Brightspace and Blackboard to Google Calendar

Brightspace (D2L): copy your calendar link

1. On a course homepage, open the Calendar widget's menu and select Go to Calendar.
2. Click Settings, select Enable Calendar Feeds and click Save.
3. In the Calendar views area, click Subscribe.
4. Under Calendar Subscriptions, choose one course's calendar, or All Calendars and Tasks for everything. Tasks Only gives you just your tasks.
5. Copy the URL. Download gives you an .ics file instead.

Blackboard: copy your calendar link

1. Select Calendar from the base navigation bar.
2. Select the Calendar Settings button.
3. Select the dots button, then Share Calendar.
4. Copy the calendar link. Anthology asks you to share it only with sources you trust.

Add the link to Google Calendar

1. Open Google Calendar on a computer, in a web browser, signed in to the Google account you want the calendar in.
2. On the left, next to Other calendars, click Add other calendars, then From URL.
3. Paste your Brightspace or Blackboard link and click Add calendar.

The calendar appears on the left under Other calendars. Prefer Apple Calendar? The link works there too; the Apple Calendar guide has the Mac and iPhone steps, which are the same for any calendar link.

What these feeds leave out

• Changes are not instant. Google Calendar fetches a calendar added by URL on its own schedule. Instructure says that can take up to 24 hours for a Canvas feed, and a Brightspace or Blackboard link is fetched the same way.
• Blackboard shares every course or none. Anthology says you can't share one course's calendar, and the link covers events from a year back to a year ahead.
• On Blackboard, assignment due dates appear on the calendar automatically, but tasks and other ungraded items with due dates do not.
• On Brightspace, the link carries the calendar you picked under Calendar Subscriptions, so pick All Calendars and Tasks if you want every course.
• Each course site needs its own link, and Google lists each as its own calendar.

The Breezy way, and where it stops today

Breezy reads your courses through a browser extension and can add assignment due dates to a calendar it creates in your Google account, updated after every sync. What reaches that calendar depends on the course site:

• Brightspace: assignment due dates, yes. Quiz dates are not added yet.
• Blackboard: not yet. Breezy puts your Blackboard due dates on its own calendar, beside your other classes, but does not add them to Google Calendar today. Use the Blackboard link above for that.

For Brightspace, or any other course site Breezy syncs:

1. Install the Breezy extension, sign in to Breezy, open Brightspace and press Sync now in the extension. Breezy for Brightspace and Breezy for Blackboard cover what each one syncs.
2. In Breezy, open Profile, then Connections. The Calendar page offers the same connection in a bar across its top.
3. Next to Google Calendar, click Connect and approve in the Google window that opens. Breezy only asks for access to calendars it creates, so it cannot read the ones you already have.
4. Breezy creates a calendar called Breezy · Courses in your Google account and adds your deadlines to it. Back in Connections, Last synced shows when it was last updated.

How that compares with a feed:

• It updates when your courses do. Breezy writes the events into Google Calendar itself, right after each sync, so there is no subscription waiting to be refreshed. A sync runs when you open your course site in a connected browser with Auto Sync on (at most once an hour) or press Sync now in the extension, so the calendar is as current as your last sync.
• New courses are picked up on their own. There is nothing to add again each term.
• Each deadline is a 30-minute event that ends at the due time, named for the assignment and its course, with reminders a day and an hour before.
• Only assignments with a due date are added, from 30 days ago to 240 days ahead. Other calendar events your instructors post, such as office hours, are not copied, and neither are Brightspace quiz dates or any Blackboard due dates.
• Coursework your course site never posted, like a deadline set in class, can go there too: ask Breezy in a chat to add it.
• The calendar belongs to Breezy. Changes you make to its events may be overwritten when the assignment changes on your course site, and if you delete the calendar, Breezy makes it again on the next sync. To stop, choose Disconnect in Profile, Connections, which deletes the calendar.

Troubleshooting

• You cannot find Subscribe in Brightspace. D2L's steps turn on Enable Calendar Feeds in the calendar's Settings, and save, before you click Subscribe.
• Nothing shows up in Google Calendar. Check that you added the link with From URL, that you are looking at the Google account you added it to, and that the calendar is checked under Other calendars, then give Google time to fetch it.
• You only want one Blackboard course. Blackboard's link always covers all of them; uncheck the calendar in Google when you want it out of the way.

More calendar guides

• Sync your Canvas calendar to Google Calendar: Canvas's Calendar Feed link, step by step, what it leaves out, and the Breezy way.
• Add your Canvas calendar to Apple Calendar: Subscribing on a Mac or an iPhone, and putting Canvas due dates in iCloud with Breezy.
• Add your Canvas calendar to Outlook: Subscribing in Outlook on the web or the Outlook app, and what to do when it fails.
• Get your Canvas calendar on your iPhone or Android phone: Apple Calendar on an iPhone or iPad, Google Calendar on Android, and the Canvas app's own calendar.
• Everything on the Breezy blog, newest first.

New to Breezy? The homepage shows the workspace your courses sync into, integrations lists every course site it works with, pricing compares the plans, and troubleshooting covers a sync that stalls.

Breezy is an independent product. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the companies behind the course sites and calendar apps named on this page.