Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem, or knows how to fix it. Sorry if there has already been a thread on this but I couldn't see one. OD and HA thankfully recently started to allow the Calendar to be linked with our main google calendar, so we didn't need to log in to each site and change it every time we took a booking from elsewhere. Now it seems to manage this fine, and updates frequently (?daily) on the dashboard calendar, however, when we log in to the dashboard, it states that we haven't updated the calendar. So I'm left in the situation that it is synching from google calendar correctly and accurately, but we are not getting 'credit' for it (and hence will suffer in terms of ranking), so I am having to physically log in to the site every week to click on the 'calendar is up to date' button.
I hope this makes sense!
Calendar synching on HA and OD
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Astorchamonix
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kevsboredagain
- Posts: 3207
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- Location: France
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When a site does an iCal import Synch it will import the whole of the calendar again; some sites will replace the old calendar with the new one (easiest), others will process the differences and add or delete them to the existing calendar - If there are no differences then the the old calendar will remain unaltered. If there are no updates to the calendar then some sites will deem that the calendar has not been changed and therefore not updated, leaving the date unchanged too (this is what HA do).
Sites like HA are much more sophisticated because they have booking on-line; so, they have to preserve the information about their own bookings and not have a calendar synch override them. This is why you may see two different coloured "block offs" on your calendar - one for on-line and one for synched, they will overlap. They will only update the calendar date if they have a booking on-line or if there is a difference in the imported calendar.
Sites like HA are much more sophisticated because they have booking on-line; so, they have to preserve the information about their own bookings and not have a calendar synch override them. This is why you may see two different coloured "block offs" on your calendar - one for on-line and one for synched, they will overlap. They will only update the calendar date if they have a booking on-line or if there is a difference in the imported calendar.
"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note"
"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise"
"As for my amnesia, I've had it as long as I can remember"
Real name: Steve
Gender: Male
"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise"
"As for my amnesia, I've had it as long as I can remember"
Real name: Steve
Gender: Male
Ahem, surely having to login to click that your calendar is up to date rather defeats the purpose of automation by iCal? 
It appears to me that HomeAway require you to login and click update, whereas Trip Advisor/HL seem to mark your calendar as updated each time an iCal is imported. Hard to tell what other sites do and, of course, we don't really know the extent to which an updated calendar is used in the search results ordering
It appears to me that HomeAway require you to login and click update, whereas Trip Advisor/HL seem to mark your calendar as updated each time an iCal is imported. Hard to tell what other sites do and, of course, we don't really know the extent to which an updated calendar is used in the search results ordering
** Richard
PIMS: Holiday Rental Management system
They say we learn from our mistakes. That makes me a genius !
PIMS: Holiday Rental Management system
They say we learn from our mistakes. That makes me a genius !
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AngloDutch
- Posts: 727
- Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:25 pm
- Location: Netherlands
Thought I would bring this thread back to life instead of creating yet another on iCal synchronising.
We had been synchronising between TA (HL/FK), ABB, ODC and VR for quite a while.
A few weeks ago we decided to link the following from our HA calendar:
OD
ABB
FK
CS
HT
HL
ODC (Owner Direct com)
HE (Homeescape)
UG (UGuest)
VR
We have a new booking that came in last night and I have just updated the calendar at HA this morning.
I went over to OD to check on whether the calendar block that I made last week on our HA calendar had come through alright there.
As Essar says above, there are 2 lines on our OD calendar now, showing the original manual blocking on OD for our former bookings as well as the imported calendar info from HA. The single lines show imported calendar information from HA for new bookings only since the switch to iCal, with no extra manual update on OD.
The new update from what I had just entered on HA hadn't come through yet on OD, but the import for the booking from last week (booking for 17-24 June) is showing completely incorrect on our OD calendar now.
It is showing booked from 17-20 June, which means if I hadn't checked, someone could have booked on OD and had a confirmation for the midweek from 20-24 June.
When I click on the single line showing that these 3 nights are reserved, 'Homeaway' is shown in the popup, confirming that this is the import from our HA Calendar.
Was then the calendar incorrectly blocked on HA? I have just checked and HA shows the correct block from 17-24 June.
Then went to ABB - their calendar has the correct 17-24 June block, and after I refreshed the calendar importation on our ABB dashboard, the new block from 10-17 June which I have just done this morning on HA shows up correctly as well.
It seems that the HA-OD synchronisation cannot be trusted. What about the other 8 sites where we are using iCal? Because we are relying on 10 sites to correctly import data from HA, which is not being correctly imported on the first site we checked.
So, I would advise everyone who uses iCal to check whether the calendars are being blocked correctly on their other sites, especially those where you are set up for instant booking confirmations before you end up with a double booking....
We had been synchronising between TA (HL/FK), ABB, ODC and VR for quite a while.
A few weeks ago we decided to link the following from our HA calendar:
OD
ABB
FK
CS
HT
HL
ODC (Owner Direct com)
HE (Homeescape)
UG (UGuest)
VR
We have a new booking that came in last night and I have just updated the calendar at HA this morning.
I went over to OD to check on whether the calendar block that I made last week on our HA calendar had come through alright there.
As Essar says above, there are 2 lines on our OD calendar now, showing the original manual blocking on OD for our former bookings as well as the imported calendar info from HA. The single lines show imported calendar information from HA for new bookings only since the switch to iCal, with no extra manual update on OD.
The new update from what I had just entered on HA hadn't come through yet on OD, but the import for the booking from last week (booking for 17-24 June) is showing completely incorrect on our OD calendar now.
It is showing booked from 17-20 June, which means if I hadn't checked, someone could have booked on OD and had a confirmation for the midweek from 20-24 June.
When I click on the single line showing that these 3 nights are reserved, 'Homeaway' is shown in the popup, confirming that this is the import from our HA Calendar.
Was then the calendar incorrectly blocked on HA? I have just checked and HA shows the correct block from 17-24 June.
Then went to ABB - their calendar has the correct 17-24 June block, and after I refreshed the calendar importation on our ABB dashboard, the new block from 10-17 June which I have just done this morning on HA shows up correctly as well.
It seems that the HA-OD synchronisation cannot be trusted. What about the other 8 sites where we are using iCal? Because we are relying on 10 sites to correctly import data from HA, which is not being correctly imported on the first site we checked.
So, I would advise everyone who uses iCal to check whether the calendars are being blocked correctly on their other sites, especially those where you are set up for instant booking confirmations before you end up with a double booking....
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Hells Bells
- Posts: 13173
- Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 8:42 am
- Location: French Alps
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HA is new to the iCAL game; previously having just a bespoke system of calendar importing. There are differences in the way HA works to other listing sites. HA export will only update bookings made on their own site and any changes to an imported calendar since the last update (once every 24-hours). This is why AB & HT works fine and is the "standard". OD import should work exactly the same as HA import; however, if you have an HA UK upgrade that includes OD you do not need to have calendar import enabled on OD as HA takes care of it internally. If you have the OD upgrade that includes HA then you should be using OD as the primary iCAL export site and not HA as HA will not update OD using the iCAL export (OD overwrites it each time).
The "calendar up to date" thingy on all HA sites are not updated by iCAL - I have sent then 2 fault reports for this, neither of which have been answered after the initial acknowledgment.
The "calendar up to date" thingy on all HA sites are not updated by iCAL - I have sent then 2 fault reports for this, neither of which have been answered after the initial acknowledgment.
"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note"
"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise"
"As for my amnesia, I've had it as long as I can remember"
Real name: Steve
Gender: Male
"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise"
"As for my amnesia, I've had it as long as I can remember"
Real name: Steve
Gender: Male