Sharing Your Band's Calendar

Once you've started entering events into BandHelper, you can use it as the source to populate other calendar software or websites.

Jump to section: Showing Events in Other Calendar Software | Showing Events On Your Website

Showing Events in Other Calendar Software

Calendar software that uses the iCalendar format can display your BandHelper events. This allows you to see your band's events and your personal events on a single calendar. Here are instructions for setting up a few common systems. If you notice that these instructions have become outdated, please .

You can exclude categories of events from the iCal feed by going to Events > Categories > [category name] and turning off the Include in iCalendar Feed setting. You can include additional event info in the iCal feed by going to Events > Custom Fields > [custom field name] and turning on the Include in iCalendar Feed setting.

Apple Calendar (Mac)

  1. Go to the Settings > Account Sync page on the BandHelper website.
  2. In the iCalendar URLs section, select and copy the Secure URL.
  3. Open the Calendar app and select File > New Calendar Subscription.
  4. Paste the URL from step 2 and click Continue.
  5. When prompted, enter your BandHelper username and password.
  6. When prompted, enter a display name (e.g., BandHelper, or your band's name).
  7. Your BandHelper events scheduled for the next year should appear in a moment.

Apple Calendar (iOS)

  1. Go to the Settings > Account Sync page on the BandHelper website.
  2. In the iCalendar URLs section, select and copy the Secure URL.
  3. Open the Settings app on your iOS device and select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
  4. Tap Add Account, then tap Other.
  5. In the Calendars section, tap Add Subscribed Calendar.
  6. Paste the URL from step 2 into the Server field and tap Next.
  7. When prompted, enter your BandHelper username and password and tap Next.
  8. Tap Save.
  9. Open the Calendar app. Your BandHelper events scheduled for the next year should appear there.

Google Calendar (web)

  1. Go to the Admin > Users page on the BandHelper website.
  2. If it is not already set, set the time zone for your user account.
  3. Go to the Settings > Account Sync page on the BandHelper website and look at the iCalendar URLs section.
  4. Select and copy the Open URL. Since Google Calendar does not support authentication, you should not share this URL with anyone.
  5. Open Google Calendar in your web browser and look for Other Calendars in the left column.
  6. Click the menu button to the right of the Other Calendars heading and select Add by URL.
  7. Paste the URL from step 2 and click Add Calendar.
  8. Your BandHelper events scheduled for the next year should appear in a moment.
  9. Click the menu button to the right of the new calendar item and select Calendar Settings.
  10. Change the Calendar Name to a display name (e.g., BandHelper, or your band's name) and click Save.

Google Calendar doesn't support floating times, so all times will be relative to the user's time zone defined in BandHelper and will shift if the user views the calendar from a different location.

Google Calendar doesn't update very often and you can't manually refresh it, so events added to BandHelper might not appear on the Google Calendar for a day or more.

Outlook Calendar (web)

  1. Go to the Settings > Account Sync page on the BandHelper website.
  2. In the iCalendar URLs section, select and copy the Open URL. Since Outlook Calendar does not support authentication, you should not share this URL with anyone.
  3. Open Outlook Calendar in your web browser.
  4. Click the Add Calendar menu and select From Internet.
  5. Paste the URL from step 2 into the Link field.
  6. Enter a display name into the Name field (e.g., BandHelper, or your band's name), then click Save.
  7. Your BandHelper events scheduled for the next year should appear in a moment.

Showing Events On Your Website

If you manage your band's website, you can set it up to automatically show your upcoming events as you enter them into BandHelper.

  1. Go to the Admin > Website Widgets page on the BandHelper website.
  2. In the Calendar Widget section, select a layout style. The Table layout is better for a full-page display with a long list of events. The Paragraphs layout is better for a narrower display or a shorter list of events.
  3. Enter a future range in months. This will determine how far in advance events will be displayed.
  4. Enter a No Events Message, which will appear on your website when you have no upcoming events, and click Save.
  5. Select and copy the Widget Code.
  6. Edit one of your website pages and paste the code you just copied.
  7. Go to the Schedule > Events page on the BandHelper website and click the Edit button for a future event.
  8. Click the Include In Website Widget checkbox. The fields that will be shared through the website widget will become highlighted; you can adjust their values if needed. The event must also be marked as Confirmed to appear on your website. Then click Save. Repeat this step as needed.
  9. If this is a private event like a wedding or house party, you can also click the Hide Details checkbox
    10. when editing an event. Then only the name "Private Event" and the date and time will appear on your website.
  10. View your web page, and the events you set to Include In Website Widget and Confirmed that are scheduled within the Future Range should appear.
  11. The widget will use the date format of the active administrator who was added to the account the earliest. If you do not see the desired date format in the widget, you can edit the general settings for that user.
  12. To add more info to the widget, you can go to Schedule > Custom Fields, add some custom fields and click their Include In Website Widget checkboxes. Then on the event edit pages, you can enter info into these fields.
  13. If you paste only a URL into a custom field or the Notes field, then it will appear as a link, with the same name as the field. For example, if you create a custom field named "Tickets" and then paste a ticket purchase URL into it, a link named "Tickets" will appear in the widget display.
  14. You don't need to add a custom field for the venue address, because that's already included on the event edit page (for Basic accounts) or the contact edit page for a linked contact (for Plus and Pro accounts).
  15. To customize the appearance of the widget, you can edit your website stylesheet. For the Table layout, you can set styles for table.bandhelper_events, table.bandhelper_events tr and table.bandhelper_events td. For the Paragraphs layout, you can set styles for div.bandhelper_events and div.bandhelper_events p. You can also override the bandhelper_cancelled and bandhelper_cancelled_label classes for cancelled events.

If you want even more control over the display of your events, you can use the JSON Feed URL included on the widget setup page, instead of the widget code. You would then be responsible for parsing and presenting the data as you wish.