Use iOS Shortcuts and Siri for Bible Reading Plans
Using a combination of Shortcuts, Siri, and the YouVersion app, your iOS device can make following your customized Bible reading plan easier. This article provides detailed instructions to set up your personal Bible reading plan using iOS shortcuts and Siri to read and listen to the Bible on your device.
Who is this for?
Bible readers with an iOS device who want to create customized Bible-reading plans.
Why not just use YouVersion Bible plans?
The Bible reading plans in YouVersion are very useful. However, the particular plan I wanted to follow was not available in the app. If you would like to use Siri to help you read and listen, the YouVersion app has limited Siri shortcuts currently available. Finally, some plans contain extra content that you may find unnecessary or distracting.
Ingredients: What you Need
- An iOS device: iPhone or iPad
- A dedicated web-based calendar
- The Bible App from YouVersion
- This iOS Shortcut
Note that all examples and screenshots here use Google calendar, but you can use any calendar that can be synchronized to your device.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Part 1: Set up a calendar with your custom Bible reading plan
The shortcut pulls your reading plan from a calendar. The calendar entries must follow a specific format. Getting this part right requires effort, but is worth the reward. When you complete Part 1, you will also have your Bible reading program already visible in your calendar, which is nice to have when using your paper Bible.
Here is an example of a completed calendar:
Step 1: Create a new, dedicated online calendar
1.1 Open Google calendar
1.2 Click Settings in upper right
1.3 In left-hand navigation, click “Add calendar” > “Create new calendar”
1.4 Give your calendar a name and click “Create calendar”. Remember this calendar’s name; you will type into the Shortcut later.
Step 2: Set up your custom plan in a CSV file
The fastest way to get the calendar right is to import events into it. This article tells us the format Google calendar requires for a comma-separated values (CSV) file. For our calendar we need at least the following fields: Start Date, Subject, and Description.
Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are two common tools for working with CSV files. To facilitate this step, I’ve put together a Google Sheets template you can use to quickly create the CSV file you need.
2.1 Click here to create a copy of this Google sheet
2.2 In column A, change the dates to the dates for your reading plan. (Hint: auto-fill works very well here!)
2.3 For each date on your reading plan, select the books and chapters you plan to read. Set the first book in column D, and the first chapter in column E. Set the second book in column F and the second chapter in column G, etc. You can set up to 10 chapters per row with this sheet.
Notes on entering your plan
You can change the dates however you need. Also you, are not limited to only one row per day. If you would like your reading plan to appear on your calendar as multiple appointments rather than just one, simply repeat the date in column A.
For example, your plan could look like this, with one row per day:
Or like this, with many rows per day
Each row becomes an appointment. If you would rather have one appointment per chapter to read, use the “Many rows per day” format. If you would rather condense into few appointments, use the “One row per day” format.
Finally, it’s important to only have rows for the dates you mean to read. Delete any unused rows!
Export the CSV file
When you have your plan entered to your satisfaction…
2.4. Open the CSV tab in the file
2.5 In the Google sheets menu, click File->Download->”Comma-separated values”
2.6. Save the downloaded file where you can find it.
Your file should look like this in Microsoft Excel
Or like this, if you don’t have Excel but just a text editor
Step 3: Import your custom plan CSV into your new calendar
3.1. Back in Google calendar, click Settings again
3.2. In left-hand nav click Import
3.3. Select the file you downloaded to import
3.4. Select the new calendar you created
3.5. Click “Import”
Hopefully, your calendar will now look like the examples above. If you run into problems, or make mistakes, don’t worry. This is a new calendar, so you can always delete events from it, or delete the whole calendar and start over at the beginning of part 1.
Technical notes on the calendar appointments
The displayed text of your appointments is in the title of the appointments. These subjects can be any text that makes sense to you. The shortcut will sort the displayed options by these subjects alphabetically.The body of the appointments must contain very specific text that follows the format: BBB.C, where BBB is the three-letter abbreviation for the book that YouVersion expects and C is the chapter number in the book.
Your readings can either be listed as separate appointments, or as one appointment with semicolon-delimited text. The shortcut will read all the appointments for today and build a combined list of choices from what it finds there. On a day with multiple chapters, the subjects and descriptions must be separated by semicolons, and must have the same number of semicolons in them.
Part 2: Sync that calendar to your iOS device
Things get easier from here. Use the built in iOS calendars to synchronize this calendar to your device. If you are already synchronizing your Google calendar to the calendar app on your phone, then this part is just a verification.
Verify Google calendar syncs to your phone
2.1. Open the Settings app in iOS
2.2 Click Calendar
2.3 Click Accounts
2.4 Verify that you see your Google account name listed with calendars mentioned. If you see this, skip to the next section.
2.5 If you don’t see your Google account mentioned, tap “Add Account”
2.6 Choose Google
2.7 Complete the authentication with your google account
When you return to the Accounts screen, you should see your google account now mentioned with calendars selected.
Verify that the Calendar app sees your Bible Reading Plan calendar
This is a double-check step. If your calendar app can see your Bible reading plan calendar, then the Shortcut will also be able to see it and read its appointments.
2.8 Open the iOS Calendar app
2.9 Click Calendars at bottom
2.10 Make sure your new Bible reading calendar appears
It is optional whether or not you want to display the calendar in your app. Even if the box is not checked to be visible in your calendar here, the shortcut can use it. Keep in mind that new calendars take a few minutes to fully synchronize, so if the calendar appears blank at first, give it five to ten minutes before looking for issues.
Part 3: Install and Configure the iOS Shortcut
Now we are ready to set up the shortcut.
Allow untrusted shortcuts
Because this shortcut is coming from an individual (me), and not the Apple Shortcuts Gallery, you will need to allow “Untrusted shortcuts” on your phone.
Note: As a security-aware person, make sure you are familiar with all contents of shortcuts you install. You have an opportunity to review all steps in the shortcut when you import it, and the only permission this shortcut requires is access to read your calendar and open links.
3.1 Open the iOS Settings app
3.2 Find Shortcuts
3.3 Enable “Allow untrusted shortcuts”
3.4 Click “Allow”, and complete the verification.
Import the shortcut
3.5 On your phone, follow this link: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/0962222c7db34d869ff44639973bc671
3.7 Click “Get Shortcut”
3.8 On this screen, you have an opportunity to change the name of the shortcut. This matters because this is the phrase you use when initiating the shortcut via Siri voice command.
3.9 Review the steps of the shortcut, scrolling down to the bottom of the window
3.10 After review, click “Add untrusted shortcut”
3.10 Your phone will now verify that you are ok with this shortcut accessing your calendars. Click OK.
3.11 Now verify that you see Bible Plan listed in your shortcuts
3.12 Finally, if you don’t have the YouVersion Bible app on your phone, install that now on your phone.
Here’s a short video showing the installation of the IOS shortcut from beginning to end.
Part 4: Use the iOS Shortcut
Now for the fun part. Now that the shortcut is set up, return to your shortcuts list in the Shortcuts app. If you closed the shortcut app, you may need to open it again. If you can’t find it, use search by swiping down anywhere on the home screen.
To test the shortcut, tap the “Bible Plan” shortcut you created.
You should see a list of chapters displayed like this. If it doesn’t, see Troubleshooting.
When you make a selection the Bible app should open directly to the selected chapter. The shortcut is really creating and launching a URL, so you may see the chapter open with the Safari app. But if you have the YouVersion app installed it should open in the app thanks to URL schemes.
Adding the shortcut to your Home screen
To make accessing this even easier, I recommend adding the shortcut to your home screen. Long press on the shortcut to see the options, and choose “Share”, then choose “Add to Home Screen”. This saves you the step of opening the Shortcuts app.
You should see this now on the last page of your home screen.
Using your new shortcut with Siri
This is great, but now it gets even better. Try saying…
“Hey, Siri. Bible Plan.”
Siri will run the shortcut and read off to you the choices with a prompt like, “OK, which one?” You can respond by saying which chapter you want to read, then starting to read or listen to your chapter.
Note: If you have not activated “Hey, Siri”, just hold down the home button or lock button. You can change these settings in your Settings -> Siri & Search.
Listening to consecutive chapters
Once you get the first chapter started, you can easily switch to the next chapter by simply closing the Bible app, running the shortcut, and clicking the next chapter you want to listen to. Since the Bible app is already playing audio, it will change chapters, then seamlessly start to play the next chapter. No need to hit the play/pause button in YouVersion.
Use multitasking on iPad
If you put the shortcut in your dock on your iPad, you can use shortcuts as a side-by-side app. It takes a little setup, but when you have it going, it means you can read the Bible on your iPad, then quickly swipe from the right to get to your next chapter. This uses the “Slide over” feature on iPad.
Troubleshooting — Errors you might see
Here is a check list to see if everything is set up right:
- Is your calendar set up with either one appointment per day, or with semicolons separating the titles and descriptions?
- Do the descriptions of your appointments follow the BBB.C format, using these abbreviations for books?
- Is the calendar correctly synchronized to your iOS Calendar app, not a third-party calendar app?
- Do you have the YouVersion app installed?
- Does the first line of the shortcut contain the exact name of your calendar, with no extra spaces or hidden characters?
Ultimately, you can also completely edit the shortcut and see visually everything it is doing. If I can help you to get this going, feel free to comment here and I’ll do my best to get you started and maybe improve the shortcut along the way.
Limitations and possibilities
Currently this works only for iOS devices. However, this could be adapted for Android using other automation apps or scripts. The first three ingredients could be the same, with only a new shortcut created to run on Android.
If another Bible app supports URL schemes to jump into chapters, you could edit the URL to jump into that app. I attempted this with Logos, but found that the chapter always opened in the browser rather than the app. You could easily edit the URL building step to open Bible websites like BibleGateway.com and others.
As mentioned before, the examples here use Google calendar, but any calendar that can be synchronized to your device can be used: Exchange, Yahoo, etc.
Open, free
My intention for this is to be completely open-source, so please share freely. If iOS Shortcuts could be shared as code, I would gladly open source this on Github. Meanwhile, please feel free to share this with anyone who can benefit from it. If you make improvements to it, please let me know!
In a future article, I’ll provide a detailed walkthrough of how the shortcut works, so you can fully understand each step. I’ll also provide a few variations on the shortcut I have created that allow you to jump directly to a chapter by its number or by date. They make voice navigation even easier.
I hope this makes your Bible reading plan even easier to accomplish today.
