How to embed a Google calendar in your guide

Drop a Google calendar into any section of your Touch Stay guidebook to let your guests know about events and other important dates.

Table of contents:

• Video: How to add a Google calendar to your Touch Stay guidebook
• Step by step: How to add a Google calendar to your Touch Stayguidebook
• Trouble Shooting FAQs

Video: How to add a Google calendar to your Touch Stay guidebook

Step by step: How to add a Google calendar to your Touch Stay guidebook

Go to Settings > Custom elements and click 'New custom element'

Select Google calendar as the 'Third party service'. An 'Element code name' will be generated. This is the code that you will insert in your guide where you want the Google calendar to show. You can change the name to whatever you wish to make it easier to identify each custom element you add. Only letters, numbers underscores or hyphens can be used - no special characters or spaces.

Next, find the embed code for your Google calendar. On the desktop version of your Google calendar, click the Settings cog, click Settings and then on the left menu click your calendar name then Integrate calendar. Here you can copy your embed code and paste into the Google calendar embed code box in Touch Stay. Click 'Save'.

To insert the Google calendar into your guide, go to Content Hub and open the topic you want to add your Google calendar to. Put your cursor where you want the Google calendar to appear. Click 'Custom element' in the toolbar, select the relevant Google calendar custom element code name from the dropdown and click 'Insert'.

This will place your custom element field code into your topic content and when you preview the guide it will be replaced by your chosen calendar. 

Trouble Shooting FAQs

My embed code isn't being accepted when creating my custom element, what should I do?

If your embed code isn't being accepted then the most likely reason is that it's the wrong option. Google calendar offers a few different sharing options and we need the standard embed code as shown in the screenshots above. Double check you are using the same embed code for your calendar. If this still doesn't work, or you can't find it in your Google calendar account, then please contact support and send us a screenshot of the Google calendar share options that are available to you.

My calendar doesn't display fully or has lots of empty space beneath it, what should I do?

The Google calendar will be added to your guide using what's known in web development as an iframe. This technique creates a window in your guide to the Google calendar. However, the window isn't able to detect the size of the source Google calendar and you may wish to adjust the height of the window to better match your calendar. This can be done by editing the custom element from the Custom Elements tab of the Account page. Use the 3 dots menu and select 'View/Edit', then adjust the 'Standard element height' value accordingly. You may find it useful to have your guide preview open in a separate tab so you can refresh the page after changing the height in case it needs further adjustment.

Can I have a different variation of the calendar for each of my guides?

Yes, you can set a different value for the link for each guide. This could be useful if you have a Google calendar with parameters to pre-fill values such as your property name or id. Go to Guides. Click on the name of the guide you want to add a custom element to.

Scroll down to the bottom of the Guide details page and click 'Edit' next to the 'Guide custom elements' section. Paste the link to your custom element in the relevant custom element box and adjust the element height as needed. This will adjust the custom element for this guide only - Note this option is only available if you have more than 1 guide in your account.