Calendar sync - Sync leave to Google or Outlook Calendar

How to sync Leave Dates with your calendar

Leave Dates makes it easy to keep track of your leave—right from your favourite calendar app.

In just a few steps, you can sync your leave information to Outlook, Google Calendar, or most other calendar providers.

1. Get started

Go to Settings > Calendar Sync in Leave Dates.

2. Choose Your Sync Method

You can choose between two ways to sync your leave data:

Tip: You can configure both options to suit your needs. This ensures you always know when you—or your colleagues—are on leave, wherever you keep your schedule.

Real-time Personal Sync (for Outlook & Google Calendar)

Who is this for? Anyone who wants their own leave automatically added to their calendar.
What happens?
- Leave events are automatically added to your calendar.
- You’ll appear as Busy on days you are on leave.
- Only your own leave is shown.
Who can set this up? All users.
Follow the steps below to set up your calendar sync.

External Calendar Feed (for most calendars)

Who is this for? Anyone who wants to view the leave of their department or the whole company in their calendar.
What happens?
- An external calendar is created that shows the leave for your department or company.
- This calendar overlays on top of yours, without adding events directly.
- Your calendar will not show you as Busy for these events.
Who can set this up? All users.
Follow the steps below to set up a calendar feed.

Need Help?

If you’re experiencing issues, check our troubleshooting guide here.

Detailed steps to follow

Detailed steps for setting up the real-time personal sync (for Outlook & Google Calendar)

Google Calendar

Outlook Calendar

Go to the Settings > Calendar Sync page
Click Add Calendar
Click Add new connection (or select an existing connection if one is listed)
Click Google
Choose the Google account to sync to
Tick Select all for the permissions and Continue
You will be redirected back to Leave Dates, and Google Calendar is Connected.
If you receive an error in this step, please check that your Google account has signed up for Google Calendar.
Your leave will be synced in real-time to Google Calendar.

Click the Connect button
Go to the Settings > Calendar Sync page
Click Add Calendar
Click Add new connection (or select an existing connection if one is listed)
Click Outlook
Sign in to your Microsoft account (if not already signed in)
Click Yes to give Leave Dates permission to see and update data on your Outlook calendar.
Microsoft will redirect you back to Leave Dates, and show Outlook Calendar as Connected.
If you receive an error in this step, please check that your Microsoft account has signed up for Outlook Calendar.
Your leave will be synced in real-time to Outlook Calendar.

Detailed steps for setting up an external calendar feed

Go to the Settings > Calendar Sync page
Up to 3 links are shown in the Subscribe to calendar feeds section (as shown in the top image)
1. My Leave - This will sync only your own leave to the calendar. Everyone is shown this option.
2. My Department - This will sync your department's leave to the calendar. If you have access to view your department's leave, you will be shown this option.
3. My Company - This will sync the leave of the entire company to the calendar. If you have access to view everyone's data, you will be shown this option.
Click Copy URL to the right of the appropriate link.
Follow the steps below to add this link to your calendar.

Supported calendars are:

Google Calendar
Outlook 365 Calendar
iPhone Calendar
Any calendar which supports iCal (almost all support iCal)

Sync with Google Calendar

Open Google Calendar
In the top right, click Settings
Click Add Calendar > From URL
Paste in the link you generated earlier
Click the Add Calendar button

Sync with Outlook Office 365 Calendar

Open Outlook
In the Calendar view, click Open Calendar > From Internet
Paste in the link you generated earlier
Click Ok
Your calendar will appear in the list on the left-hand side
If you want to overlay it with your default calendar, then right-click and select Overlay

Sync with iPhone Calendar

On iPhone go to Settings > Calendar > Accounts
Tap Add Account
Tap Other > Add Subscribed Calendar
Paste in the link you generated earlier
Leave all the settings the same and tap Save.
Now when you go into the Calendar app you can select your Leave calendar using the Calendars link.

Sync with any calendar which supports iCal

The iCalendar (or iCal for short) format is an industry standard for describing calendar events. Most calendars support integrating with feeds using this format, and therefore, most can be synchronised with Leave Dates. We cannot provide instructions for every calendar, but the initial steps are the same to generate the link. Then, you need to work with your calendar vendor to learn how to add the subscribed internet calendar.

If your calendar will not connect to the iCal feed, please try replacing webcal:// with https:// in the address.

Change from this:	To this:
webcal://api.leavedates.com/feeds/my-leave/............	https://api.leavedates.com/feeds/my-leave/............

Update frequency

The iCal feed from Leave Dates to your calendar is not a real-time update. Updates take place a few times every day and the update frequency is set by your calendar (eg. Outlook or Google calendar), rather than us.

As a general rule, leave should be updated in your calendar every 4 hours or so.

The Real-time Personal Sync is real-time.

Resolutions to common issues

There may be a permission issue if you're having issues with the synchronisation disconnecting repeatedly. To resolve this:

Ask your IT administrator to go into the Azure portal > Enterprise Applications.
Select Leave Dates Outlook Sync app > Permissions.
Click the Grant admin consent for nortonfive button and accept all permissions.
Then go back to Leave Dates and try to reconnect.