Absence & Coverage Overview
Before you send a request to a colleague, you want to know whether they are at work. The Away today block at the top of the Team Absence Calendar gives the answer in one glance: it lists the people from your calendar who are absent today, shows when each of them returns and names the colleagues who cover them.
The block does not depend on the period you are browsing, on the view or on the legend. It always describes the current day.
How to see who is away
- Open the SharePoint page or the Microsoft Teams tab with the Team Absence Calendar web part.
- Look at the block at the top. The heading is Away today followed by the number of entries in brackets, for example Away today (3).
- Read each entry: the photo and name of the person, the colored dot and the absence type, until and the last day of the absence, and, if there is a substitute, Covered by with the names.
- If nobody is away, the block says Nobody is away today.
The entries are informational: you cannot open or change them from this block. To see the dates around today, use the Timeline or the Month view below (KB10339. Team Absence Calendar: Timeline and Month Views).
Who is listed
A person appears in Away today when all of these conditions are met:
- the absence request has the status Approved; pending requests are not shown here, even when the calendar displays them as hatched bars;
- today lies between the start date and the end date of the absence, inclusive;
- the person belongs to the scope of the calendar, or the scope is Everyone with absences (KB10340. How to Choose Whose Absences the Team Absence Calendar Shows).
The number in the heading counts the absences listed. A half-day absence counts as an absence for the whole day.
Reading an entry
| Part of the entry | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Photo and name | The absent person |
| Colored dot and type | The absence type in its color. For a private type of another person, the grey Away is shown instead. |
| until date | The last day of the absence |
| Covered by: names | The colleagues who cover the person today; several names are separated by commas |
Who covers the person
The Covered by part lists the substitutes of the absent person whose substitution is active today. A substitution is active when:
- its status is not Declined or Cancelled;
- today is on or after its start date;
- it has no end date, or today is on or before its end date.
Two consequences are worth knowing:
- A substitute who has not confirmed yet is also listed. A substitution with the status Waiting for confirmation counts as active, so the name can appear before the colleague has accepted.
- All substitutions of the person count, not only the one created together with the absence request. A standalone substitution or a handover of duties of the same person appears in Covered by as well.
❗ Important
Covered by is not a confirmation. If your work depends on the cover, check the status in the Substitutions web part: the status of a substitution that is still waiting shows as Waiting for confirmation. See KB10346. What Is a Substitution: Temporary Cover and Handover of Duties.
Private absence types
If the type of an absence is marked as private, for example the default Sick leave and Parental leave types, you see a grey dot and the word Away instead of the type name, unless you are the absent person or the approver of that request. The end date and the substitutes are still shown. The details are in KB10345. Private Absence Types: What Colleagues See in the Calendar.
If someone is missing
| What you notice | Possible reason |
|---|---|
| A person you expect is not listed | The request is still pending, it was rejected or cancelled, the person is not in the scope you chose, or the Maximum people shown limit was reached. |
| An entry has no Covered by part | No active substitution exists, or the substitute declined or the substitution was cancelled. Managers can find such gaps on the No substitute tab (KB10338. How to Find Absences Without a Substitute). |
| The block says Nobody is away today. | Nobody in your scope has an approved absence today. |
📝 Note
The block is loaded when the page opens. After a colleague returns or a new absence is approved, refresh the page to update it.
💡 Tip
To assign someone to cover an absence that has no substitute, see KB10337. How to Assign a Substitute to Your Direct Report.
