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Adding a New Calendar (Using iCal Connection)

Last updated on January 20, 2026

Adding a New Calendar (Using iCal Connection)

Vacation Tracker can generate a feed URL for your team's leaves, then any calendar app that speaks iCal — Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Notion, Fantastical, you name it — can subscribe to it. Unlike connecting to a calendar you already own, the iCal route creates a brand-new dedicated calendar in your client.

You want a separate "VT — Engineering" calendar in your Google Calendar that's only the Engineering Department's leaves, layered on top of your usual schedule with its own color. Generate an iCal URL filtered to the Engineering Department, paste it into Google Calendar's "Add by URL" flow, and you've got it.

iCal vs. Shared / Existing Calendar — Pick the Right One

Both flows live behind the same Connect Calendar button on Vacation Tracker, so it's worth being clear on which you want before you start.

iCal (this article) — adds a NEW calendar

Vacation Tracker generates a URL. You paste it into your calendar app, which creates a brand-new subscribed calendar showing the leaves. Available on both Core and Complete, accessible to Admins, Approvers, and Users. Sync delay: up to 24 hours, controlled by Google / Microsoft on their end.

Shared / Existing Calendar — pushes into a calendar you already have

Vacation Tracker writes leaves as events into a Google or Outlook calendar you already own (or have both sharing and editing access to). Requires the Complete plan. Sync delay: a couple of minutes — much faster.

Quick rule of thumb
If you want a brand-new dedicated calendar that you can toggle on and off in your client, use iCal. If you want leaves to show up alongside other events in a calendar your team already checks, use Shared / Existing Calendar.

Generating the iCal URL in Vacation Tracker

  1. Sign in at app.vacationtracker.io.
  2. In the left-hand menu, click Calendar.
  3. At the top of the Calendar page, click Sync with your calendar (Google, Outlook, etc.). You're taken to the Sync Your Team Calendar page.
  4. Click Connect Calendar in the top-left and pick Any calendar (via iCal link) from the dropdown.
  5. (Optional) Use the Filter By field to limit which leaves the feed includes — by Department, Location, or Label. Leaving every filter empty means the feed covers every approved leave for the whole organization.
  6. Click Create iCal link. The next page shows a summary of what's included plus the generated URL.
Connect Calendar dropdown with three options: Google calendar, Outlook calendar, Any calendar (via iCal link)
Create iCal link form with optional Filter By chips (Locations, Departments, Labels)

Copy the URL and you're ready to add it to your calendar app.

Need the URL again later?
Open the same Sync Your Team Calendar page (Calendar → Sync with your calendar). Every iCal link you've created shows up as a row in the table — click the copy icon next to its URL to copy it again, or click the trash icon on the right to remove the connection.

Adding the URL to Your Calendar App

Once you have the iCal URL, the steps depend on which calendar app you're adding it to. Three of the most common:

Google Calendar

  1. Open Google Calendar.
  2. In the left sidebar, find Other calendars and click the + next to it.
  3. Choose From URL (sometimes labeled Add by URL).
  4. Paste the iCal URL Vacation Tracker gave you.
  5. Click Add calendar. Google imports the events — first sync may take up to 24 hours to populate.

Outlook (web / desktop)

  1. Sign in to Outlook and open the Calendar view from the bottom of the navigation pane.
  2. Choose Add Calendar → From Internet.
  3. Paste the iCal URL and confirm.
Outlook 2016 for Mac
Calendar subscription via internet URL isn't available in Outlook 2016 for Mac — that version doesn't support adding feeds this way. Use Outlook for Web, a newer macOS Outlook, or Apple Calendar instead.

Apple Calendar (iCal)

  1. Open Apple Calendar on macOS.
  2. From the menu bar, choose File → New Calendar Subscription.
  3. Paste the iCal URL.
  4. Click Subscribe, give the calendar a name and color, and confirm. The events flow in.
Other calendar apps
Anything that supports iCal subscription (Notion Calendar, Fantastical, Thunderbird, Cron, Proton Calendar, the standard Linux/iOS / Android calendar apps) can take the same URL — the menu wording differs, but the pattern is the same: "Add subscription / Add by URL" and paste.

What's Inside the Feed

  • Approved leaves — current and upcoming, scoped to whatever filters you set when creating the link
  • One event per leave — start date, end date, leave type, and User name (subject to the Hide Leave Type setting on the policy)
  • No pending or denied requests — the feed only carries leaves that are approved

The link works regardless of which integration your Vacation Tracker workspace uses. So a Slack-integrated workspace can hand the URL to a teammate who lives in Outlook, and it just works — there's no per-User authorization, no OAuth, just a public-but-unguessable URL.

Treat the URL like a key
Anyone who has the iCal URL can subscribe to the feed and see whatever leaves it contains. Don't post it in public channels or share it more broadly than you'd share a leave list. If a URL leaks, delete that connection from the Sync Your Team Calendar page and create a fresh one — that revokes the old URL.

Removing the Synced Calendar

Removal happens in two places, depending on what you want gone:

  • To stop the iCal feed entirely (so any subscriber stops getting updates), click the trash icon next to the connection on the Vacation Tracker Sync Your Team Calendar page. The URL becomes invalid, and any calendar subscribed to it stops receiving new events.
  • To just remove the calendar from one client (e.g. drop it from your Google Calendar but keep the link active for others), unsubscribe from inside that calendar app:

Common Questions

That refresh interval is set by Google and Microsoft, not Vacation Tracker. Both providers re-fetch external iCal feeds on their own schedule — typically every few hours up to a day — and Vacation Tracker doesn't have a way to push them to refresh sooner. If you need near-real-time updates, the Shared / Existing Calendar connection (Complete plan) propagates within a couple of minutes because it writes events into the calendar directly via API instead of relying on the consumer to poll a feed.

Technically yes — the URL works for anyone who has it, even if they don't have a Vacation Tracker account. That's useful for sharing to an external partner or a board member who needs visibility but doesn't need access to the dashboard. The trade-off is the URL is the access control: anyone with it can read the feed. Treat it carefully and recreate it if it leaks.

Yes. The feed is dynamic — it re-evaluates the filter against current data on every refresh. So if you add new Users to the Engineering Department, their leaves start showing up in an iCal feed that's filtered to Engineering. The filter scope is locked at creation; if you want to change the filter (e.g. switch from Engineering to All), you'd delete the existing connection and create a new one.

What's Next?

Connecting to a Shared / Existing Calendar How Do I Connect My Personal Calendar to Vacation Tracker? Guide: How Do I Sync My Calendar with Vacation Tracker?
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