Calendar feeds (iCal / webcal)

Deckchair publishes your approved leave as iCal feeds, so it shows up in whatever calendar app you already use. The feeds refresh in the background — no syncing, no buttons to press.

Where to find your feeds

On the web, click your avatar in the top-right and choose Calendar feeds. In the mobile app, open Preferences → Calendar feeds. You’ll see up to four personal feeds:

Feed	What it contains
My leave	Your own approved leave. Good for blocking out your working calendar.
Leave I approve	Approved leave for anyone who lists you as their approver, or members of a department you manage who don’t have a specific approver. Only appears useful if you’re an approver or manager.
Department leave	Approved leave across your own department.
Company leave	Approved leave across the whole organization. If your admin has hidden other departments, non-admins only see their own department.

Each feed has a single webcal:// URL. Click Subscribe and your OS will offer to add it to your default calendar app, or paste the URL into any calendar app that asks for a subscription URL.

Subscribing

Apple Calendar (macOS / iOS)

1. macOS: click Subscribe — Calendar opens with the URL prefilled — or Calendar → File → New Calendar Subscription and paste the URL.
2. iOS: tap Subscribe — iOS offers to add the feed — or Settings → Calendar → Accounts → Add Account → Other → Add Subscribed Calendar, paste the URL.

You can choose the refresh interval (e.g. every 15 minutes) in the subscription settings.

Google Calendar

1. Open Google Calendar on the web.
2. In the left sidebar, next to Other calendars, click + → From URL.
3. Paste the URL from Deckchair and click Add calendar.

Google refreshes subscribed calendars roughly every few hours — it’s not configurable.

Outlook / Microsoft 365

1. Open Outlook on the web.
2. In the calendar view, go to Add calendar → Subscribe from web.
3. Paste the URL, give it a name, and save.

Permissions & privacy

The URLs are tied to you personally and honour the same permissions as the app. If your admin later removes your access to a team or department, the corresponding feed stops returning those events.

Treat feed URLs like passwords. Anyone with the URL can read the leave it exposes. If a URL leaks — for example, you pasted it into a shared document — click Regenerate URL on the calendar feeds page. The old URL stops working immediately and you’ll need to re-subscribe in your calendar app with the new one.

What shows in the calendar

Each approved request becomes one event:

• Full-day leave — all-day event(s) covering the leave.
• Half-day leave — timed event, 09:00–13:00 (AM) or 13:00–17:00 (PM) in your organization’s timezone.
• Event title — {Name} — {Leave type}, e.g. Sam Lee — Annual leave.

Pending and rejected requests do not appear. Cancelled leave disappears on the next refresh.

Troubleshooting

• “This calendar is empty” — you may not have any approved leave yet for that feed. The personal feed only shows your approved leave; the other feeds require appropriate access.
• Changes not showing up — calendar apps cache feeds. Apple and Outlook refresh on a schedule you can set; Google is automatic but can take several hours. Removing and re-adding the subscription forces a refresh.
• URL stopped working — most likely you (or an admin) regenerated it. Grab the new URL from the calendar feeds page (your avatar → Calendar feeds on the web, Preferences → Calendar feeds in the mobile app) and re-subscribe.