How to create a shareable calendar for your course students

Your students are juggling a lot. Between their own work, family, and life, it’s easy for a course deadline or live workshop to slip their mind. A shareable calendar cuts through that noise by sitting in the same place they check every day for everything else.

This post walks you through setting up a shareable course calendar your students can add to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or whatever they use. You’ll also see how to add it to your course platform and website, and how to handle the technical bits if your platform doesn’t play nice with calendar links.

Setting up a shareable calendar with Google Calendar

Google Calendar is free and works well for course calendars. You can make a new calendar just for your course and share the full schedule with students.

Create a new calendar

1. Go to Google Calendar and sign in.
2. On the left side, click the “+” next to “Other calendars.”
3. Select “Create new calendar.”
   
4. Give it a name (something like “Your Course Name – Events”) and add a description if you want.
   
5. Click “Create calendar.”

Add your course events

1. Click on the date and time for your first event.
2. Fill in the details: event title, date, time, location, and any other info students need.
   
3. Make sure it’s assigned to your course calendar (not your personal one).
4. Click “Save.”

Repeat this for each live call, workshop, deadline, or important date students should know about.

Generate the shareable link

1. Find your calendar in the left sidebar.
2. Click the three dots next to the calendar name.
3. Select “Settings and sharing.”
   
4. Under “Access permissions for events,” check the box to make the calendar public.
   
5. Scroll down to the “Integrate calendar” section.
6. Copy the link under “Public address in iCal format.” This is the link you’ll share with students. It works with any calendar app, not just Google Calendar.
   

You now have a link you can share with your students. When they click it, they’ll be prompted to add the calendar to their own calendar app.

Setting up a shareable calendar with Apple Calendar

If you use Apple Calendar, you can create a shareable course calendar there too.

Create a new calendar

1. Open Apple Calendar.
2. Click “File” and select “New Calendar.”
   
3. Name your calendar.

Add your course events

1. Right-click on the date you want to add an event.
2. Select “New Event.”
3. Fill in the event title, date, time, and any details (Zoom link, location, etc.).
   
4. Click “Add.”

Generate the shareable link

1. Right-click on your calendar name.
2. Select “Share Calendar.”
   
3. Check the “Public Calendar” box and click Done.
4. Right-click your calendar again and select “Copy URL to Clipboard.”
   

You can now share this link with your students.

Using an add-to-calendar link generator

If you have a small group of students (under 20), you can use the free plan of AddEvent.com to create an “Add to Calendar” button. For larger groups, you’d need a paid plan. The Google Calendar or Apple Calendar methods above are always free, regardless of how many students subscribe.

Sharing a single event instead

If you’re only sharing one specific event rather than an entire calendar, it’s often easier to just generate the invite link for that one event and share that instead of a full calendar.

Adding calendar links to your course materials

Put your calendar link where students will actually see it: in a welcome email, on your course homepage, or in the first lesson. If possible, include links that work with different calendar apps so students can use what they already have.

Google Calendar gives you two options: a Google-only link and an iCal format link that works everywhere. The iCal link is the better choice if you want maximum flexibility.

Apple Calendar gives you a webcal link. Some course platforms won’t accept webcal links directly. If that’s your situation, you can set up a redirect so you have a regular URL that points to the webcal link.

Setting up a redirect in WordPress

If you host your website on WordPress, use the free plugin Pretty Links.

1. Install and activate Pretty Links.
2. Go to Pretty Links in your admin area and click Add New.
3. Paste your webcal link in the Target URL field.
   
4. Create a clean URL you’ll use to share (something like yoursite.com/course-calendar).
5. Save.

Now you can use that clean URL anywhere, and it’ll automatically redirect to your calendar.

Setting up a redirect in Squarespace

If you use Squarespace:

1. Go to Settings, then Developer Tools, then URL Mappings.
   
2. In the URL Mappings field, enter your custom URL, an arrow, your webcal link, and 301, like this:
   /course-calendar -> webcal://longlinkgoeshere 301
   
3. Save.

Your students click the clean URL, and they’re redirected to add the calendar.

How students use the calendar link

When a student clicks your calendar link, their calendar app should open and either automatically add the calendar or ask if they want to add it. Either way, the events now sit alongside everything else on their calendar. No more missed deadlines or forgotten live calls.

Want the rest of your course tech set up for you?

A shareable calendar is one small piece of a working course setup. If you’re also staring at an unfinished course platform, a checkout that isn’t tested, automated delivery emails that don’t exist yet, or content that needs to be uploaded and formatted properly, that’s exactly what my Course Tech Setup Sprint covers. One fixed price, one week. Submit your content on Friday, everything’s ready to sell by the next Friday.