Technical Support

Use your Google Calendar on your WordPress Blog

In this article, we will show you how to import your Google Calendar into your WordPress Blog. In  the previous article, you copied data from the settings page of your Google Calendar into a document file. You will now use that data to create the Calendar Page and/or Widget for your blog.

The process involves using a PlugIn to WordPress. The “AmR iCal Events List” plugin does the magic. So, here are the steps to use it:

1. The first thing is to install & activate the AmR iCal plugin
2. Visit the Settings page for the plugin & add any needed info. The only item that normally needs to be changed is the “date localization” – I recommend the “none” option. Press “Update” to save any changes.
3. Visit the Appearance / Widgets page & drag the AmR iCal Widget to the desired sidebar of your theme.
4. Add a Title for the Widget and then SAVE.
5. Visit the home page of your site and assure that the sample events are displayed properly.
6. Revisit the Widget’s Settings & erase the link in the URL field then PASTE the “ICS Address” into the field (The address is found in the document that you saved at the previous article – or from the  Google Calendar Settings.) Be sure to SAVE the widget settings.
7. Return to the home page for your site and assure that YOUR calendar’s events are displayed.
8. You may also add a second calendar by placing it’s ICS address (url) in the field after your own calendar’s url. (Suggestion: include the calendar of your host community.)

That will complete the widget’s function! Enjoy. You can edit the manner that the events are displayed by making slight changes to the configuration. Visit the plugin homepage for instructions.

You may wish to include a PAGE on your site to provide a bigger and more complete display of your events.

1. Visit your site’s dashboard & click on Pages / Add New
2. In the Title field, enter your name for the page. E.g, “Events”
3. In the window, type the open square bracket character and the letters “iCal” followed by a space and the “ICS address” used in the widget above. Add another space and the text, “days=100 events=10" and the close square bracket.
4. The final text entered in the window will look something like:

[ iCal http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/btlcog@gmail.com/public/basic.ics days=100 events=10 ]

(Delete the space after the open bracket and before the close bracket. This is the data for the BLCOG calendar.)

1. Continue from step 4 above, you must revisit the settings for the AmR Widget (Appearance / Widgets) and enter the name of your page (from step 2 above) into the “Calendar Page URL” field. NOTE: only enter the name of the page (e.g., “Events”) and not the entire URL.
2. Save the widget and close
3. Visit your home page and your new “Events” page should be available. Click on it to assure that it works.

As with the Widget, you can edit the manner that the events are displayed by making slight changes to the configuration. Visit the plugin homepage for instructions.

Finally, we can create another page on your blog that displays the calendar much the same as the online Google Calendar page. Here are the steps to do that.

(NOTICE: With the newest version of WordPress, this function does not seem to work. Whenever you press “Save Draft” or “Publish” button, the code disappears and the page will not be displayed. I will return to this article when I find a resolution to the problem. In the mean time, if it works for you, enjoy. If not, just delete the page.)

1. Sign in to the dashboard of your blog & click on PAGE / Create New
2. Enter the Title for the page… e.g.,  Calendar
3. In the editor, click on the HTML tab
4. Copy the “Imbed Code” from the saved document & paste it into the window
5. Click on the VISUAL tab & you should see your Google Calendar in the window
6. Click “Publish” and you are finished.

You should see the page listed when you visit the home page of your site. Click on the Calendar page and it should display.

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If your church or organization has a Google Calendar then you need to take it to the next level

The next step is to share your calendar with the people who need to know about the events. Here are the steps to sharing your calendar:

1. Sign in to your calendar.
2. Click on the “Settings” link in the upper right of the page
3. Click on the “Calendars” tab
4. Under the “Sharing” heading, click on the “Share This Calendar“
5. Click on “Make This Calendar Public” and press SAVE  (I told you to get a Gmail account specifically for your organization)
6. Answer YES to the query about “Are you sure?”
7. Under the “Calendar” tab again, click on the email address for your calendar
8. Open a blank text document to paste info into.
9. Copy the address in the “Calendar Name” field and paste it into the document and save the document.
10. Under the “Calendar Details” enter your calendar’s information into the fields if you wish to change anything.
11. In the “Embed This Calender” block, copy the code from the field at the right side and paste it into the document and save again. This code can be included in the HTML code of a web page to display the current calendar.
12. In the “Calendar Address” block, Click on the “ICAL” button and copy the address that is displayed then paste it into your document and save once again.
13. Press the “SAVE” button at the bottom of the page to save any changes made to the page.
14. You may now sign out of your calendar.

Secure the text document that you created. You will use that information to share you calendar.

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The GOOGLE CALENDAR reminds us of upcoming events

Google’s online calendar application is free, full-featured and it allows a lot of flexibility in scheduling. You can schedule a 5-minute event if you want. You can schedule recurring events (annual, monthly, weekly and even odd recurrences. You can create an event that occurs monthly, on the same day of the month or, on the same day of the week each month!

Google also allows you to invite others to an event and notes when they RSVP (or don’t). It will send alerts to your email or send a text to your cellphone.

The calendar is also in a format that allows it to be shared with others (you can select whether an event is to be private or shared). You can combine your calendar with other calendars (such as national holidays or another worker or organization). You can even allow others to create or edit events on your calendar if you want. It also syncs with most newer smartphones. This allows you to add or change events even when you are away from your computer.

That is a great combination for a church or business that has a problem with maintaining a central calendar and avoiding scheduling conflicts. It is especially valuable to organizations who want to publish their upcoming events on their web site.

So, how do I create a Google Calendar? If you do not already have a Google account SPECIFICALLY FOR YOUR CHURCH OR ORGANIZATION, then visit Google and get started… HERE. Note, you can sign up for a Google account using your existing (non-gmail) email address but I STRONGLY urge you to sign up for a GMAIL account in the name of your organization. It will provide many additional services.

After you have created an account, sign in at google.com/calendar and the site will walk you through the basics. Be sure to visit the SETTINGS link (upper right corner of the page) and review all of the options available to you.

Then go to the next article in this series…

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