Public holidays settings

The Public Holidays feature in absentify allows you to manage and customize holiday sets for your team, ensuring accurate absence calculations and tailored configurations for employees in different regions or countries.

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Adding a public holiday set

To create a new public holiday set:

1. Navigate to Settings > Public holidays and click + Add public holiday.
2. Fill in the required details:
   • Name: Enter a descriptive name for the holiday set (e.g., “Baden-Württemberg”).
   • Country: Select the country from the dropdown menu.
   • Region (optional): Choose a specific region or subdivision if required.
3. Click Save to create the holiday set.
   The system will automatically populate public holidays for the selected country or region.

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Editing public holidays

You can customize an existing holiday set that was manually created by:

1. Clicking the pencil icon next to the holiday set on the Public holidays page.
2. Making changes such as:
   • Adding holidays: Use the + Add date option to create new holidays. Specify the name, date, and duration (full day, first half, or second half).
   • Editing holidays: Click an entry to change its name, date, or add translations for multilingual users.
   • Deleting holidays: Remove unnecessary holidays by clicking the trash icon next to the entry.

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Adding translations

You can add or edit translations for holiday names:

1. Select a holiday from the list and click to open the Edit holiday dialog.
2. Choose the Language from the dropdown menu.
3. Enter the translated holiday name and click Save.

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Assigning holidays to users

To assign a holiday set to specific employees:

1. Navigate to Settings > Users and click the pencil icon next to the user you want to edit.
2. In the Public holidays dropdown menu, select the appropriate holiday set(s).
3. Click Save to apply the changes.

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Deleting a public holiday set

To delete a holiday set:

1. Go to Settings > Public holidays and click the trash icon next to the holiday set.
2. Confirm the deletion.

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Outlook calendar synchronization for public holidays

Public holiday entries are automatically synchronized with employees’ Outlook calendars starting from the Essentials Plan (Essentials and Plus Plan).

• The synchronization process may take some time as all employees in the workspace are updated.
• Microsoft imposes limits on the number of calendar entries that can be created per tenant.

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Enabling Outlook calendar synchronization

To enable synchronization of public holidays with Outlook calendars:

1. Navigate to Settings > Microsoft.
2. Ensure that the Outlook calendar synchronization permission is enabled.
3. Confirm that public holidays are assigned to employees correctly.

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Handling dynamic or updated public holidays

Some countries apply flexible rules for public holidays, such as moving holidays to a nearby weekday if they fall on a weekend, or introducing new holidays by government decision. To manage these changes effectively and ensure that updates are reflected in your system, we recommend the following best practices:

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Timing your calendar setup

absentify updates predefined holiday sets monthly, but these updates are only applied for newly created holiday sets in the current calendar year. For example:
If your region announces in November that a specific date will become a public holiday starting from the following year, and you’ve already created next year’s calendar earlier in the year, this change will not be included in the existing holiday set. To avoid this:

• Only create or assign next year’s public holiday calendars at the end of the current year (e.g. December).
• This ensures that any government changes to public holidays are included automatically.

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What to do if you’ve already created the calendar

If you added a public holiday calendar too early and updates were missed:

1. Create a new public holiday calendar set for the affected country or region.
2. Assign the new calendar to the relevant users.
3. Delete the old holiday calendar set.

You can assign holiday calendars in bulk using our API Update a member (bulk assign public holiday sets)

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Best practices for managing public holidays

• Regional accuracy: Assign correct holiday sets to employees based on their location to avoid calculation errors.
• Custom holidays: Add company-specific holidays, such as additional paid leave, to reflect unique organizational policies.
• Regular reviews: absentify updates predefined public holidays monthly, but reviewing and customizing them ensures accuracy.
• Timing matters: Only add holiday calendars for the upcoming year at the end of the current year to ensure new government-announced holidays are included.