Extending Google Calendar Beyond Iframe: Full Calendar
Google Calendar is a great online tool. Use it to schedule events quickly and integrate it seamlessly into your workflow. But sometimes you need it to do more.
We used Full Calendar to extend Google Calendar's abilities and we share our insights for using the calendar app!
The Challenge
We needed a way to integrate the events of an entire community into a single calendar. Our initial plan was to use Google Calendar's sharing feature. While the sharing of calendar accounts worked well enough, the presentation of the calendar left much to be desired.
Google Calendar's default embedding method is to use iframes. The resulting calendar resembled a 90's design with limited functionality and no options to modify the presentation. Events titles would not wrap and were cut off, limiting the information available to the viewer.
The Solution
We needed a better solution... a way to combine 50+ Google Calendar accounts and display the events in a single intuitive calendar. The answer was Full Calendar. This handy calendar tool allows for Google Calendar integration as well as local data sources, all with an improved layout & design.
We built a local API engine to combine the many Google Calendar accounts and merge that data with our own CMS built-in events calendar in Umbraco. We also built an administration module that allows our client the ability to add Google sources on the fly, control calendar colours and an abundance of other features. Finally, we added a feature that allows calendar data to be shared between other websites running Full Calendar without having to duplicate programming and media.
Looking for some web development support? Contact us today!
By Robert Valcourt