How to Read the Team Absence Calendar: Colors, Hatching and Marks

Overview

The Team Absence Calendar packs a lot of information into a small area, and it does so with a handful of visual rules: color tells you the type of absence, a hatched pattern tells you that a request is not approved yet, grey hides a private type, and a few marks and background tints show half days, non-working days, holidays and today. This article is a reference for all of them.

Colors of absence types

Every absence type has its own color, stored in the Color column of the AbsenceTypes list. The calendar uses the same color for the bar in the Timeline, for the chip in the Month view and for the swatch in the legend. The default types of a new installation are:

You can change the colors and add your own types; see KB10352. How to Add and Configure Absence Types.

Pending requests are hatched

A request that is still waiting for the manager's decision is drawn in the color of its type, overlaid with diagonal stripes, in the Timeline and in the Month view. An approved absence is a solid color. The same pattern marks the Pending approval entry in the legend. The tooltip of a pending bar also contains the line Pending approval.

Rejected and cancelled requests are never drawn. Pending requests can be hidden with the Show requests pending approval toggle (KB10343. How to Filter the Calendar by Absence Type and Show or Hide Pending Requests).

Grey Away entries

When the type of an absence is marked as private, the colleagues of the absent person see a grey bar or chip with the word Away instead of the type name, and no number of days in the tooltip. The absent person and the approver of that request still see the real type and color. A single grey Away entry in the legend represents all private types. See KB10345. Private Absence Types: What Colleagues See in the Calendar.

The half-day mark

In the Timeline, a ½ follows the label of a bar when the first or the last day of the absence is a half day. The mark does not say which end is the half day; to find out, open My Absences and read the request (starts at midday or ends at midday). The Month view does not show the mark.

You can read your own requests in My Absences. For another employee’s half-day details, ask that employee if the request is not available to you.

Background tints and highlights

Tooltips

Hover over a bar or a chip to see a tooltip with one item per line:

1. the name of the employee;
2. the absence type, or Away for a private type;
3. the period;
4. the number of days, for example 5 d (hidden for a private type unless you are the absent person or the recorded approver);
5. Pending approval, only for pending requests;
6. Substitute: and the name, only if the request names a substitute.

Several people on one day: +N more

A day cell in the Month view shows up to three chips. When more people are away on that day, the cell ends with +N more (for example +2 more). Hover over it to see the names and types of the remaining people. In the Timeline every person has a row of their own, so there is no such limit.