Using the Work calendar

The Work calendar can be accessed by all Workable members who can access the 'Employees' page, and comes in handy when you need to:

• Know if someone is working today or if they're scheduled to be out.
• Make ad-hoc edits for fixed work schedule workers, for example, bulk edit working hours and/or workplace for specific dates and employees.
• Create shifts for shift workers (employees without an assigned fixed work schedule, i.e., those that need recurring assignment, like each week or month).

To access it, click Work calendar in the main navigation bar.

 

Overview

Under the Work calendar, you can see time-off requests, holidays, and employee work schedules. On the desktop, the default view is set to week, but a month view is also available. You can search employees by first or last name and filter by:

• time-off types (available only for HR Admins)
• departments
• entities/locations

Enable the 'Show time-off only' on the upper right to hide work schedule data and see only employees' time off and holidays for the timeframe you are looking at.

All employees who are managers of other employees (regardless of their access) can also switch to a 'Direct reports' view of the calendar that includes only themselves and their direct reports. 

Work schedule data

All employees with assigned work schedules are displayed, with each schedule shown as a cell for each day, with working hours & workplace (onsite/remote). Employees without an assigned work schedule are also shown, but with empty cells instead.

Time-off requests

You can click on a time-off item to see details. Requests pending approval will be displayed with an orange clock icon next to them. If you are involved in the approval process and it's your turn to approve, you can also approve from this view. 

Time-off types will be visible to all employees only if the related Calendar setting is turned on. 

Holidays

Public and company-specific holidays will appear with striped lines. Hover over the holiday box to review the holiday. 

 

Available actions

You can also perform specific actions from this page depending on your user permission.

As an HR Admin, you can:

• Request time off for yourself
• Import time-off balances in bulk via a CSV file

As an employee, you can request time off for yourself. 

Approvers of time-off requests will be able to see all the approvals that are pending for their actions as a list. Under the Actions menu, click View pending requests. Approve/reject directly from this view without the need to go to each employee profile or your inbox.

 

Customizing work schedules and shifts

Via the Work calendar you can make quick one-off adjustments (for example, editing a day’s hours or marking a day as remote) or apply schedule updates in bulk to multiple days or employees.

To change an employee’s assigned hours or workplace:

1. Select one or more cells that represent the days you want to update. You can make updates to several employees / dates at once or even choose an entire row or column to include all visible days or employees in the current view.
   
2. From the action bar at the bottom choose one of the following options:
   • Select work schedule: Apply an existing predefined work schedule from your settings.
   • Edit working hours: Define custom start and end times for the selected day(s).
   • Set workplace: Mark the selected days as on-site or remote.
   • Delete work schedule: Remove the assigned schedule for those days (this will appear as time off or no working hours).
     

If the selected days overlap approved or pending time-off requests, you’ll be asked whether to cancel time off (apply schedule changes) or keep time off (not recommended, as it may cause balance mismatches).

Impact of custom schedules

Custom schedules will have an impact in multiple workflows as described below:

• All edits will be reflected immediately across Timesheets and the Attendance report.
• Clock reminders immediately respect the new work schedule and arrive at the time set in the work calendar.
• Geofencing respects the workplace of the work schedule defined in the work calendar. For example if a day has been set as "on-site" but the employee attempts to clock remotely they will receive a geofencing error.
• Time off requests that take place after the custom schedule has been set respect the new schedule for effective days or hours calculation and subtracting balance accordingly. Note that any existing time off requests do not get recalculated, and any subtracted balance remains as-is.

 

Calendar settings

As an Admin, you can choose if the time-off types should be visible to all employees from the Calendar settings during the time-off type setup.

If the setting is turned on, you can color-code time-off types in the Work calendar. In the example below, we decided to show this time-off type to all employees and label it with the red color in the calendar. 

When this setting is disabled, employees’ time-off type won't be visible anywhere and the request will be shown in gray color in the Work calendar.

To change the setting or the color of a time-off type, click Edit in the menu for the related time-off type.

 

Calendar access rights

The view in the Work calendar depends on the member's role: 

All-access members can:

• See all pending and approved time-off requests of active employees
• View and edit all employees’ work schedules

Standard access members can see:

• All the approved time-off requests of Active employees
• Their own and their direct reports’ approved and pending time-off requests
• Any time-off requests for which they are involved as approvers
• Work schedules of other employees

You can find more details below:

Role	View Work Schedule	Edit Work Schedule	View time-off requests (approved)	View time-off requests (pending)	Approve time-off requests
HR Admin	All employees	All employees	All employees	All employees	Yes
Line Manager	All employees*	Reporting line*	All employees	Only if requestor/approver	Only if approver / HR Admin
Employee	All employees*	No*	All employees	Only if requestor/approver	Only if approver / HR Admin

 

Configuring access

The access rights marked with * are configurable through Profile templates > Job - Employement > Work Schedule > Field settings. This configuration affects visibility and edit access both in the Work calendar and the employee profile.