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guideUpdated 30 August 2026

ICS calendar feeds explained

How a secure Team Calendar subscription carries approved Xero Payroll leave into Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple Calendar.

Team Calendar · Product team, Gold Coast

A calendar subscription, in everyday language

An ICS feed is a read-only calendar subscription. You add its secure URL to a calendar app once. The app then checks that URL on its own schedule and updates the events it displays.

Team Calendar uses this standard format to carry approved Xero Payroll leave and manual availability into Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple Calendar. The subscription does not let those calendar apps edit Team Calendar or Xero.

Payroll sourceXero Payroll AUApproved leave and balances
PublicationTeam CalendarScope and privacy applied
Read-only subscribersOutlook · Google Calendar · Apple CalendarEach app refreshes on its own schedule
Xero remains the payroll source. Team Calendar applies feed scope and privacy before calendar apps read the subscription.

The technical standard is called iCalendar, or RFC 5545. You do not need to understand the specification to subscribe.

What Team Calendar publishes

A feed can include:

  • Approved leave synced from Xero Payroll
  • Manual availability such as working from home, travelling, training or client site
  • Public holidays when the feed owner includes them
  • Event detail transformed by the selected privacy mode

The feed owner also chooses its audience: Just me, My team, Specific teams, Specific people or, for authorised administrators, All of organisation.

Why events do not duplicate

Each published event receives a stable identifier. When a leave record changes, the next feed representation updates the existing calendar event instead of inventing another one.

The identifier combines Team Calendar records and feed context. It does not rely on a Xero leave ID alone.

Protect the subscribe URL

The complete subscribe URL is a credential. Anyone who receives it may be able to read the privacy-safe events published by that feed.

Authorised users can view and copy the complete active URL. Team Calendar never replaces the usable address with a token hint or internal hash. If the URL is exposed, use Rotate token. The old URL stops working and Team Calendar presents the replacement.

Pausing a feed stops publication without hiding its URL. A feed’s Masked privacy mode affects event details, not the credential itself.

Subscribe from your calendar app

Outlook

  1. Open Calendar.
  2. Choose Add calendar, then Subscribe from web.
  3. Paste the complete subscribe URL and confirm.

Google Calendar

  1. Open Google Calendar.
  2. Beside Other calendars, choose Add other calendars, then From URL.
  3. Paste the complete subscribe URL and choose Add calendar.

Apple Calendar on Mac

  1. Open Calendar.
  2. From File, choose New Calendar Subscription.
  3. Paste the complete subscribe URL and choose Subscribe.
  4. Select the refresh preference that suits your team.

Calendar clients control when subscribed feeds refresh. Team Calendar cannot promise the same delivery interval across Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple Calendar.

If a subscription shows unexpected detail, check the feed’s scope and privacy mode before rotating its token. The AU onboarding guide provides the full verification path.