Apple Calendar sync keeps your ISN schedule and the Calendar app on your iPhone, iPad and Mac in step. Whether it runs one way or both ways is a setting your office chooses (see "One-way or two-way sync" below).
Setup has two parts: create an app-specific password at Apple, then connect your Apple Account in ISN.
One-way or two-way sync
Your office picks how the sync works, and it applies to everyone in the office who syncs a calendar:
Two-way (the default). Inspections and events you add in ISN show up in Apple Calendar, and events you add or change in Apple Calendar show up in ISN.
One-way, inspection events only. ISN sends your inspections to Apple Calendar and takes nothing back. Events you add in Apple Calendar stay there, and events you add in ISN that are not inspections are not sent.
To see which one your office uses, click the gear icon at the top right of the Calendar Sync page. The first line under Office sync settings reads "Two-way" or "One-way, inspections only".
Office owners can change it in Settings, Office Settings, What we see on the ISN, Google Sync. Check Only synchronize ISN order based events for one-way, or leave it unchecked for two-way, then click Save Settings. The setting is named for Google, but it controls Apple Calendar sync too.
Step 1: Create an app-specific password
ISN signs in to iCloud with an app-specific password, not your regular Apple Account password. You only create it once.
Go to appleid.apple.com and sign in.
Open Sign-In and Security, then App-Specific Passwords.
Create a password named ISN.
Copy the password. You will paste it into ISN in the next step.
Step 2: Connect Apple Calendar in ISN
In ISN, click Tools, then Sync to Calendar. You can also click the sync icon next to New Event on the Calendar page.
Click the Apple Calendar tab.
Turn on Sync with Apple Calendar. The Connect Apple Calendar window opens.
Enter your Apple Account (Apple ID). This is the email or phone number you use to sign in to iCloud. On your iPhone, open Settings and tap your name to see it.
Paste the password you created into App-specific password.
Click Test connection.
Under Calendar to sync, choose the iCloud calendar you want to use.
Click Connect.
The first sync starts in a moment and can take up to 10 minutes. When it finishes, the Apple Calendar tab shows a green On badge, your Apple ID and the calendar name.
Check that it is working
The status line on the Apple Calendar tab shows Synced, when the last sync finished and what it did, for example "2 sent to iCloud, 1 received". With one-way sync, nothing is ever "received". If you do not want to wait for the next automatic sync, click Sync now.
Changes you make in ISN reach Apple Calendar in about a minute.
ISN checks Apple Calendar for changes every 10 minutes.
Events that could not be synced are listed on the tab, and ISN retries them every night.
See at a glance if your calendar is syncing
On the Calendar page, the button next to New Event shows the state of your sync. Before you connect, it is a phone icon. Once you are connected, it is the Apple Calendar icon with a colored dot. Point at it to see when the last sync happened, or click it to open Calendar Sync.
Green dot: syncing normally.
Orange dot: some events could not be synced. ISN retries them every night.
Yellow dot: syncing has stopped. Reconnect to fix it.
When syncing stops, a yellow banner on the Calendar page also says "Apple Calendar stopped syncing" and has a Reconnect button.
Office managers can see everyone's sync state in the Calendar Sync column on the User Administration page: On, Off, Reconnect, or the number of events that failed.
Change the calendar
Open Tools, then Sync to Calendar, and click the Apple Calendar tab.
Click Change calendar.
Choose a different calendar under Calendar to sync, then click Save. Click Cancel to keep the current one.
A calendar that another ISN user already syncs is grayed out and marked "synced by" that person's name.
Choose what gets shared
The gear icon at the top right of the Calendar Sync page lists your office's sync rules and whether each is on or off:
One-way sync, inspection events only: see "One-way or two-way sync" above.
Delete calendar events deleted in ISN: when on, deleting an event in ISN also deletes the copy in Apple Calendar. When off, the copy stays there, and changes to a recurring series are not sent either.
Show incoming events as "Busy": when on, events from Apple Calendar show in ISN as "Busy" with no details.
Bring in tentative events: when on, events you have not confirmed in your calendar also come into ISN.
The last two only matter with two-way sync, so the gear hides them when your office is one-way. These rules apply to Google Calendar and Apple Calendar alike. Office owners change them in Settings, Office Settings, What we see on the ISN, Google Sync. Everyone else sees them read-only.
Turn off Apple Calendar sync
Open Tools, then Sync to Calendar, and click the Apple Calendar tab.
Turn off Sync with Apple Calendar.
Click Disconnect to confirm.
ISN stops syncing. Events that are already in Apple Calendar stay there.
Prefer a read-only view?
If you only want to see your ISN schedule in Apple Calendar and never change it from there, use the subscription link instead. In ISN, click Calendar, then My iCal Feed, and click Add to Apple Calendar. Apple Calendar updates a subscription about once an hour (on a Mac you can set it to every 5 minutes).
Do not use the subscription link and sync together, or every event shows twice.
Good to know
ISN syncs with one calendar account at a time. To use Apple Calendar while Google Calendar is connected, turn off Google Calendar first.
One ISN user per iCloud calendar. If several inspectors want to see each other's schedules, each connects their own calendar and shares it on the Apple side.
Only the calendar you choose syncs. Other calendars in your Apple Account are not touched.
Orders that are not scheduled yet have no calendar event, so they do not sync.
Apple only creates app-specific passwords for Apple Accounts that have two-factor authentication turned on.
ISN stores the app-specific password encrypted and never shows it again.
The sync is not available for the root user account. Sign in as your own user.
Troubleshooting
"Apple did not accept that Apple ID and app-specific password." Check that the Apple ID is the one you created the password with, then create a new app-specific password and paste it again. Do not use your regular Apple Account password.
A yellow alert says ISN can no longer sign in to iCloud. Apple cancels app-specific passwords when you change your Apple Account password. Create a new one at appleid.apple.com, then click Reconnect on the Apple Calendar tab.
Events I add in Apple Calendar are not showing in ISN. Your office may use one-way sync, which never brings Apple Calendar events into ISN. Check the gear icon on the Calendar Sync page. If your office is two-way, ISN checks every 10 minutes, or click Sync now. Tentative events only come in when Bring in tentative events is on.
Events I add in ISN, other than inspections, are not in Apple Calendar. That is how one-way sync works: only inspections are sent. An office owner can switch to two-way in Office Settings.
The Apple Calendar switch is grayed out. Google Calendar is connected. Turn it off on the Google Calendar tab first.
The calendar you want is grayed out. Another ISN user already syncs it. Choose a different calendar.
Events show twice. You are also subscribed to the ISN subscription link. Remove the subscription from Apple Calendar.
The page says Apple Calendar sync is not available yet. Contact us and we will look into it.
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If you have any questions about this information, please let us know! You can reach us by chat, email at help@inspectionsupport.com, or phone at (800) 700-8112.