Overview
While Planning Time Off continues to occur through the Assignments View/Shaper, the Time Off page is used to manage some of the other Time Off functions within Parallax, as well as Holidays. There are a few main activities you'll use the Time Off page for:
- Managing Holiday Calendars
- Connecting Timesheets for Time Off Actuals
- Mass-uploading future Time Off Plans
Read on for more info on how this page works and what it's used for!
| We’ll cover how to add a new Holiday Calendar to the Time Off page, as well as how to add Holidays individually or import the previous year. You can also find out more about Archiving old/unneeded Calendars. | |
| Find out here how to connect Timesheets to the Time Off feature, in order track completion of PTO through Timesheets! | |
| We'll talk about what PTO Uploader is and how it's used. | |
| Cancelled PTO | While not managed on this page, you can find out more here about how to think about Time Off that's not completed. |
| (Legacy) Converting Internal Projects into PTO Plans | Converting Internal Projects into Time Off Plans is a legacy feature for Customers not already using Time Off - but it may still be helpful to you. You can find out how it works in this section! |
| Exclude/Include Time Off from Utilization | While inclusion/exclusion of Time Off from your Utilization calculations does not happen on this page, it's important to think about when looking at Time Off. Check out this section for more info. |
Adding a Holiday Calendar
To add a Holiday Calendar, you'll want to start by visiting Settings > Time Off. From there, you'll see a green button in the upper-right corner called "Add Holiday Calendar". You'll be asked to add a Name to the Calendar and Click Save - once you do that, your Calendar will be added is ready for Holidays.
The Holidays for each year are separate, so make sure to pay attention to the Year Dropdown when adding new Holidays. There are two separate ways to add Holidays to a Calendar:
- You can Create Holiday to add invidual Holidays, or...
- ...Import Holidays frm the previous year using Carryover Holidays from Previous year.
Participation in Holidays can be managed directly through the Settings > People page. For People participating in these Holidays, they will automatically be factored out of their individual Schedule when calculating Capacity.
Adding Individual Holidays to a Calendar
To Create a new Holiday, click the Create Holiday.
This will open a module where you can add and set a Name for the Holiday, as well as select from a Date picker to select the Date the Holiday will occur. You can add as many days as you want to a Holiday by selecting "Add Another Day".
Once you've added the correct dates you want, click Save and they'll be added to your Calendar!
Importing Holidays to a Calendar
To import Holidays from the Previous year, first make sure to check the last year using the year dropdown. Once confirmed, just select the option entitled Carryover Holidays from Previous Year, and select Yes when prompted to confirm - this will import all of your Holidays from the last year!*
*Important Note - Watch out for business days and weekends!
Some Holidays, such as the US Memorial Day, are different each year - you'll want to make sure you're updating these if you Carryover Holidays. Additionally, the Holidays that are on a static date each year (example: Independence Day, July 4th) may fall on a weekday one year, but a weekend the following year - so you'll also want to check for Holidays being observed on a different business day.
Archiving a Holiday Calendar
If you no longer need a Holiday Calendar (or if you accidentally created it), you can Archive it by clicking the three-dot menu next to the Calendar. Just remember to remove that Calendar from any Locations on the Settings > Locations page first!
Time Off Actuals
While Time Off Allocations are assigned through the f you are already tracking all your Time Off through a Timesheet, you can connect a Timesheet for tracking Time Off by:
- Visiting the Settings > Time Off page
- In section Time Off Actuals clicking the "Connect Timesheet" Button
- Entering the Timesheet ID (typically found within the URL of the Timesheet Project)
- Clicking "Sync and Save"
And you're done! Once synced, you'll see the Actuals recorded in the Timesheet begin to be added to the Actuals section of each Cell within the Shaper and Assignments View.*
Remember, Time Off and Holidays are different in Parallax, so we typically recommend connecting at least two Timesheets: one for PTO and one for Holidays. If you have different teams recording Time Off and/or Holidays to separate Timesheets - don't worry, you can connect multiple of each!
*Parallax Tip - Time Off isn't Affecting Availability, what's wrong?
Once you have at least one Timesheet attached to Settings > Time Off, Parallax will pay attention to Plans/Actuals for Time Off and Holidays in much the same way as a Project is tracked. This means, if your team isn't recording their Time-Off Actuals, their Availability will creep back up as Future turns into Past.
PTO Upload
Currently, PTO is primarily intended to be managed from the Assignments View (with any more granular changes being made through a Project Shaper). While we currently do not have a HRIS or PTO integration, you can mass upload PTO using the PTO CSV Upload. Please keep in mind that this feature is designed for use with Bamboo HR, and any CSV from an alternate HRIS system would need to be formatted to match Bambo HR to be accepted. Find out more here.
Exclude/Include Time Off from Utilization
Historically, Time Off/Holidays have always been excluded from Utilization, functioning as a reduction in availability, rather than consumption of non-billable time. This helps normalize data over time, basing Utilization calculations solely on time that People are actually present (rather than varying based on how much Time Off a Person is taking). However, as of our 9/21/2023 release, this has become optional - so check out this article for more info!