Vacation and Absence Calendar
Everyone on the team adds their own vacation, time off and business trips, and the whole team sees who is out. Public holidays come in from a holiday feed, so nobody types them in.
This calendar shows who is away. It does not count leave balances or approve requests: see When you need approvals or Outlook at the end of this page.
What you set up
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Calendar name | Your team’s name, for example “Support team: who is out” |
| Categories | Vacation, Out of office, Business trip, Training |
| Permissions | Restricted: the team lead is an owner, the team are members |
| External calendar | Public holidays of your country |
| Views | Month for this month, Flat year for planning the summer |
| Share link | Optional: view-only, for contractors who plan around your team |
1. Create the calendar
Create a calendar and give it your team’s name.
Then click the calendar name to open its settings:
- On the General tab, set Default calendar view to Month.
- On the Calendar tab, set Week start day to Monday if your week starts on Monday. A new calendar starts the week on Sunday.
2. Add the categories
On the Categories tab, remove the default categories you will not use and add these:
| Category | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Vacation | Planned time off |
| Out of office | Every other absence, sick days included. The name says that the person is away, not why. |
| Business trip | Travel for work |
| Training | Courses and conferences |
Add Remote work only if the team really needs to know who works from home. Give each category a clearly different color; a dark background with white text stays readable.
3. Keep the reason for an absence out of the calendar
A shared calendar is the wrong place for health information. Under the GDPR, data about someone’s health belongs to the special categories of personal data, and a team calendar is seen by the whole team and possibly by anyone with a share link.
- Name the category Out of office, not “Sick leave”.
- Write only the person’s name in the subject. Leave the reason out of the subject and the description.
- Leave Attendees empty on absence entries. A share link shows the attendees of every entry, with their e-mail addresses.
The person’s manager and HR keep the reason where it belongs, in your HR process.
4. Choose who can edit
On the Permissions tab:
- Leave Private calendar unticked, so the team can see the calendar.
- Set Permission mode to Restricted.
- In Calendar owners, add the team lead and a deputy. Owners can change the calendar settings.
- In Calendar members, add everyone who will add their own time off. Members can add and edit entries.
Everyone else in your organization can view the calendar. Members can change any entry, not only their own, so agree in the team that everyone edits only their own time off.
Do not leave the Default mode on a team calendar: in that mode everyone in your organization who uses the app is an owner and can change the settings or delete the calendar.
5. Add public holidays
On the External calendars tab, click Add ICal source, paste the holiday link of your country, give it a name such as “Public holidays” and a color, and save. The links for more than 30 countries are on the External Calendars page. A team spread over several countries adds one source per country.
Holidays from a feed are read-only, show in their own color and do not count toward the 15 entries of the free plan.
6. Add time off
- In the Month view, click the first day of the absence. The Create event panel opens.
- Type the person’s name in Subject, for example “Anna Keller”.
- Tick All day and set Date start and Date end to the first and the last day away.
- Choose the category and save.
To see only one kind of absence, open Categories in the toolbar and pick it. To find one person’s entries, type their name in Search.
About the free plan. Every absence is a separate entry, and a team of ten can fill the 15 entries of the free plan in a month or two. When the limit is reached, only licensed creators and editors can add more entries. See Subscription.
7. Show it in Teams and share it
- Add the calendar as a tab to your team’s channel, so everyone checks it where they already work.
- To let a contractor or an agency see when your team is out, publish a view-only link on the Sharings tab and send it to them. They need no Microsoft account. The link shows every entry with its subject, dates and description; Unpublish turns it off at once. See Sharings.
When you need approvals or Outlook
Virto Shared Calendar holds the entries your team types in. Two jobs belong to other tools:
- Collecting absences from Outlook calendars or a SharePoint list automatically, and approving requests. That is Virto Calendar App: see Approve or reject vacation requests.
- Leave balances, accruals and payroll. Keep them in your HR system.