Light Blue’s in-built calendar is great for viewing all your Light Blue events, however you may want to also have these events showing in your Outlook Calendar so you can see everything you’re up to in the one place.

The great news is that rather than having to manually duplicate all these events Light Blue creates a calendar feed URL for your chosen Light Blue events which, once you’ve subscribed to, will automatically appear in your Outlook Calendar.

You can also have as many calendar feed URLs as you need! Handy if you want to split the Light Blue events out in particular ways to make them easier to view in Outlook Calendar or, for example, if you want members of your team to only view the Light Blue events applicable to them.

An important point to note is that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your other calendar app won’t be pulled back into Light Blue.

Creating and copying a Calendar Feed

1. In Light Blue Preferences, click on “Integrations”.
2. In the Calendar Feeds tab, click on the “Copy Feed URL” button.

3. From the Detail Level dropdown menu choose the amount of information you want to include in the calendar feed URL.

4. Check which Events, Resources and Shoot Types you want to include and whether you’d like an alarm to be added and click “Done”.

5. Light Blue will then generate the unique calendar feed URL and copy it to your computer’s clipboard.

Subscribing to a Calendar Feed in Outlook

• Open your Outlook Calendar via Outlook.com and in the Navigation Pane chose “Add Calendar” followed by the “Subscribe from web” option.
• Paste in the Light Blue calendar feed URL and click “Import”.
• The chosen settings for your Light Blue events will now automatically appear in your Outlook Calendar and be updated any time you make a change in the Light Blue desktop or iOS app. NB. It’s important to note that Outlook can take up to 24 hours to update calendar feeds and remember that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Google Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue.

👉 This Microsoft help article explains how to import or subscribe to a calendar.

Time Off is a small but powerful feature of Light Blue allowing you to block availability in all the applicable Scheduling Calendars at once, removing the need for you to update them individually. Perfect for giving you back some precious time that you can use elsewhere in your business!

You can block the availability of any Resource you’ve set up in Light Blue; it could be for annual leave or sickness of an individual staff member, your whole team might be attending a workshop or show, or perhaps even one of your rooms or pieces of equipment is out of action.

Setting Time Off

You can access the Time Off dialog box in a couple of ways depending on your preferred way of working:

From the Calendar view

1. Go to the Calendar view.
2. Right-click on the date and time you want to log Time Off.
3. Click “Create Time Off” from the menu options.

In Preferences

1. Go to the Resources section in Preferences.
2. Click on the applicable Resource.
3. Click on “Add Time Off”.

Time Off Details

1. Once you have the Time Off dialog box showing, choose the Time Off Type from the drop-down menu options.
2. Click “Edit” to amend/choose the Resources. NB. If none are chosen Light Blue will automatically apply the Time Off period to all Resources.
3. Complete the time frame.
4. Add a description if needed.
5. Click “Done”; Light Blue now blocks out the availability in any Scheduling Calendars that use this Resource. NB. By default the Scheduling Calendar will use the Resources set in the Shoot/Appointment Type though, if needed, you can override this in the Scheduling Calendar itself.

⭐️ Top Tip: In the “General” section of Preferences you can check the “Warn if Appointments & Time Off Have No Assigned Resources” box for them to appear in red in Light Blue.

Scheduling Conflicts

If there’s already a Shoot or Appointment linked to the Time Off period for a Resource, the Record/s will appear in Light Blue in red. This will also happen with any Shoot or Appointment manually booked during this time.

1. Go the Linked Records tab of the Record and click on the green “+” button.
2. From the menu options choose “Existing Resource…” and amend accordingly.

Amending Time Off

1. If you need to amend any Time Off entries go to the Calendar view.
2. Double-click on the applicable Time Off entry and amend accordingly.

In Light Blue’s Calendar view you can see your availability at a glance so it’s ideal for finding the gaps in your diary where a shoot could be booked in.

And as it’s so straightforward to directly book a shoot in from there, it’s a perfect solution if you’re not using either our Scheduling Calendars or a third-party app (linked to Light Blue via Zapier) to book your shoots.

Booking a brand new shoot

• Simply click on the “Calendar” section of Light Blue to view what you’ve got on. NB. If you’ve set up your Shoot and Appointment Types with different colours it’s super easy to see at a glance what type of activity is in your diary.
• Find a date and time that suits you and your client and, whilst holding your mouse there, right-click.
• From the drop-down menu, choose “Create Shoot”; in the example below we’ve gone for Thursday 1st June at 2 pm.

• Start to type the name of your client in the “Linked Contacts” field.
• If you already have a Contact Record for them, their full details will appear and you can select their details by clicking on them.
• If they’re a new client, you can click the “Add New Contact” button to create a Contact Record for them.

• Complete the rest of the details in the Shoot Record.
• If you know how your client found you, it’s great to fill in the “Enquiry Source” field so you can track the performance of your marketing activity. And if you’ve set up Default Workflows for different Shoot Types these will automatically be populated.
• Click “Save”.

• And you can now see the new Shoot Record.

Adding a session to an existing shoot

• Simply click on the “Calendar” section of Light Blue to view what you’ve got on. NB. If you’ve set up your Shoot and Appointment Types with different colours it’s super easy to see at a glance what type of activity is in your diary.
• Find a date and time that suits you and your client and, whilst holding your mouse there, right-click.
• From the drop-down menu, choose “Add a New Session to An Existing Shoot”; in the example below we’ve gone for Tuesday 30th May at 1 pm..

• Start to type the name of the shoot and pick the relevant Shoot Record from the Records shown.
• Click “Link”.

• And the new Session is now showing in the Shoot Record.

• If you’ve added a session to a Shoot that’s an Enquiry, rather than Confirmed; perhaps because you’ve wanted to offer your client a few options, when they’ve picked the one they want simply right-click on the chosen date and choose “Set Status to Confirmed” from the drop-down menu.

• Confirm the change in Shoot Status.

• And whether you want to delete the other Session or not.

Further guides

👉 If you’re not familiar with your way around Light Blue’s built-in Calendar you can find an overview here.
👉 If you are interested in using our Scheduling Calendars this guide shows you how.
👉 This guide gives you an introduction to Zapier.
👉 And if you’re interested in setting up default workflows this article will help with that.

Linking Light Blue to your Google account allows you to:

• Use different calendars from your Google Calendar to block availability in any of your Light Blue Scheduling Calendars.
• Add your Light Blue events to your Google Calendar to either get an overview of your work commitments alongside your personal ones or to block availability with another third-party scheduling app.

Linking Light Blue to your Google account

1. In Light Blue Preferences, click on “Integrations”.
2. In the Google Calendar tab, click on the “Link Google Calendar Account” button.

3. Click “Continue”.

4. Light Blue will now await your authorisation whilst you’re automatically taken to a new browser window.

5. Log into your Google account when prompted and in the pop-up window opened click on the “Open Light Blue” button.

6. Once Light Blue and your Google account are linked you’ll see the name of the linked account back in Preferences. NB. Should you wish to remove Light Blue’s access to your Google account at any point, simply click on the “Unlink Google Calendar Account” button.

Using your Google Calendar to block availability in a Light Blue Scheduling Calendar

👉 This article explains how use your Google Calendar to block availability in a Light Blue Scheduling Calendar.

Adding Light Blue events to your Google Calendar.

👉This help article explains how to add Light Blue events to your Google Calendar.

Light Blue’s in-built calendar is great for viewing all your Light Blue events, however you may want to also have these events showing in your own personal online calendar so you can see everything you’re up to in the one place.

To do this Light Blue helps you to create calendar feed URLs which you then subscribe to in your other calendar app. The calendar feed is very quickly updated with any additions or changes that you make in the Light Blue desktop or iOS app and as soon as your other calendar app refreshes, the changes will automatically appear there.

You can also have as many calendar feed URLs as you need! Handy if you want to split the Light Blue events out in particular ways to make them easier to view in your other calendar app or, for example, if you want members of your team to only view the Light Blue events applicable to them.

An important point to note is that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your other calendar app won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 

To learn more about how to create calendar feed URLs and add them to some popular calendar apps watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead!

Please note the video refers to the “External Programs” section in Preferences; the newer name for this section is “Integrations”.

Creating and copying a Calendar Feed

1. In Light Blue Preferences, click on “Integrations”.
2. In the Calendar Feeds tab, click on the “Copy Feed URL” button. N.B. If you’re using Apple Calendar please click the button alongside it, “Subscribe in iCal” instead.

3. From the Detail Level dropdown menu choose the amount of information you want to include in the calendar feed URL.

4. Check which Events, Resources and Shoot Types you want to include and whether you’d like an alarm to be added and click “Done”.

5. Light Blue will then generate the unique calendar feed URL and copy it to your computer’s clipboard ready for you to paste into/subscribe to in your other calendar app.

Adding to an Apple Calendar

1. Light Blue has handily shortened the subscription process for Apple Calendars; rather than having to paste the calendar feed URL into your Apple Calendar, by using the “Subscribe in iCal” button in the steps above as soon as you click “Done” Apple Calendar will ask you to confirm your subscription to this calendar.

• Confirm the details ensuring you uncheck the Remove Alerts if you included alarms in the calendar feed and that you’ve reviewed the Auto-refresh timeframe; we recommend every 15 minutes.
• Click “OK” and the chosen settings for your Light Blue events will now automatically appear in your Apple Calendar and be updated any time you make a change in the Light Blue desktop or iOS app. NB. Remember that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Google Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 

Adding to an Outlook Calendar

1. Open your Outlook Calendar via Outlook.com and in the Navigation Pane chose “Add Calendar” followed by the “Subscribe from web” option.
2. Paste in the Light Blue calendar feed URL and click “Import”.
3. The chosen settings for your Light Blue events will now automatically appear in your Outlook Calendar and be updated any time you make a change in the Light Blue desktop or iOS app. NB. It’s important to note that Outlook can take up to 24 hours to update calendar feeds and remember that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Google Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 

👉 This Microsoft help article explains how to import or subscribe to a calendar.

Adding to a Google Calendar

Whilst you can subscribe to calendar feeds in Google Calendar, Google is actually slightly patchy in updating them so is not actually our recommended way to add Light Blue events to a Google Calendar! 👉 This help article explains our recommended route! However, if you do decide to go down the calendar feed URL route here’s the process.

1. Open your Google Calendar and click on the “+” button to the right of “Other calendars” and choose the option “From URL”.
2. Paste in the Light Blue calendar feed URL and click “Add calendar”.
3. The chosen settings for your Light Blue events will now automatically appear in your Google Calendar and be updated any time you make a change in the Light Blue desktop or iOS app. Well maybe depending on if Google is being patchy or not! NB. It’s important to note that Google advises it can take up to 12 hours to update calendar feeds and remember that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Google Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 

👉 Part of this Google help article explains how to use a link to add a public calendar.

Light Blue’s built-in Calendar gives you an overview of all your Light Blue events, namely, Shoots, Appointments, Time Off and Calendar Notes. Conveniently you can also add new events or amend any existing event in the Calendar view.

To learn more about how the Calendar works watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead!

Calendar timeframes

At the top of the Calendar you can choose the timeframe to view; either daily, weekly, monthly or annually depending on your preferences. The daily and weekly views also show the current time. The annual view can be useful for getting an overview of your busier, and quieter, periods so you can easily decide when it would be good to plan training or in fact book a much-needed holiday!

Calendar navigation

Moving around the Calendar in any of the different timeframe views is very easy. You can jump to ‘Today’s’ date, move forwards or backwards or ‘Go to Date’.

Calendar options

When you click on the cog, various options are available; you can filter by Resources, Shoot or Appointment Type, only show certain events and change some of the information shown.

Calendar keys

Each event shown in your Calendar is colour-coded making it easy to see at a glance what you’ve got on each day, week or month. If needed, you can easily change the colours of your different Shoot and Appointment Types in Preferences, though the colours of Time Off and Calendar Note events are automatically set to dark and light grey respectively. Confirmed events have a solid line down the left-hand side and unconfirmed ones show a barber-pole stripe instead. 

Adding events

It’s very straightforward to add events in the Calendar, and in any timeframe view; simply double/right-click on the relevant date/time and choose which type of event you want to add.

👉 This article gives a detailed explanation about adding a Shoot or a Session to an existing Shoot.
👉 This one explains how to add Appointments.
👉 And this one explains how to use the Time Off event. NB. The Calendar Note event is very similar to Time Off but as it will not block the Resource/s availability it can be useful for adding reminders to your Calendar.

Changing events

With the relevant event selected, simply drag it to the new date and time.

Displaying personal appointments

If you’re on a Mac, you can also display any of your calendars from the Apple calendar app within Light Blue’s Calendar; this is one of the options available in the cog. NB. This is for display purposes only and will not show an event clash if you then add a Light Blue event at the same time.
👉 If you want to display Light Blue Shoots and Appointments in your personal online calendar follow the steps in this article.

Light Blue’s in-built calendar is great for viewing all your Light Blue events, however you may want to also have these events showing in your Google Calendar so you can see everything you’re up to in the one place.

The great news is that rather than having to manually duplicate all these events, there’s a way to automatically add and update them using Light Blue’s “Publishing events to Google Calendar” feature.

An important point to note is that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Google Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 

Linking Light Blue to your Google account

1. If you’ve not already done so you need to link Light Blue to your Google account; this is done in the Integrations section of Preferences under the Google Calendar tab. 👉 This help article takes you through the steps to link the two together.

Publishing events

1. Check the “Publish to Google Calendar” box in the “Google Calendar” tab.

2. if it’s the first time you’re publishing to Google, choose “Create New Calendar” from the “Select a calendar” dropdown menu and click the “Publish” button.
3. And if you’ve previously published your events but subsequently disconnected your Google account, choose the Light Blue calendar you originally created and then click the “Publish” button.

4. So long as your Light Blue desktop app is running your recent Light Blue Shoots, Appointments and Time Off events will now be published to your Google Calendar and be updated any time you make a change. NB. Remember that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Google Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 
5. In Google Calendar simply click on any event to view the full details associated with it.

Light Blue’s in-built calendar is great for viewing all your Light Blue events, however you may want to also have these events showing in your Apple Calendar so you can see everything you’re up to in the one place.

The great news is that rather than having to manually duplicate all these events, there are a couple of options for them to be added and updated automatically.

1. “Subscribe in iCal”. Light Blue creates a calendar feed URL for your chosen Light Blue events which, once you’ve subscribed to, will automatically appear in your Apple Calendar. This is our recommended approach.
2. “Publish to macOS Calendar”. This approach automatically publishes Light Blue events to your Apple Calendar. However as it needs the Light Blue desktop app to be running before any changes are published and all devices to be using the same iCloud account it’s not our recommended approach!

An important point to note is that the synchronisation in both options is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Apple Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 

1. “Subscribe in iCal”

• In Light Blue Preferences, click on “Integrations”.
• In the Calendar Feeds tab, click on the “Subscribe in iCal” button.

• From the Detail Level dropdown menu choose the amount of information you want to include in the calendar feed URL.

• Check which Events, Resources and Shoot Types you want to include and whether you’d like an alarm to be added and click “Done”.

• Light Blue will then generate the unique calendar feed URL for your chosen settings and Apple Calendar will ask you to confirm your subscription to this calendar.

• Confirm the details ensuring you uncheck the Remove Alerts if you included alarms in the calendar feed and that you’ve reviewed the Auto-refresh timeframe; we recommend every 15 minutes.
• Click “OK” and the chosen settings for your Light Blue events will now automatically appear in your Apple Calendar and be updated any time you make a change in the Light Blue desktop or iOS app. NB. Remember that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Google Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 

⭐️ Top tip: It’s possible to create multiple calendar feed URLs for different combinations of Event Types, Resources and Shoot Types; simply repeat the above steps as many times as you need! Handy if you want to split the Light Blue events out in particular ways to make them easier to view in your Apple Calendar or, for example, if you want members of your team to only view the Light Blue events applicable to them.

2. “Publish to macOS Calendar”

• Not our recommended approach however if you do choose this method the first step is to create a new calendar in your Apple Calendar that your Light Blue events will be published to.
• Once you’ve done that, in Light Blue Preferences, click on “Integrations”.
• Then in the macOS tab and choose the new Calendar you’ve created from the “Events Calendar” drop-down menu. You can also choose whether you want an alarm to be set. Light Blue Shoots, Appointments and Time Off events will now be published to your chosen calendar in the Apple Calendar and be updated any time you make a change so long as your Light Blue desktop app is running. NB. Remember that the synchronisation is one way, i.e. Light Blue remains the source for your information and any changes you make in your Google Calendar won’t be pulled back into Light Blue. 

Troubleshooting

If there are no calendar options showing in the Events Calendar dropdown menu you need to give Light Blue access to your Apple Calendar:

• Open the Mac System Settings/Preferences.
• Select Privacy & Security followed by Privacy.
• Select Calendars.
• Turn on permissions for Light Blue (or turn off and turn on again!).
• Quit and relaunch Light Blue.