Synchronising your availability calendar between Nomad Stays and other systems relies on 1 of 2 methods:
- A direct Availability API link between Nomad Stays and the other system, or
- Use of the iCalendar (iCal) 'meeting booking' technology developed for the broad internet
Smaller Stays that use our Boutique room management system will find iCal the easiest as iCal works for a physical room. Larger Stays who also offer different booking options for each physical room can also use iCal.
As there are no common internet standards for direct API links between travel industry players each API integration requires custom development.
Using iCal
iCal works by publishing your series of 'bookings' for each physical room/property into a publicly available link using the "ics" software format. Essentially its publishing the dates the room is not available.
Platforms like Nomad Stays can read that public calendar and extract the 'booked' dates and then insert it into their own systems as 'closed dates'.
In Nomad Stays case we read your ics from your other supplier each hour.
We also publish a ics-formatted iCal link for each of our iCal rooms that you can place into other iCal compatible systems. These other platforms will 'pull' the booked dates from Nomad Stays on their own schedule.
With each system now able to 'pull' the list of closed dates from each other the Availability Calendars are now synchronised.
Setting up iCal Sync
Setting up iCal syncing is as simple as inserting the iCal URL into the other system.
You will:
- Send your iCal URL from your primary system to Nomad Stays, and also
- Insert the Nomad Stays URL into the other system (using the the methods the other system as setup)
Inserting into Nomad Stays
To set iCal Syncing please find and send to us the URL of your primary calendaring system. We test and place that into the Room record of each of your rooms. Within 1 hour our system pulls your 'closed dates' from your primary calendar supplier.
We have a series of 'How to Find your iCal" help articles for major platforms here
Getting your Outbound iCal URL
Our system also produces a Nomad Stays iCal URL for each of your iCal rooms (outbound ical).
You can get this Outbound iCal URL from the Rooms area of your Stay Dashboard.
You can then paste this into your other system(s) according to how that system works.
The other system then has the ability to 'pull' your closed dates from Nomad Stays. How often they do this is up to their own procedures. (Nomad Stays pulls from all other iCal systems each 1 hour).