Google Calendar: Showing Tracked Time as Calendar Events

A calendar feed turns tracked time into calendar events: each block a member worked becomes an entry named after the member and the project, with its duration. Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar all refresh it on their own, so the calendar keeps up without anyone exporting anything.

Creating the link

Open API & Integrations in the left menu. If it is your first connection, accept the API access terms shown at the top.
In Calendar and spreadsheet feeds choose Calendar (ICS), type a label such as Team calendar, and press Create feed link.
The link appears once, in a yellow box, with a Copy button. Copy it now — it is not shown again. The table below keeps only its first characters, so you can tell your links apart.

The feeds panel with Calendar (ICS) chosen and the Create feed link button

Subscribing

Google Calendar: in the left column, next to Other calendars, press + > From URL, paste the link and press Add calendar.
Outlook: Add calendar > Subscribe from web, paste the link, name the calendar and press Import.
Apple Calendar: File > New Calendar Subscription, paste the link, press Subscribe and pick how often it should refresh.

What is in the calendar

The feed covers the last 30 days and carries the member's name, the project and the duration of each tracked block — nothing else. No screenshots, application names, window titles or pay rates leave SCREENish through a feed.

How fresh it is

The refresh rhythm belongs to the calendar application, not to SCREENish. Google Calendar decides for itself and may take several hours to pick up new events; Apple Calendar lets you choose an interval as short as five minutes; Outlook sits somewhere between. A feed is right for keeping an eye on a team's shape over days, not for watching the current hour — for that, use chat alerts.

Treat the link as a password

Anyone holding the link can read the feed, with no sign-in. Share it only with people who are allowed to see the team's hours, and do not paste it into a public page or a shared document. The feeds table shows when each link was last read and how many times — a count climbing when nobody is using it is worth a look. Revoke ends a link immediately; subscribed calendars then stop updating and can be removed on their side.

For the same data as rows in a spreadsheet, see Google Sheets: A Live Timesheet That Updates Itself.