A subscribed calendar is a way for you to have your personal Offline Offers, Pop Up Offers + Reminders show up automatically in a local calendar. This might be with Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar or iCalendar (for Apple devices).
Once you’ve made that connection between Offline and your calendar, we continuously push out information about your personal Offline content to that local calendar.
At this time Offline will add the following information in your calendar feed
Offer availability each day the active Offers you have are available for
Any Pop Up Offers you have
Offers you've redeemed in the past (they shift from the month you had them to the day you used them)
Generic Offer reminders
How do I subscribe to my calendar?
In our mobile app, you should be prompted to sign up with either GCal, iCal or Outlook. We'll be adding more ways to do this in the near future. Just tap on the calendar program of choice and it should open up the right thing.
What is Offline's role in Subscribed Calendars?
When it comes to your personal Offline Calendar, Offline only controls one piece of a much bigger puzzle. Offline will continuously ‘push’ out information about your membership benefits to the local calendar you use. We are then relying on a steady internet connection and your local calendar to pick up on this information and also to display it correctly.
There are settings on your local calendar that may impact how Offline's information comes through, such as how frequently the calendar is looking for Offline updates.
Why would my calendar subscription not be working correctly?
Calendar subscriptions are a way that Offline can send information to your local calendar app. Once the information is sent, the calendar is a bit more in control. There are a variety of things that can get mixed up. Some of the most common we’ve seen include:
The calendar program does not refresh the subscription often enough. Many of the most commonly used programs refresh once roughly every 24 hours. This includes Google Calendar, but other applications like iCalendar allow you to change this to every 15 minutes.
The URL for the subscription was copied and pasted wrong or an unknown error has occurred with the URL link.
The calendar just isn’t picking up the information Offline is sending. We see this from time to time immediately after software updates on your device.
The local calendars definition of an ‘update’ is different to ours. This is often what happens when your benefit time/ date changes and you don’t see this updated in your local calendar. Many of these applications only update when they “see” a change and sometimes they don’t pick up on these very well.
Whether your calendar is subscribed directly on your device or being synced across something like iCloud. Syncing across a service like iCloud adds another layer to the message Offline's information goes through and can cause delays or miscommunication.
We still have many users with Subscribed Calendars who don’t experience the above, but these are the ones we’ve seen come up in the past.
What can I do if my Subscribed Calendar isn’t working?
The rest of this guide touches on troubleshooting tips for Subscribed Calendars. Keep in mind that we are always checking that Offline is doing its job of pushing out the details of your membership details first, so these tips and tricks are based on our experiences and are not within the scope of Offline itself.
Remove the Subscription and add again
The first step to any troubleshooting with Calendar Subscriptions is to completely remove the subscription and start again from scratch.
Below are steps for removing for different calendar applications. Once you do, you can follow the instructions above to add your calendar feed again.
Google Calendar
First, open up your Google Calendar on your laptop or computer. **On the left-hand side of the calendar, you should be able to see a list of calendar subscriptions. Remove any clinic subscriptions by clicking the X:
In the popup window, click Remove Calendar.
If you’re noticing that there is a delay in updates on your Google Calendar they unfortunately have a limitation to only check calendar subscriptions roughly once per day; Offline is constantly publishing the updated details, but since Google Calendar is only looking for these updates infrequently you may notice a delay in changes displaying on your calendar.
Apple iCalendar (on a Mac):
Within the Calendar app on a Macbook, open the default calendar application and right-click (or Ctrl-click) on the subscription and choose the Unsubscribe option:
iCalendar (on an iPhone):
Go to Calendar -> Calendars (at the bottom) -> Tap the "i" and then click Unsubscribe.
After resubscribing give your calendar about 24 hours to catch up and display all your info.
Also see: Accessing your Calendar