Connecting booking systems with iCal

Bedful Plus, Bedful Pro users integrate with booking systems using iCal - Bedful can read any iCal feed, if your booking system or sales channel has an iCal feed, we can integrate with it to keep booking records up to date. Please note that we are able to connect with any iCal however each is unique and so we only support specific systems. Our help team cannot advise on other iCal systems or setting them up with Bedful. Our list is:

Hipcamp
Anytime
Airbnb
Supercontrol
TripAdvisor
Xotelia
Quality Unearthed
Expedia
Campsites.co.uk

We also have API for:

Supercontrol
Cloudpass (parking and barrier system)
Xero (accounting)

Using iCal is not foolproof as there is a time lag between the booking and reading the iCal feed on both sides. Furthermore, you must still check your availability from time to time to ensure that the system is updated correctly with bookings, cancellations and edited bookings.

Bedful connects iCal with any system which also publishes an iCal feed. You can view our list of systems which support iCal integration here, and the data provided by those iCal feeds here.

Using iCal feeds

To read Bedful booking information and send it with an iCal feed, use Setup > Share > iCal Feeds. There is one feed per unit and these are for your booking management system. If Bedful is your booking management system provide these feeds to every booking service you use. This will 

Each service or booking management system will need to supply us with their own iCal feeds for booking data to travel in the other direction - from them to us.

Updating bookings synced with iCal

To update a booking that originated from an external system, changing the dates of the booking or moving it to a different unit, use the original system on which the booking was made. At the next sync, Bedful will update the booking to reflect the new details. However, if there is a clash and the booking cannot be successfully updated, you will see the error in your iCal integration log. It's important to handle clashes or out of sync calendars quickly, to help prevent double bookings across multiple systems.

Cancelling bookings synced with iCal

be are that with a 2-way bookings feed, a booking will need to be cancelled on both systems - cancelling on one system will allow the booking to be re-added where it was deleted.

The simple rule is – always cancel a booking on BOTH systems integrated by iCal.

Dealing with clashes

If you encounter a problem with iCal syncing, you should look at the log page, which will highlight any issues. The most common problem is a booking which was deleted on another system like Airbnb, and then another booking inserted on Airbnb in the same place. iCal doesn't send information on deleted bookings, the old and new bookings will clash on our system. To resolve the problem just remove the old booking by clicking the red booking link in the integration log, and then clicking the Set Available button on the booking to clear it.

Notes on the log:

• Check the dates of any errors
• The log records errors and new bookings. Logs are not kept for the successful iCal syncs which occur every 15 mins
• We can only provide data related to Bedful attempting to read other services. To check if a service has read Bedful successfully, please contact them directly for this information

Uploading iCal feeds

You can upload all your iCal feeds at once with a single csv file. First create your integration, then choose the 'Import iCal' option on the left inside the integration, click the Download CSV button to get a list of feeds (which will initially be empty), and fill in the using a program like excel or numbers. You can then upload this CSV file using the Upload CSV button on the same page, to update the iCal feeds used by your units. You can alternatively set the iCal feeds manually in the units list.