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Under Settings > Public holidays you manage the public holiday calendars of your workspace. Each calendar holds the public holidays for one location. Assign a public holiday calendar to every user in their profile. To add or change individual holidays, open the relevant public holiday calendar.
Each row on this page is a full calendar, not a single holiday. Each user can be assigned exactly one public holiday calendar. To add an extra holiday, open the matching public holiday calendar and add it there. The holiday then applies automatically to every user assigned that calendar.

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The calendar list

The table shows:
  • Name: The calendar name. A Default badge marks the calendar used for new employees. A badge such as 2 suggestions means official data has changed and you still need to decide. See Deciding on suggestions.
  • Location: Country and region, or No location.
  • Holidays: How many holidays the calendar has this year.
  • Employees: How many active users use this calendar.

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Adding a public holiday calendar

  1. Go to Settings > Public holidays and select New calendar.
  2. In New public holiday calendar, choose the Country and, if needed, the Region. Changing the country clears the region. absentify fills in the Name from your selection, for example Germany - Bavaria. You can edit it.
  3. Select Create calendar.
absentify imports the official holidays for last year, this year, and the next two years. Missing years are added later on their own, so you never add a year by hand. Then assign the calendar to users in their profiles.
You can add, edit, or delete holidays afterwards to match your organization.

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Opening a calendar

Select the pencil icon next to a calendar. The page opens with the calendar name (select the pencil next to it to rename), then the location, how many employees use it, how many suggestions are open, and Last checked against the official data. Use the year tabs to switch years. A tab shows a number when that year has open suggestions. There is no button to add a year: absentify keeps the calendar covering last year through two years ahead. The table of the selected year has Name, Date, and Status. Status is Official, Custom, Removed, or Not added, or a suggestion badge. A year with no holidays yet shows a short message and Add holiday.

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Adding, editing, and removing holidays

  • Add holiday: Enter the name, the date, and what the day Applies to (Whole day, Morning only, or Afternoon only). The day is added only to this calendar. If you pick a date in another year, the page switches to that year.
  • Edit: Open the row menu and select Edit to change the date, Applies to, and the name in every language. Only for holidays you created yourself.
  • Delete / Remove from calendar: Open the row menu. If you remove an official holiday, absentify remembers that and does not add it back. See Removed official holidays.
You can edit or translate only custom holidays. Official holidays from the data source can only be removed.

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Adding translations

  1. Open the row menu of a custom holiday and select Edit.
  2. Fill in the Name for every language. Empty fields are not allowed.
  3. Select Save.

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Assigning calendars to users

  1. Go to Settings > Users and select the pencil icon next to the user.
  2. In Holiday calendar, choose the calendar for that user’s location.
  3. Select Save.
Every user needs exactly one calendar. The field cannot be empty. If a user should have no public holidays, assign an empty calendar. See Deleting a public holiday calendar.
You can assign calendars in bulk with the API Update a member.

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Deleting a public holiday calendar

You cannot delete a calendar while users are still assigned to it. If you try, absentify lists those users.
  1. Check the Employees column.
  2. Move those users to another calendar under Settings > Users > Holiday calendar.
  3. Select the trash icon next to the calendar and confirm.
No holidays for a user: Create a new calendar and delete every holiday in it. Assign that empty calendar to the user.
Past absences stay as they are. After you delete the calendar, those holidays no longer count in new calculations.

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Outlook calendar synchronization

Public holidays sync to Outlook from the Essentials plan.
  • The first sync can take a while because every user is updated.
  • Microsoft limits how many calendar entries a tenant can create.
To turn it on:
  1. Go to Settings > Microsoft.
  2. Enable Outlook calendar synchronization.
  3. Make sure each user has the right holiday calendar.
When a calendar changes, including when a holiday is removed, Outlook is updated too. You can check this in the Microsoft sync logs.

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Keeping official holidays up to date

absentify checks calendars that have a location against the official holiday data on a schedule. There is no manual update button.
  • A date move in the future is applied right away. absentify recalculates the allowances of the affected users, updates Outlook, and emails every active admin.
  • Everything else becomes a suggestion you decide on: a new official holiday, a holiday that is no longer official, and every change that would touch a date in the past.
  • Calendars that contain only custom holidays do not get official-holiday suggestions.
  • Once a month, absentify adds any missing year in the booking horizon (last year through two years ahead). A new year appears in History as Year 2028 added with the source Automatic, and allowances are recalculated.
Admins receive one email per workspace. It lists the changes that were applied and the suggestions that still need a decision.

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Deciding on suggestions

Open the calendar and pick the year. A suggestion sits on the holiday it concerns:
  • A holiday the calendar already has keeps its row and gets a badge: No longer official or New date suggested.
  • A holiday the calendar does not have yet appears as an extra row with New.
Select the info icon next to the badge to see what that means. Then decide that row:
  • New: Add puts the holiday in the calendar. Do not add leaves it out, and it is not suggested again.
  • No longer official: Remove takes it out. Keep leaves it in the calendar.
  • New date suggested: Apply moves the day to the new date. Keep leaves it where it is.
A suggestion whose date has already passed carries a Past badge and the hint Changes allowances for the past. For New date suggested, the badge appears when the original date or the proposed new date has already passed. You decide each suggestion on its own.

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History

History under the year table lists what already happened: applied automatic updates, suggestions you accepted or dismissed, years that were added, and your own edits. Open suggestions stay in the year table, not here. Each entry is marked Applied or Dismissed, and shows Automatic or who made the change, for example by Anna Schmidt. Select Show more for older entries.

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Removed official holidays

If you remove an official holiday or decline a New suggestion with Do not add, the day stays out. Later automatic checks do not add it back. The row stays in the table of the year it belongs to, greyed out:
  • Removed: You took the holiday out of the calendar. Select Restore to add it back for every year the calendar covers.
  • Not added: You declined the suggestion. Select Add to put it in the calendar for every year the calendar covers.
absentify recalculates allowances after either action.
This applies only to official holidays. Custom holidays you created are deleted for good. Add them again with Add holiday.

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Company closure

To give everyone the same day off without deducting vacation, add a custom holiday to the calendar they already use. Open the calendar, select Add holiday, and enter the name and date. If you use more than one calendar, add the day to each one that should apply. If everyone should instead be booked on a leave type, use a group request.

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Best practices

  • Assign each user the calendar for their location.
  • Add company holidays to an existing public holiday calendar so they apply automatically to every user assigned that calendar.
  • Watch the calendar list for suggestion badges and decide on open suggestions, so allowances stay correct.