The first steps in setting up the Holiday Planner are creating Day types, setting user quotas, and creating Zones and the holiday groups within them.
We recommend reviewing the information in this guide before making changes to your site.
Consider the needs of your user base before proceeding:
- Who you want to be able to approve their holiday (one person, with a substitute to be notified in their absence)
- The Location/country users are in, and which public holidays will need to apply to them
- Which month should their holiday year start in
- Their working pattern (if not the default Mon-Fri)
- Whether you want them to be able to carry holidays over to the next year
- What each individual's quota of days is
- What day types you need and their effect on the user quota
- Do you want users to see each other's holidays? If so, is this everyone, or users within the same group, or users across the same holiday group manager
From this, the most important aspects that reveal your setup are:
- The day types users can book and how these affect their quota
- Setting everyone's quotas
- Which Zones are needed
- Within these, are there any different user working patterns (if not Mon-Fri)
- Across those groups, which users will be set as the manager or substitute (and handle the requests)
- Any holiday visibility requirements are in place (via the 'My team' definition, explained further below)
1. Day types
These can be created by an administrator by following this guide.
Create all the day types you would like users to be able to book, set whether these need approval and if they take from their quota.
It is recommended to create the day types before the Zones & groups, because once the Zones & groups have been created, users will be able to start making bookings.
2. User quota
Follow our guide here to understand how to set the quota for all users.
It is recommended to set this before making the Zones & groups so everyone can start using the planner afterwards.
3. Zones
With the above questions answered, you should be able to tell which Zones you need to set up in the planner.
Zones are typically countries, because they may have different requirements between them:
- Public holidays are set per Zone
The public holidays in Spain, the UK vs USA are different, so we need to ensure users in those areas have the correct holidays pulling through to their calendar. This is achieved by creating a Zone for each area and the holiday groups with the appropriate users within these. - The month the holiday year starts can be set per Zone
Company policy or local law may differ on when the holiday year starts - How many days can be carried over (and if these expire) can be set per zone
Whether this is allowed likely differs per area, so your administrators can set this as required using Zones.
Follow our guide to create the Zones & groups you need.
4& 5. Holiday Groups
Once the Zones have been decided, the next element to consider is the holiday groups themselves.
Holiday groups are created within Zones, ensuring the users within have the correct public holidays, holiday year start date and carry over days (if set)
Creating groups
There are two ways holiday groups can be set up in the planner.
Decide which works best for your team, as each is managed over time in a different way.
1. Using People groups
The groups your team create in People can be used to create the holiday groups.
Groups in your system will be listed on the admin side of the Holiday planner, as shown below.
With this option, changes to holiday group membership need to happen in People and not Holiday Planner.
Please note: If your site syncs groups rather than administrators manually creating these, updates have to take place in the external repository first, e.g. Azure, Okta, etc.
2. Using custom holiday groups created in the application (Recommended)
Create holiday groups directly in the planner under Zones and add users as members to each group as you go.
Control over group membership can be updated at any time by an administrator of Holiday Planner.
Setting managers on groups
As groups are added, their settings can be configured.
- The weekend pattern
The default is Mon - Fri, but it can be changed to different patterns. Members of this group will see the pattern in their calendar when making bookings. Create groups to cover all the working patterns needed within a Zone. - Set the Manager
Select the person who will be notified when users in this group create new bookings that require approval. They will be able to approve/deny/edit requests for all group members. - Set substitute
Select the person who will be notified if the manager of the group is absent and a group member creates a booking that requires approval. They will be able to approve/deny/edit requests for all group members. - Choose group members
Select all users who should a member of this group and interact with the planner based on its settings and the zone that it is in.
After considering the holiday groups you need, create these within Zones following our guide here.
6. Holiday Visibility
Who can see each other's holiday is controlled by the 'My team' definition in Admin > Holiday planner > General configuration.
a. Users with the same holiday group manager
If this option is selected, users with the same holiday planner group manager (including substitute manager) will be able to see each other's holidays or absences.
b. Users with the same holiday group
If this option is selected, only users within the same holiday group can see each other's holidays.
c. What if I want everyone from a different group to see each other on holiday?
Set the 'My team' definition to 'users within the same group' and then create an additional holiday group containing all users at the bottom of the structure. (This is because if a user is in more than one group, the one listed highest in the structure will be applied)
