School life is a whirlwind of classes, extracurricular activities, professional development days, and ever-shifting schedules. For school administrators, managing this constant flow of information can feel like a full-time job. But what if you could streamline this process, saving countless hours while simultaneously keeping your entire school community perfectly in sync?
Importing your school calendar data directly into the Edsby school calendar is a game-changing time saver that brings everyone—parents, students, and staff—onto the same page.
Parents are incredibly busy. Between juggling work, home life, and their children’s activities, trying to keep track of a separate school calendar is often a recipe for missed events and frustration. By integrating calendar data into Edsby, you’re placing the school schedule right where parents already go. Parents find immense value in having calendar events in the exact same platform where all their child’s student data resides.
This unified approach is equally transformative for staff and students. Every day, teachers and students rely on Edsby to see what is happening in their classes, check upcoming assignments, and collaborate. By having the school calendar embedded in this daily digital hub, staff and students are effortlessly kept in the loop about school-wide happenings. Whether it is a special assembly, a club meeting, or a shift in the daily routine, the information is immediately visible in the platform they already trust and use constantly.
The magic truly happens behind the scenes for the administrative staff tasked with maintaining these schedules. Rather than painstakingly entering every single event by hand, schools can dramatically cut down on administrative overhead through a streamlined import process.
The workflow is efficient:
- Export your school or district calendar as an ICS file from wherever it is managed.
- Convert the ICS file into a CSV. I like to use this site.
- Remove any old events and the numbered days.
- You need the following columns in the file:
- SchoolID
- EventName – this is the title of the event
- Date – this is the date of the event. In the case where the event is a timed event (e.g. start and end time), it will look something like this: 2024-09-26T20:45:00Z
- The first part is the date of the event
- The part after the “T” is the start time +4 for DST or +5 for STD. This means that if the event starts at 4pm during DST, the Z time will be 20:00:00. If it is during standard time for a 5pm start, the Z time would be 21:00:00. If an event starts at 8pm during DST or 7pm for STD, the date would be the next day and the start time would be 00:00:00
- Duration
- For an all day event, this would be the number of days for an event (e.g. a trip that happens over multiple days). If it is a single day event, leave this blank.
- For a timed event, this is the duration in seconds. For example, a one hour event would have a duration of 3600.
- Pin – this needs to be set to “4” for all events to make them visible. Set the “Pin” value to 0 to keep the event hidden from the public calendar.
- ScheduleEffect – this needs to be set to “noEffect” for all events
- EventGUID – each event needs to have a unique GUID which ensures that your calendar data remains duplicate-free year after year. I usually use CW<calendar years>Cal_<sequential number> but you can use your own convention.
Once your file is prepared, import it into Edsby is as simple as logging in with the district IT role, navigating to the data packages page, selecting your CSV, choosing the “pre-import delta” file type, and clicking import.
Ultimately, configuring your foundational dates—such as establishing holidays and PD days with Day Notes in your student information system (SIS)—and feeding that data directly into Edsby eliminates redundant manual entry. Schools save valuable administrative time, empower teachers and students with accessible daily schedules, and give parents the ultimate convenience of a single, unified digital home for their child’s education.
