LL1
Add-to-calendar feature?
Hi, I'm looking for a recommendation solution to add an "add-to-calendar" feature on the eDM event invites which work for most email clients? Hope anyone can share with me, many thanks
LLLLHi, I'm looking for a recommendation solution to add an "add-to-calendar" feature on the eDM event invites which work for most email clients? Hope anyone can share with me, many thanks
Hello there!
Would you please tell us more specifically how you plan on saving the calendar feature? Are we speaking of mailbox calendars or seperate (iOS and Windows) planner apps?
There is a way to use hyperlinks for triggering Outlook and Google calendar dates (.ics file for Outlook and Google has dynamic URL). I think it is possible to find the solution in each category, however it is up to you how you wish to implement it across traditional mail clients, online mailboxes and so forth.
Some references:
"How to Insert Google Calendar, iCal & Outlook Event Invites Into Your Marketing Emails", Hubspot blog (2014)
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/calendar-invites-ical-outlook-google#sm.000005wu84k9acd3oucn1b0q7h3jt
"Create an Add to calendar link in an email message", Microsoft Knowledge Base Outlook 2010
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-an-Add-to-calendar-link-in-an-email-message-34f8ea28-322a-4867-b423-2998f9634e59
If you are after a universal solution, maybe using an external application would be helpful that allows connect through different agendas.
Hi Stefan, thank you for your response. I'm looking at after one has registered for an event & a confirmation or event reminder email will be sent to the registrants. We are hoping that in the confirmation or event reminder email, we can embed a "add to calendar" feature so that the registrants can add the event in their mailbox calendar. Do you have a recommended soution that all the email clients are supported well?
We have tried to create ical files for users to download but occasionally we have registrants complaining that the event created in their calendar is not at the correct timing, causing them to miss it.
Hi there,
I am unsure of any method that is universal. Mainly because the Outlook calendar differs so much from for example Gmail or Outlook. There might be some way to link calendars out there, but they are probably premium items. This one is free: http://addtocalendar.com/ but it requires you to install a landingpage.
You would get the following flow:
Mind you, the extra step might influence your rates. Perhaps you can strip down the JS and see what method they use for calendars and apply it directly to e-mail?
Although free is great using services like addtocalendar doesn't pay off in the long run. The project is not being maintained and it currently has three out of five options that contain errors / doesn't work.
I can strongly recommend https://www.addevent.com. With AddEvent you can add an "Add to Calendar" button on your website and you can use it in newsletters as well. For newsletters we have two options. You can create an event using our "Event Manager" and embed it into your newsletters or you can use the "Direct URL Method". The "Direct URL Method" is a set of parameters which creates an event on the fly. The method can be used for attaching events to your emails as well (so you'll have the "Add to Calendar" functionality in e.g. Google Calendar).