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When you set up absentify, colleagues see each other’s absences by default — including the leave type. That helps with planning. Often, though, you do not want everyone to know why someone is away, or to count how many vacation or sick days someone took. Sometimes the department manager should see the team but not appear on the calendar themselves. Privacy settings solve exactly that. This guide shows you how to configure them so the team can still plan and sensitive reasons stay hidden.

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What you can configure

Most teams only need the first setting. The other two are special cases. Workspace toggles such as Other departments or Show absences in the past control which calendars someone can see — not whether the reason is visible. You find them under Privacy.

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Set it up

1

Decide which leave types should be private

Make private what is a real absence and whose reason colleagues should not see:
  • Vacation
  • Sick leave
  • Unpaid leave
  • Special leave and similar types
Keep types visible when the team needs the status:
  • Home office, when colleagues should know someone is working elsewhere
  • Training, when it should be visible that someone is in a course
Do not turn privacy on for sick leave only. If that is the only type that shows as Absent, colleagues can infer the rest — and then it is obvious who is sick.
2

Enable leave type privacy

  1. Go to Settings > Leave types.
  2. Open each type that should stay private.
  3. On the Basic tab, enable Leave type privacy.
  4. Repeat for every private type and save.
The fields are described in Create a leave type.
3

Match Outlook

Privacy in the app helps little if Outlook still shows “Vacation” or “Sick leave” in the subject.
  1. Open the same leave type.
  2. On the Calendar tab, set the Event’s subject to Absent.
To also hide the free-text reason from colleagues, enable Reason visibility on the Advanced tab. absentify then omits the reason in shared calendars. The reason still appears in the user’s personal Outlook calendar — the user should review who can see full details there.
4

Check what users see

  • Colleagues see Absent for private types, and the real type for the ones you left visible.
  • Department managers, assigned approvers, accepted representatives, and admins still see the real type. If the representative declines, the normal privacy rules apply again.
  • Weekly absence summary emails follow the same rules.
Open the team overview with a test user who is not an admin and check a few entries.

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When the manager should stay off the team calendar

A common request: the department manager or CEO should see the team, but not appear on the team overview. Mark them as an invisible manager — available from the Essentials plan. They keep all rights. The team does not see them.
1

Mark the manager as invisible

  1. Go to Settings > Departments.
  2. Open the department.
  3. The user must be a manager of that department. Add them as a manager first if they are not.
  4. Select the eye icon next to their name to mark them as invisible.
  5. Save.
The setting is documented under Departments.
2

Check what the team sees

After that:
  • Regular colleagues do not see the manager in the team overview, calendar, or member list of the department. Their absences are also left out of the weekly absence summary.
  • The manager themselves, admins, and co-managers of the same department still see them.
  • If they approve a request, their name still appears as the approver.
  • The workspace toggle Other departments does not override this.
  • If they are only a member of another department and not an invisible manager there, colleagues in that department can still see their absences.
Absences of invisible managers are not written to the department’s shared calendar sync or timeghost workspace.
Invisible manager hides only that one person. To hide absences for the whole department, use the next section.

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When a department must hide absences entirely

Use this only when a team — for example a small HR or leadership team — must stay off the team calendar. For everyone else, leave type privacy is enough. Only managers and approvers hides the absences themselves, so the team overview stops doing its job.
1

Set the department to Only managers and approvers

  1. Go to Settings > Departments.
  2. Open the department.
  3. Set Absence visibility to Only managers and approvers.
The setting is documented under Departments.
2

Check what changes — and what does not

After that:
  • Within the department, regular colleagues only see their own absences.
  • The team overview still lists those colleagues, with a lock and without their absences. The exception: anyone who manages that department, or is the assigned approver or accepted representative for that particular request, still sees that one request — not the person’s annual calendar.
  • What those members see of the rest of the company does not change.
  • The workspace toggle Other departments does not override this.
  • If someone also belongs to an unrestricted department, colleagues who can see that department can still see their absences.
3

Remove the department from syncs if needed

The setting does not stop shared calendar, Microsoft Teams Shifts, or timeghost syncs. Remove the department from the sync if the absences must not appear there.

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FAQ

If only sick leave shows as Absent, everyone can tell the remaining absences apart. Turn privacy on for vacation and the other real absences too, so colleagues see Absent for all of them.
If only leadership should stay hidden and still see everything, mark them as an invisible manager. If nobody on the team should see each other’s absences, set the department to Only managers and approvers. For day-to-day use, leave type privacy is enough.
Only when a department must not show absences at all, for example a small HR or leadership team whose time off must stay off the team calendar. For everyone else, leave type privacy is enough.
On Privacy. The Other departments toggle controls calendar visibility, not the absence reason. A department set to Only managers and approvers stays restricted either way.