Filtering & Tags

Tags and filters are the power tools of BlendedCal. They let you create dynamic, precisely-tuned calendar views that automatically update as you add new sources.

Quick choice

Which filter should I use?

Start broad with tags, then tighten the calendar with text or exclusions only when the event list still needs cleanup.

Any tags

Broad buckets

Pull together loose groups like school, sports, daycare, or helpers when any matching source should appear.

sports OR school OR pickup

All tags

Person + activity

Require every tag when the calendar needs one child plus one lane, like Mia's soccer feed without her school feed.

mia + soccer

Search text

Title, note, or location keywords

Narrow noisy sources by words already in the event, such as games, meets, away locations, or pickup notes.

game OR match OR meet

Exclusions

One-off cleanup

Hide a single bad fit from one blended calendar while leaving the source and future events alone.

hide one practice

Family filter planning

Filter recipe map

Required tags set the person or household scope. Optional tags widen the category, search text narrows event names, and exclusions clean up one-off events after the calendar is built. Use Tomorrow to prep the next school day or helper handoff without pulling in the whole week.

Mia sports calendar

A child-specific view for practices, games, and team updates.

Required tags

mia

Optional tags

sports

Grandparents game days

A quieter shareable calendar with only the events helpers actually attend.

Optional tags

sports

Search text

game OR match OR meet

Pickup and care handoffs

A helper-ready calendar for sitters, carpools, grandparents, and after-school helpers.

Optional tags

pickup, care, carpool, sitter

Search text

pickup OR carpool OR sitter

School-only view

One place for classroom, district, early-release, and activity-feed events.

Optional tags

school

One-off cleanup

Hide a noisy event without changing the source tags that future events depend on.

Exclusions

Hide one event from this calendar only

The Tag System

Tags are labels you add to calendar sources to categorize them. You can add as many tags as you want to each source, and you can reuse the same tags across multiple sources.

Adding Tags to Sources

When creating or editing a source, add tags in the "Tags" field. For example:

  • Carter's soccer calendar: carter, sports, soccer
  • Carter's school calendar: carter, school
  • Kayden's baseball calendar: kayden, sports, baseball
  • Family events calendar: family

Best Practice: Use consistent, simple tags like carter, sports,school. Avoid spaces or special characters — stick to lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.

Filtering by Tags

When creating a blended calendar, you can filter sources by tags using two different modes:

Any Tags (OR logic)

Include sources that have any of the specified tags. This is the most common filter mode.

Example: Any Tags = carter

  • ✅ Includes: Carter's soccer (tagged carter, sports)
  • ✅ Includes: Carter's school (tagged carter, school)
  • ❌ Excludes: Kayden's baseball (tagged kayden, sports)

Example: Any Tags = sports, family

  • ✅ Includes: Any source tagged sports
  • ✅ Includes: Any source tagged family
  • ✅ Includes: Sources tagged with both sports and family
  • ❌ Excludes: School calendars (not tagged with sports or family)

All Tags (AND logic)

Include sources that have all of the specified tags. This is useful for more precise filtering.

Example: All Tags = carter, sports

  • ✅ Includes: Carter's soccer (tagged carter, sports, soccer)
  • ❌ Excludes: Carter's school (tagged carter, school — missing sports)
  • ❌ Excludes: Kayden's baseball (tagged kayden, sports — missing carter)

Combining Any Tags and All Tags

You can use both filters together for very precise control:

Example: Any Tags = carter, kayden AND All Tags = sports

  • ✅ Includes: Sources tagged (carter OR kayden) AND sports
  • This would show sports calendars for Carter and Kayden, but not Briella

Text-Based Filtering

In addition to tags, you can filter events by text search. BlendedCal searches event titles, descriptions, and locations for your filter text (case-insensitive).

Filter Text on Sources

When you add filter text to a source, BlendedCal excludes events from that source that don't match the filter. This is useful for noisy calendars.

Example: TeamSnap calendar with lots of practices, but you only want games:

  • Source: TeamSnap Calendar
  • Filter text: game
  • Result: Only events with "game" in the title/description are imported

Filter Text on Calendars

When you add filter text to a blended calendar, only events matching the filter appear in that calendar.

Example: Show only away games from all sports sources:

  • Calendar: "Away Games"
  • Any Tags: sports
  • Filter text: away OR @
  • Result: Only events with "away" or "@" in the title appear

Filter Text Tips

  • Use OR (uppercase) to match multiple keywords: game OR match OR meet
  • OR matches any listed term across event titles, descriptions, and locations
  • Filter text is case-insensitive
  • Searches in title, description, and location fields
  • Partial matches work (searching meet will match "Meeting" and "Track Meet")
  • Sort by source when a busy view mixes school, team, and care feeds; switch to Event name when you are scanning repeated practices, games, or pickups.

Property filters

Property filters narrow a blended calendar by event details instead of source labels. Use only events with locations for pickup, care, away games, or grandparent calendars when the person opening the calendar needs to know where to go.

You can also build focused calendars for all-day closures or recurring commitments. For example, an all-day closure calendar can keep school holidays away from practice reminders, while a recurring commitments calendar can collect weekly lessons, rehearsals, or care blocks.

Excluding Specific Events

Sometimes you want to hide a specific event without changing your filters. BlendedCal lets you exclude individual events by ID.

To exclude an event:

  1. Go to the blended calendar you want to modify
  2. View the calendar's events
  3. Find the event you want to hide and click Exclude

The event will no longer appear in that calendar, even if it matches your tag and text filters.

Note: Exclusions are calendar-specific. Excluding an event from one calendar doesn't affect other calendars or the original source.

Tag-Based Calendars (Dynamic)

One of the most powerful features of BlendedCal is dynamic calendars: calendars that automatically include new sources as you add them.

How it works:

  1. Create a blended calendar filtered by tags (e.g., Any Tags = carter)
  2. Later, add a new source and tag it carter
  3. The new source's events automatically appear in the calendar — no need to edit the calendar!

This is much easier than manually selecting sources for each calendar, especially if you frequently add new sources (like new sports seasons, new school years, etc.).

Example Filtering Scenarios

Scenario: Carter's Full Schedule

Goal: Show all of Carter's events (sports, school, activities)

Sources:

  • Carter's Soccer — tags: carter, sports, soccer
  • Carter's School — tags: carter, school
  • Carter's Baseball — tags: carter, sports, baseball

Calendar Filter: Any Tags = carter

Result: All events from any source tagged carter

Scenario: All Kids' Sports Games (No Practices)

Goal: Show only games/matches/meets for all kids

Calendar Filter:

  • Any Tags = sports
  • Filter Text = game OR match OR meet

Result: Only events from sports sources that have "game", "match", or "meet" in the title

Scenario: Family Calendar (Everyone)

Goal: Show events for everyone in the family

Calendar Filter:

  • Any Tags = carter, kayden, briella, family

Result: All events from any source tagged with any family member or family

Scenario: School Events Only

Goal: Show only school-related events for all kids

Calendar Filter:

  • Any Tags = school

Result: All events from sources tagged school

Scenario: Carter's Soccer Games Only

Goal: Show only soccer games for Carter (not practices, not other sports)

Calendar Filter:

  • All Tags = carter, soccer
  • Filter Text = game

Result: Only events from sources with both carter AND soccer tags that contain "game"

Best Practices

  • Keep tags simple and consistent — carter is better than Carter's Stuff
  • Use person tags for everyone — Tag each source with the person it belongs to
  • Use category tags liberally — sports, school, activities, etc.
  • Prefer tag filtering over source selection — Dynamic calendars are easier to maintain
  • Test your filters — Preview the calendar after creating it to make sure it shows what you expect
  • Use exclusions sparingly — They're great for one-offs but don't scale well

Next Steps

Now that you know how to filter, learn how to share your calendars:

Learn about Sharing & Subscribing →