Share your REF calendar with a personal/institutional account

Modified on Mon, 1 Dec at 1:35 PM

You can now share a read-only copy of your REF Hub calendar with external accounts that are not within the REF Hub. These external accounts will only be able to see meeting dates/times, titles, and locations and will not be able to make any changes to your REF Hub calendar (accept/decline meetings, etc.).

You can share your REF calendar with multiple external accounts at the same time.

You will still need to follow this process to join Teams meetings in the REF Hub.

Sign in to the REF Hub On the Hub home screen, click on Outlook
In Outlook, click on the Calendar icon in the left-hand side menu
On the Calendar page, go to the list of Calendars on the left, and click the three dots next to your calendar In the pop-up menu, click on Sharing and permissions
In the window that opens, enter the email address you would like to share your REF calendar with in the field at the top Once you have typed in the entire email, select it from the drop-down below the field
Once you have typed in the entire email, select it from the drop-down below the field Wait for the validation message to process and disappear
In the field next to your external email address, click the down arrow In the drop-down menu, select Can view titles and locations
Click the Share button beside the permissions field
A loading icon will appear next to the Share button for a little while Once the sharing invitation is sent, a new entry will appear in the pop-up window under the heading Outside your organisation

There is a different process for adding your REF calendar to your personal/institutional calendar depending on whether you use Outlook (Microsoft 365), Google Calendar, or Apple Calendar so please follow the relevant section below.

If you use a different mail provider, such as Proton Mail, please get in touch with usersupport@ref.ac.uk and we will happily assist with adding your REF calendar.

Outlook

In your inbox, you should see an email from your REF email address titled You're invited to share this calendar If you cannot see this email, check your Junk, Spam, and/or Quarantine folders Open this email
Click the Add this calendar button at the bottom of the email
The button will change to say Adding calendar for a short while Once it has changed to say View calendar, proceed to the next step
To view your REF Calendar, click the Calendar icon on the left-hand side menu
On the Calendar page, go to the list of Calendars on the left, and find the heading Other calendars or People's calendars (you may need to click Show all to see these headers) Under this heading, there will be a calendar with your REF account name
To view this calendar, click the tick box next to your REF account name, and it will appear in the Calendar viewer window next to your main personal/institutional calendar NOTE: Your REF calendar can take up to 24 hours to sync, so it may appear blank when you first add it. If your REF calendar still appears blank after 24 hours, please get in touch with usersupport@ref.ac.uk

Google Calendar

In your inbox, you should see an email from your REF email address titled You're invited to share this calendar If you cannot see this email, check your Junk, Spam, and/or Quarantine folders Open this email
In the small print at the bottom of the email, there will be a line that ends in a hyperlink titled this URL
Right-click on this link and select Copy link address
Open your Google Calendar, and on the calendars menu on the left, click the + icon next to the Other calendars header
In the drop-down list, select From URL
In the page that opens, paste (Ctrl + V on Windows, command + V on Mac) the URL copied from the calendar sharing email in the URL field After pasting the URL, click Add calendar
The URL will disappear after a short while, once it does, click the Back arrow on the top-right of the screen
In the calendars menu on the left, there will be a new calendar titled either Calendar or a URL beginning with https://outlook.office365.com/, this is your REF calendar
By default, your REF calendar will now be visible on your main Calendar window in the colour of the tick box next to it To toggle the visibility of your REF calendar, click the tick box next to your REF calendar name NOTE: Your REF calendar can take up to 24 hours to sync, so it may appear blank when you first add it. If your REF calendar still appears blank after 24 hours, please get in touch with usersupport@ref.ac.uk

Apple Calendar

In your inbox, you should see an email from your REF email address titled You're invited to share this calendar If you cannot see this email, check your Junk, Spam, and/or Quarantine folders Open this email
In the small print at the bottom of the email, there will be a line that ends in a hyperlink titled this URL
Right-click on this link and select Copy Link
Open the Apple Calendar app, and in the top menu bar, select File In the drop-down menu, select New Calendar Subscription
In the window that opens, paste (command + V) the copied URL into the Calendar URL field Next, click Subscribe
In the next window, please fill in the name you would like to appear on your REF Calendar, and the colour you would like it to be
Click on the Auto-refresh field and select Every 15 minutes Next, click OK
Your REF Calendar will now appear on the menu on the left-hand side of the Calendar app Its visibility can be toggled on and off with the tick box next to the Calendar name NOTE: Your REF calendar can take up to 24 hours to sync, so it may appear blank when you first add it. If your REF calendar still appears blank after 24 hours, please get in touch with usersupport@ref.ac.uk

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