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How to Sync Your Outlook Calendar to Gipper

  • Updated

Connect Outlook Calendar to Gipper with an iCal link, and your games and events flow into AutoCreate automatically, always up to date, with nothing to re-type.

 

This feature is available for:

  • All roles
  • All plans

 

Table of Contents

 

Rather watch than read? Check out the video walkthrough.

 

How It Works

If you keep your team's schedule in Outlook, you never have to type a game into Gipper again. Outlook can hand you an iCal link, which is a live feed of your schedule. You paste that link into Gipper once, and from then on every game and event syncs into AutoCreate on its own, ready for your graphics and updated whenever your schedule changes. Setup takes just a few minutes.

Gipper Tip!

  • Everything on the calendar you connect will appear in AutoCreate, so use a calendar dedicated to your team's events. If you add it as a Workspace calendar, everyone in your Workspace can see those events too.

 

If You Don't Already Use Outlook Calendar

This section is for you if you type your schedule into Outlook yourself, or you're moving your schedule out of a spreadsheet and into a calendar for the first time. (If your calendar fills in automatically from your scheduling platform, you can skip this.)

AutoCreate pulls four things from every event on your connected calendar: the title, the date, the start time, and the location. If one of those is missing from an event, it will be missing from your graphics too.

Three rules keep everything clean:

1. Title every event as Sport + vs or at + Opponent. Gipper reads "vs" and "at" to tell home games from away games.

Women's Soccer vs Buffalo ("vs" means home)
Women's Soccer at Pepperdine ("at" means away)

Keep the title to just the sport and opponent. The city, state, or venue goes in the location field, not the title. For a tournament round where you don't know your opponent yet, skip "vs" and use a dash: Women's Soccer - Patriot League Quarterfinals.

2. Set a real start time. The start time on the event is the time shown on your graphics, so never use TBD or a placeholder. If the time isn't announced yet, make it an all-day event and edit it once the time is set. Your calendar is a live feed, so the update flows into Gipper automatically.

3. Fill in the location on every event, including away games. The location field is what appears as the venue on your graphics. Use your venue name for home games (Beyer-Small '76 Field) and the city and state for away games (Malibu, Calif.).

Entering a whole season at once? You don't have to type events into Outlook one at a time. The next section covers bringing in your full schedule in one step.

 

Get Your Season into Outlook

If your schedule is already on the calendar you use in Outlook, skip ahead to Copy Your iCal Link from Outlook. If it isn't there yet, there are two ways in, depending on what you're starting with.

Gipper Tip!

  • Before you import, create a calendar just for this team or program (in your Outlook calendar, click Add calendar > Create blank calendar). Everything on the calendar you connect will show up in Gipper, so keep team events on their own calendar.

 

If You Have a Schedule File (.ics)

Many scheduling platforms let you export your season as a calendar file, called an .ics or iCal file. If you have one:

  1. In your Outlook calendar, click Add calendar in the left pane, then Upload from file.
  2. Click Browse and select your .ics file.
  3. Choose the calendar to add the events to (your team calendar from the tip above), then click Import.
     

If Your Schedule Is in a Spreadsheet

Start with our template so your events come in formatted the way AutoCreate expects:

  1. Open the Gipper AutoCreate Schedule Template and make your own copy (File > Make a copy).
  2. On the Schedule Template tab, enter one row per game or event, following the three rules above.
  3. Delete the gray example rows when you're done.
  4. Click the Gipper tab in the top toolbar > Download schedule as .ics in the menu bar. Your schedule downloads as a calendar file. You may need to approve permissions to move forward.
  5. Follow the steps in If You Have a Schedule File (.ics) to upload that file to Outlook.

Important Note

  1. After you import, make all schedule changes directly in Outlook (time changes, cancellations, new games). Your calendar is a live feed into Gipper, so edits sync automatically.
  2. Don't re-import the file to make changes: importing again creates duplicate events.

 

Copy Your iCal Link from Outlook

These steps work in Outlook on the web, Outlook.com, and the new Outlook for Windows, which all share the same settings. If you use classic Outlook on your desktop, sign in at outlook.com (or outlook.office.com for school accounts) and follow the same steps there. Your calendar is the same in both places.

  1. Open your Outlook calendar and click the Settings gear in the top right.
  2. Go to Calendar > Shared calendars.
  3. Under Publish a calendar, select the calendar you want to sync, set the permissions dropdown to Can view all details, and click Publish.
  4. Two links appear: an HTML link and an ICS link. Click the ICS link, then click Copy.

Important Note

  1. Choose Can view all details when you publish. The other options hide event titles or details, and AutoCreate needs the full event to build your graphics.
  2. The ICS link works without making your calendar public, but treat it like a password: anyone with the link can see the calendar's events.

Gipper Tip! 

  • Using a school or work Microsoft account? Your admin may have restricted calendar publishing. If you don't see the option under Shared calendars, ask your IT team to allow it.

 

Add the Link to Gipper

  1. In Gipper, click AutoCreate in the left sidebar, then open the Calendars tab.
  2. Click Add iCal under Personal (visible just to you) or Workspace (visible to everyone in your Workspace; Admins only).
  3. Name your calendar (for example, "Team Schedule"), paste your link, and click Continue.
  4. Preview your events, then click Add events.

That's it! Your schedule now lives in AutoCreate. For the full walkthrough, see our article on How to Connect Your Schedule to Gipper with an iCal Link.

Gipper Tip!

  • Your iCal link is a live feed, so changes in Outlook sync to Gipper automatically. You can also click Refresh calendar in Gipper anytime for an instant update.


 

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, please contact our team by emailing support@gogipper.com or calling (929) 207-8459.

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