Outbound iCal links are links from the Nomad Stays Availability System showing your closed dates in an iCalendar format.
You can share with other iCal compatible technologies and businesses like Google & Microsoft Calendars, Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO etc.
The iCal format allows these other systems to read the Nomad Stays calendar and determine if the room is available for booking or not on any particular night. If Nomad Stays has also inserted an iCal from your primary calendar, then a two-way calendaring system comes into effect. This means the calendars from both systems can be in sync.
Any room that has exactly 1 room available will get a Nomad Stays outbound iCal link.
- By default, all Stays using the Boutique system will only ever have 1 room available.
- Stays using the Commercial System will only have an iCal on room types that have exactly 1 room available.
Commercial Model users that have multiple rooms will not have access iCal links due to the limitations of iCal format.
Background
iCal sharing is a common way that OTAs like Nomads Stays, booking.com, Airbnb, VRBO and others, share room availability with each other.
It means that when one OTA closes off a room then the others will also receive the iCal feed and be able to record the same room as being closed, on the same dates, for the same room.
Finding Your Nomad Stays iCal Link
Nomad Stays publishes an iCal URL for each room listed under our Boutique room system.
Your iCal URLs can be found on the Rooms Page of your Stay Dashboard. Each room will have a unique iCal URL.
Sample
Example
https://www.nomadstays.com/stayiCal/fkPXm9033HtWOfJ619n2w7Nqi03035g3pqyj58Bhv90339cFyd3k3569/695
Using your Nomad Stays iCal Link
You use this iCal link by:
- Copying the link for your room from your Nomad Stays Dashboard,
- Then, pasting it into the other iCal systems that you use (Airbnb, Booking,com etc.). it will be placed in the room area for the same room on their system.
- Lastly, you should validate or testing that the other system is reading the Nomad Stays iCal information correctly.
Where to Paste the Link
Every platform has its own location to store 'inbound' iCal links from other companies.
You will need to familiarize yourself with the other company's system to know exactly where to place it. Each platform usually has its own Help desk articles to explain where to paste and test these links.
As iCal sharing is done at the 'Room' level the most likely place to be pasting the Nomad Stays link is in the Room Information section for the same room.
Testing the Outbound iCal Link
After pasting and saving the Nomad Stays iCal URL in the other system you should test it.
Note 1: The outbound iCal link will be empty, and fail validation, if there are no blocked dates.
Note 2: It takes approximately 1 hour to generate a working outbound iCal link if you've also given us an Inbound link from your main Calendar Supplier. This is because pull your data from these other systems every hour, and they will remain empty until the first pull at least.
As iCal is a global standard on the internet usually this is quite straight forward.
You can also test that your Nomad Stays iCal URL meets the global standards by using an independent iCal Validator service like that from iCalendar.org
https://icalendar.org/validator.html
What if there is a Problem
Luckily the iCal system is a global standard on the internet.
If there are problems, it is usually because:
- The other platform needs to authorize feeds from Nomad Stays, or
- The other platform wants more information about each blocked night
- The other platform has not implemented their iCal reading technology quite right
To resolve the issues you should
- Contact the other Platform and ask they check out the feed from Nomad Stays
- Also, let us know so that we can help you with more testing.