How often a given client asks for an update will dictate how often the calendar refreshed. Google Calendar for example, refreshes hourly. Some refresh at regular intervals, but also on-demand when the user tries to view the calendar

What calendar clients are supported?

Any calendar client that can subscribe to an .ics feed should work. Please consult the user manual of your specific client for instructions on how to subscribe. Some common ones have been listed above.

Can the calendar show whether I've booked an event or not?

No. Because the link is shared, Range Mate doesn't know which user is accessing the calendar so can't work out whether you have a booking or not. However, there is a link to add new bookings to your calendar after you've successfully booked.

Can I publish a calendar to our website?

Yes, but you will need a calendar provider that supports embedding calendars in HTML for this to work. We recommend adding the calendar to Google Calendar, and then embedding that Google Calendar into your website using the "Integrate Calendar" function. The specifics will depend on your website provider, so check with the person who manages your website for further information.