Available for the following HR plan: Platinum
Available for the following user access levels: Employee , Manager , Admin
Syncing leave requests with your external calendar (such as Google Calendar or Outlook) allows your approved leave requests to be automatically visible on your calendar. This ensures your scheduled time off is accurately displayed and easy to access.
This article covers how to adjust settings in your HR platform so that your leave requests trigger calendar events and sync with your external calendar when you have received leave approval from your manager.
Interactive learning
Manage data
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Notifications, click the Notification Settings submenu.
You will now see the Notification Settings page, which has a table consisting of three columns entitled Module, Event, and Email Notifications.
- On the row that begins with the term 'Leave (Employees)', click Yes.
- (Providing you are a manager and have reporting employees) On the row that begins with the term Leave (Managers), click Yes.
Further information
Approving your relevant leave setting allows Employment Hero to sync email notifications with attached ICS (Internet Calendaring and Scheduling) files. These notifications detail new, updated, or cancelled leave requests. They will automatically appear on your calendar, where you will be marked as busy throughout the entirety of your leave.
Having standard Leave Calendar events is especially useful for direct (primary) managers who want to track employee absences and availability. Employees' leave requests trigger real-time notifications that sync to the Leave Calendar, so managers have a single, clear overview of their team's goings-on.
It is important to remember, however, that this function is only for primary managers. Users who only have the Employee user access level cannot use this feature.
Employment Hero is designed to send a standard Leave Calendar event to managers to avoid having automated emails that reveal sensitive information. This is so that employees' privacy is protected even if managers accidentally leave their inbox open around other people.
The primary manager can decide if they wish to learn more about the leave request. They can only do this by using the Leave Calendar feature in Employment Hero or their Swag app.
Troubleshooting and tips
If your Outlook calendar displays a date that does not match an approved leave request you submitted through your HR platform, try simply clicking the invite to open it. This often corrects the date displayed in Outlook.
If the issue persists, note that it may have occurred due to how Outlook handles .ics calendar invites. We therefore recommend contacting Outlook support directly for assistance.
There may be times when your email provider will need you to respond to an event before it even reaches your calendar. To ensure these events appear automatically, you may need to check and configure your external calendar settings accordingly.
In your Google Calendar, the given event will show automatically when your leave request has been successfully synced to it. However, note that a notification in your inbox may ask whether the email is spam.
To avoid this question occurring, it is recommended that you carry out the following steps:
- In the email, click a button in your inbox that confirms you trust the sender (for example, there may be an 'I know the Sender' button).
- Add no-reply@employmenthero.com to your contact list.
- Reply to the email to check if everything is working as it should.
After you complete these steps, your calendar events should show normally in your Google calendar without the need to respond to the event anymore.
Explore related content
- View leave requests as a manager, employee, and contractor This article shows how managers, employees, and contractors can use the View leave requests feature to look at accepted, pending, and rejected leave requests.
- How do I enable a company leave calendar view via the HR platform? FAQ This article answers a common question we receive about how to enable a company-wide leave calendar.
Comments
A roster change was made on December 21st 2023, the roster change was not sent to the employees on SWAG till December 25th 2023. Why would this happen?
Hi Andrew MUELLER the best place to get a solution to your issue would be from our support team. If you contact our support team they can look into the above issue for you and hopefully provide a resolution.
It would be helpful if the secondary manager also received the email ICS attached so they are also aware when staff on their team are on leave. Then if the primary manager is away they are aware of team movements. Is there a way that we can trigger this?
Hi Sara Hamilton, thank you for your comment.
Currently, only direct managers can be configured to receive leave requests.
Although what you're seeking is not current functionality, please be assured, I have noted this as feedback and shared with our product development team for future consideration.
Article is closed for comments.