1. Navigate to Time > Leave Management > Leave Calendar
2. The calendar displays each employee's leave as coloured blocks.
3. Each colour represents a specific leave type (for example, dark blue for Annual Leave, light pink for Childcare).
4. The colour legend at the bottom shows which colour represents which leave type.
   
5. Use the search and filter options to find specific employees or leave types.

Note: Only approved and pending leave is displayed on the calendar. The reason for leave is not shown for privacy reasons. Custom events are also displayed where the feature is enabled.

Custom events are company-wide dates added to the calendar, such as training days, company retreats, or all-hands meetings. They let your team see upcoming commitments and leave in one place when planning.

Events appear across all calendar surfaces in Employment Hero:

• The Leave Management calendar
• The Calendar page
• The Calendar widget
• My Leave

Each event appears on its relevant dates in the colour selected when the event was created.

To hide events from your own calendar view, turn off the Custom events toggle in the calendar's visibility controls. Turn it back on to show them again.

The colour legend appears at the bottom of the leave calendar. It shows every leave type and its assigned colour.

Because colours are now consistent throughout the calendar, you can rely on the legend to understand what each colour means. The legend does not change when you switch months or apply filters.

• If Annual Leave is shown as dark blue in January, it will be dark blue in every other month
• If you filter by location or status, the colours remain the same
• You do not need to check the legend again when you navigate to a different month
  

Colours help you scan the calendar and instantly spot patterns in leave across your team or organisation.

For example:

• You can see at a glance how many employees are taking Annual Leave in a given week
• You can identify potential gaps in staffing by seeing clusters of the same colour
• You can quickly check your team's leave schedules without reading every entry

1. Click Settings from the left sidebar.
2. Navigate to Leave > Leave Types.
3. Find the leave type you want to change.
4. In the Leave Type Colour section, click the colour picker dropdown.
   
5. Select a new colour from the available options.
6. Click Save.
7. The colour updates immediately across the entire leave calendar.

1. Click Settings from the left sidebar.
2. Navigate to Leave > Leave Types.
3. Click Add Leave Type.
4. Enter the leave type name and complete other required fields.
5. In the Leave Type Colour section, click the colour picker dropdown and select a colour.
6. Click Save.
7. The new leave type appears on the calendar with its assigned colour.

Note: For new organisations, the system will automatically suggest the next colour in the palette to help ensure variety across your leave types. You can accept this suggestion or choose a different colour.

You can assign the same colour to multiple leave types to group them together on the calendar. This is useful if you want to visually organise leave types by status or category.

For example, you might:

• Assign the same colour to all paid leave types (Annual Leave, Sick Leave, Compassionate Leave)
• Assign the same colour to all unpaid leave types (Study Leave, Unpaid Leave)
• Use colours to reflect your organisation's branding or preferences

To do this, simply assign the same colour to each leave type in the leave type settings.

The system provides 18 colours designed to be easy to distinguish from one another. Colours range from light to dark shades and include both warm and cool tones.

When you open the colour picker, all 18 colours are displayed in order. You can choose any colour for any leave type.

If your organisation has more than 18 leave types, colours will repeat. You can still customise any type's colour to ensure all leave types are visually distinct if needed.

For new organisations and when leave types are synced from payroll systems in ANZ, the system automatically suggests the next colour in the palette. This helps ensure variety across your leave types.

For example:

• Your 1st leave type automatically gets colour 1
• Your 2nd leave type automatically gets colour 2
• Your 19th leave type automatically gets colour 1 again

You can always override this suggestion and choose a different colour.

Custom events also use colour on the calendar, but they are set up differently to leave types:

• A leave type colour is set once and applies to every leave entry of that type
• An event colour is selected for that individual event when it is created, and can be changed later by editing the event
• The event colour options are intended to keep events visually distinct from leave entries on the calendar

Event colours are not set in leave settings. To change an event's colour, edit the event on the calendar.

When you change a leave type's colour:

• The colour updates immediately on the leave calendar
• All leave entries for that type display with the new colour, including past and future leave
• The colour legend updates to reflect the change
• All calendar views show the new colour consistently

Colours remain the same regardless of:

• Which month you are viewing
• Which filters you apply (location, status, leave type, team)
• Which user role you have (manager, administrator)
• Whether the leave is in the past, present, or future

This consistency helps you rely on colour as a quick visual aid to understand the calendar.

Only administrators can customise leave type colours. Changes are made in Settings and apply immediately across the entire organisation. Managers can view and use the colours on the leave calendar but cannot edit them.

Custom event colours are not controlled here. An event's colour is selected by whoever creates or edits the event, and administrators control which members are able to do that.

The location of colour customisation settings varies depending on your organisation's setup:

• Most organisations: Settings > Leave > Leave Types
• MYOB connected organisations: Settings > Pay Categories
• Custom events: edit the event directly on the calendar