Smartsheet calendar in google calendar for non-smartsheet users; changes not reflected

Xenia Tulupova

I'm trying to find a way to add a smartsheet calendar to my team's google calendar where if I make changes to the event dates on the smartsheet calendar, they would also be reflected in google calendar. If my team subscribes to the smartsheet calendar via URL, they don't see changes made after they've subscribed to it. My team does not have smartsheet licenses.

P.S. I can publish the ss calendar in my own google calendar, but don't see a way to do it for a broader team where changes to the calendar would be reflected for them.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Xenia Tulupova

How are you adding the calendar to your Google calendar? The way I would do this is to use the specific Publish to Google Calendar link from the Calendar View in Smartsheet (see: Publish to Your Google Calendar).

It sounds like you may have done that, based on your PS note. Then once you have the Calendar in Google, you can share this specific Calendar out to anyone, regardless of if they have a Smartsheet account or not.

See Google's article on this: Share your calendar with someone

Then as you make changes to your Smartsheet sheet, these updates should automatically appear in your Google Calendar, and anyone shared to it should see the updates. Keep in mind it may take a few minutes for the Calendar to refresh with your new data.

Let me know if this works for you!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Genevieve P.

Hi @Xenia Tulupova

How are you adding the calendar to your Google calendar? The way I would do this is to use the specific Publish to Google Calendar link from the Calendar View in Smartsheet (see: Publish to Your Google Calendar).

It sounds like you may have done that, based on your PS note. Then once you have the Calendar in Google, you can share this specific Calendar out to anyone, regardless of if they have a Smartsheet account or not.

See Google's article on this: Share your calendar with someone

Then as you make changes to your Smartsheet sheet, these updates should automatically appear in your Google Calendar, and anyone shared to it should see the updates. Keep in mind it may take a few minutes for the Calendar to refresh with your new data.

Let me know if this works for you!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Xenia Tulupova

Excellent, thanks for the tip! It works like a charm.

Greg Nash

I'm having the same problem, except that my organization uses Outlook. I'm trying to publish the Smartsheet so that my colleagues can view it on their calendars. I can share it with them, but it updates for me and not for them.

It sounds like this workaround works for Google Calendar, but not for Outlook. In Outlook, I can share my personal calendar (IT does not block this capability), but I cannot share the calendar that I just added using SmartSheet's publication.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Greg Nash

How are you sharing the calendar with your colleagues?

You should be able to provide them with the Published iCal link from your sheet. They can then add this to their Outlook by selecting "Add Calendar" then pasting in your publish link to the "Subscribe from Web" option. (See: Import or subscribe to a calendar in Outlook on the web).

If they subscribe to your calendar in this way then any changes you make to the source sheet will reflect in their calendars as well. The calendar data will be refreshed at the frequency specified in the external calendar program (there may be a delay). When I tested on my own external Outlook calendar it took about 10 minutes for the changes to pull through, but the calendar did update. See: Publish a Smartsheet Calendar to iCal.

I hope this helps!

Genevieve

Xenia Tulupova

As a followup question on the shared Smartsheet calendar in Google Calendar, is there a way to add event details in Smartsheet that will reflect in google calendar instead of the standard description language:

"This event was published from the Smartsheet named "Sheet Name". Click here to edit the Smartsheet item: https://urlabc

Note: any changes made to this event in Google Calendar will not be reflected in Smartsheet; use the above link to make changes that will appear in Smartsheet and Google Calendar."

I can see where I can edit the event description in my google calendar (understand it won't show up in Smartsheet) is there a way to do it at the source?

Thanks

Genevieve P.

Hi @Xenia Tulupova

No, currently the only data that pulls across is the Date and the details in the Primary Column as the event name. You can update the description in Google, but there currently isn't a way to make that edit in Smartsheet and have it push to your Google Calendar.

Please let our Product Team know about your suggestion and request by contacting them through this form, here!

Thanks,

Genevieve

Greg Nash

Hi @Genevieve P

I'm sharing the calendar with my colleagues in the way that you suggest and I'm also publishing the SmartSheet to my own calendar in the same way. My colleagues do no have SmartSheet licenses, so they cannot create new SmartSheets, but I gave them access to edit the data on the sheet. They were complaining to me that their calendars are static and that the edits that the make are not appearing in their Outlook calendars. However, their edits do update in my Outlook calendar.

Based on my searching, and also from the original answer to this question, I was under the impression that the calendar only updates for people who have a SmartSheet license. Once we get this working and my colleagues are able to see the updates in their Outlook calendars, we'll also share the calendar with their employees (who also don't have SmartSheet licenses). If we're not able to figure this out, we'll stop using SmartSheet to solve this problem and instead put the data directly into a shared Outlook calendar. However, it would be my preference to use SmartSheet so that I can access the data in other SmartSheets that I might create in the future.