ICS Feed Exports

On-Call Optimizer can generate iCalendar (ICS) feeds of on-call shifts, allowing you to subscribe to your shifts in any application that supports ICS feeds (such as Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Microsoft Outlook).

ICS feeds are read-only and provide a one-way export of shifts from On-Call Optimizer. They are not a replacement for destinations, which provide much deeper integration with specific on-call products.

Feed Types

There are two types of ICS feed available:

Schedule Feed

A schedule feed exports all shifts for a specific schedule. If the schedule has multiple roles, each role’s shifts are included as separate events.

Schedule feeds are managed from the Destinations tab within a schedule by users with edit permission on the schedule.

User Feed

A user feed exports all shifts assigned to you across all of your schedules. This is useful if you want a single calendar subscription that shows all of your upcoming on-call shifts.

User feeds are managed from your profile page.

Enabling a Feed

To enable an ICS feed:

1. Navigate to the Destinations tab of a schedule (for a schedule feed) or your profile page (for a user feed).
2. Toggle the ICS feed switch to enable it.
3. A unique feed URL will be generated and displayed.
4. Copy the URL and add it to your application as a new calendar subscription.

Managing a Feed

Once enabled, the following actions are available:

• Copy URL — Copy the feed URL to your clipboard for use in an application.
• Regenerate URL — Generate a new feed URL. The previous URL will immediately stop working, and any existing calendar subscriptions using the old URL will need to be updated.
• Disable — Remove the feed entirely. Any existing calendar subscriptions will stop receiving updates.

When regenerating or disabling a feed that has been recently accessed by an application, a warning will be displayed to confirm that you want to proceed.

Security

Feed URLs do not require authentication, so that applications can fetch them without needing to log in to On-Call Optimizer.

Event Format

By default, ICS feed events include the schedule name, role, and assignee details in the event title and description, with a link back to the schedule in On-Call Optimizer.

An alternative plain text format is available by appending ?event_format=plain to the feed URL. The plain format uses a simplified event title (assignee email only) which may be more suitable for integrations with monitoring tools or dashboards.