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Calendar subscriptions
Publish calendars to the web
Build custom feed URLs
URL parameters

Customize calendar feeds

When you publish your calendar, 25Live Publisher generates RSS, Atom (XML), iCalendar (ICS), Comma Separated Value (CSV), and JSON feeds that visitors can access from your calendar. Visitors can subscribe to a feed to get notified of your calendar updates as soon as you make them. They can download the ICS or CSV feeds to a file that they can then import into their own calendar or CSV-compatible programs.

By default, a calendar's feed shows six months of event information starting from the current day. This topic describes how to edit the date range and number of events that are sent through each feed.

Developer Note This topic describes editing default feed settings used when calendar visitors subscribe to a calendar feed. You can also Build custom feed URLs that override these default settings.

To customize default feeds

  1. In your 25Live editing environment, select your published calendar, and then click Publish Settings to open the Publishing Control Panel.
  2. Click the Feeds tab, locate the feed you want to customize, and then click Edit Settings & Styles.
  3. On the Edit Settings page, select the Feed Options you want:
    • Start date and End date These settings are not as straightforward as they may seem and it's worthwhile to give some thought to the time period you want your feeds to cover.

      For example, suppose you publish the annual calendar for the National Football League two months before the season actually begins. Avid fans will immediately begin subscribing to the feed. If the feed you provide covers events that take place starting in the current week and ending five weeks later, the feed will be empty and fans will be frustrated and confused. By changing the default start and end dates, you can provide fans with the season schedule information they need.

    • Maximum number of events Set the maximum number of events to include within the start and end date range.
    • Ongoing events Select to include multi-day and ongoing events that begin before and end after the start date.
    • (RSS and Atom feeds only) Include event template field, custom event fields, and web links Select Yes to include these fields in the body of each event in the feed.
    • (iCal, RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds only) Include HTML If you used HTML formatting in the Notes or other multi-line custom event fields, selecting Yes preserves the HTML formatting. Events will display with formatting in feed readers that support HTML tags.

      If you feed event data to Twitter or other services that show HTML tags rather than the formatted result, select No.

      For the iCal feed, it's usually best to select No. Many calendar programs, including Microsoft Office Outlook, display the HTML tags rather than the formatted result.

    • (RSS feeds only) Include xCal data If you're using the RSS feed for reverse publishing, you might want to select Yes. Learn more about adding xCal event information to your RSS feed.
    • (CSV feed only) Include Event ID field Select Yes to include an Event ID field in the published calendar CSV feeds. By default, the Include Event ID field is set to No.
  4. (RSS and Atom feeds only) Publish Date Source By default, each feed event includes the event's date/time information.

    You can opt to include an additional publish date. The source for that date can be either the event's start date or the date the event was added or changed.

    You might want to include a publish date if many of your events are ongoing or if you frequently add new and update existing events.

  5. (RSS and Atom feeds only) Date/Time Options, Image Settings, Inline Images, and Custom Field Icons These options affect the appearance and content of the events in your feed. Take the time to select options that make your feeds look the way you want.

    Tip Under Image Settings, if you set Show Image to Yes but, in your feeds, you're not seeing the images you expect, try switching the Image Type setting to Event Image.

  6. (JSON feed only) Allowed websites This option allows access to web pages from an outside domain, using Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS).

    Enter a comma-delimited list of the allowed website URLs (domains), from which javascript can access the 25Live JSON feed.

    Important http vs https are separate domains, and must be listed separately.

  7. Click OK.
  8. Back in the Custom Feed Settings list, at the bottom left of each feed description, click Preview.

    How and whether or not a feed preview displays depends upon:

    • The browser you're using, and the browser version.
    • Whether or not you have added an RSS reader extension, if the browser requires one.
    • For iCal feeds, whether or not you have a calendar program, such as Microsoft® Office Outlook®, installed that opens .ics files.
    • For CVS feeds, whether or not you have a compatible program, such as Microsoft® Office Excel®, installed that opens .csv files.
    • Which feed type you're trying to preview. Most browsers can't preview Atom feeds.

    Tip For RSS or Atom feeds, you can also preview a feed by copying the feed URL and using the URL to subscribe to the feed from within the feed reader you typically use.