Roughly speaking, there are two ways to include the schedule you see in MyTimetable in your calendar. This article describes how to do this and the advantages and disadvantages of both methods.
The image below shows where you can set up the integration of your calendar in MyTimetable. The image illustrates the two methods. Under the heading "Leiden University," you have the option to include your schedule IN your university calendar in Microsoft Outlook. We refer to this as the "Office 365" method, which is further described under the heading Integrating your University Leiden schedule into your Office 365 calendar. The second method is called the "internet calendar" method, which uses iCal. It is described under You can find this method under Display schedule as an online calendar in your agenda.
Both chapters begin with a description of the advantages and disadvantages. Please review them both before making a choice. It will always be possible to switch methods later on. Don't have the desire or time to go through everything? Then we recommend using the Office 365 method.
1. Integrating your University Leiden schedule into your Office 365 calendar
Starting with the greatest advantage: linking your schedule to your calendar in this way means that the different activities in your schedule are added as appointments TO your calendar. The big advantage of this is that other people can see in your calendar that you have scheduled an activity at that time. For example, colleagues among themselves, but also students among themselves, depending on whether you have shared your calendar with others. This means that your colleague, when scheduling a meeting, knows that you are not available because you have to teach a class, for example.
The disadvantage of this option is that it does not currently work for LUMC employees.
The aforementioned advantage can also be seen as a disadvantage. Perhaps it is not desirable for your colleagues to see which educational activities are in your schedule in MyTimetable. Consider, for example, a situation where a coordinator is linked to a course in the schedule, but where that coordinator does not teach the classes themselves. Then it would incorrectly appear as if that person is not available as a coordinator at that time. Perhaps the internet calendar method (described below) would be more convenient.
Setting up Office 365 integration
If you want to use the Office 365 method, you need to first log in to MyTimetable with your ULCN account. Then, under the "Connect calendar" icon in the top right corner of the screen, select the "Microsoft Outlook" option under the "Leiden University" heading. A wizard will appear that guides you step-by-step through the process of linking your schedule to your calendar. The yellow block warns you when there are courses that are not included in your calendar. In that case, click on "choose schedules" to determine which courses are or are not added to your calendar.
After completing the integration, appointments will be added to your calendar one by one. Depending on the size of your schedule, this may take some time. These appointments are given a category so that you can easily recognize them. You can change the color of this category in Outlook. The name of the category is MyTimetable and it must remain that way. If you change the name, a category with the name MyTimetable will be created again during the next synchronization.
Your calendar will be updated in the event of schedule changes. This should happen almost immediately but may take up to 1 hour in some cases.
If you manually add courses to your schedule, it's important to leave the "Show in connected calendars" checkbox (shown below in the red box) checked. With the checkbox on, the new course will also automatically appear in your calendar.
Reactivate synchronization due to issues or deactivating the connection with your Office 365 calendar
If you want to undo the connection or manually start the synchronization to your calendar again (because there seems to be a missing activity from your schedule in your calendar), navigate back to the menu where you can link the calendar. You will now see a green dot indicating that the connection is active. By clicking on the green dot, you can undo the connection or start the synchronization again.
When undoing the connection (by clicking on 'disconnect'), you can then choose whether or not to keep the schedule that is already in your calendar. After disconnecting, you can optionally switch to the web calendar method (as described below) if this is still your preference.
2. Display schedule as an online calendar in your agenda.
The great advantage of this option is that it is very universal. You can include a schedule that you see in MyTimetable in any agenda that supports internet calendars (iCal). It doesn't matter whether the account for that agenda is your university account or another account.
This option ensures that the schedule you see in MyTimetable (because it has been automatically set up for you and/or because you have manually added additional courses to your schedule) is presented as an overlay. So in your agenda, you see your own schedule with all your appointments and a layer on top of that showing your schedule. The major disadvantage of this option is that only you see this layer over your agenda. Colleagues or fellow students cannot see this layer and therefore do not know that you are not available at a certain time due to a class. If you find this very useful or important, choose the Office365 method described above.
Setting up your online calendar
To include your schedule as an internet calendar in your agenda, you need to log in to MyTimetable with your ULCN account. Then, using the 'Connect calendar' icon in the top right corner of the screen, you can choose the application you use for your agenda. Choose one of the options listed under the 'Other calendars' heading. If your application is not listed, select 'Other'.
MyTimetable will now start a wizard (specific to the application you have chosen) that will guide you step-by-step through the process of linking your schedule as an internet calendar.
After linking, future schedule changes will be processed in your calendar. Even if you later add/attend additional courses, their schedule will still be added to your calendar. So the schedule in your calendar remains in sync with your schedule in MyTimetable.
Note: If you manually add courses to your schedule, it is important to keep the checkbox 'Show in connected calendars' checked when adding the course. See the red box in the screenshot below.
Disconnect your online calendar
If you are not satisfied with the internet agenda method (or for any other reason do not want to see your schedule in this way in your calendar), you can remove the internet agenda from your calendar using any application. You do not need to do anything further within MyTimetable. Afterwards, you can still choose to use the Office 365 method as described above if you wish.