Adding multiple holiday bookings at once

Looking for help with this feature in Polaris? Check out Adding multiple holiday bookings at once in the Polaris help.

Many companies choose to auto-populate user holidays with holiday bookings so holiday time is correctly accounted for in payroll. This means they don’t have to remember to add bookings; they are automatically added by the system when a timesheet that includes a holiday is generated.

However, relying on auto-population can lead to issues, in some cases. So, you might need to add bookings manually.

Why might we need to mass add holiday bookings?

Manual addition might be needed in these situations:

  • If you forget to set up the holiday or mis-configure the holiday time off type or user, you need to correct the affected timesheets
  • If a holiday is only decided after timesheets are generated, you may need to manually correct a lot of timesheets
  • If your company doesn’t use timesheets, but still wants to process holiday pay for exempt employees
  • If you want to see all time off when planning resources or schedules for future dates

To address these issues, you can choose to manually add multiple bookings.

How does mass addition of holiday bookings work?

You can mass add holidays when:

Administrators can be notified when bookings have been added.

Refer to Managing holiday bookings for more information.

Adding bookings when adding or editing a holiday

This procedure adds a single holiday for all users assigned the holiday calendar for that holiday. A booking is not added on any days with existing holiday bookings.

The edit option is useful for correcting errors in existing bookings, but you (or your Payroll Manager) need to delete the error bookings first.

To add bookings:

  1. Go to Administration > Company > Holiday Calendars.
  2. Open or add a calendar, and either:
      • Click Add Holiday, or
      • Click an existing holiday’s  icon, to edit that holiday
  1. Ensure the Automatically add bookings for this holiday option is enabled.

It will be enabled by default if you have Automatically Add Holiday Time to the Timesheet enabled at Administration > Timesheets > Timesheet Settings.

  1. From the When adding to an existing timesheet field, choose what should happen if a timesheet the holiday falls on has already been submitted.
  2. Click Add.

A holiday booking will be added on that holiday for all users assigned that holiday calendar.

Adding bookings for a single user

This procedures adds all holidays on the user’s assigned holiday calendar, within the date range you set. It does not replace existing holiday bookings.

This option is useful for correcting errors in existing bookings, but you (or your Payroll Manager) need to delete the error bookings first.

To add bookings:

  1. Add or edit a user.
  2. Select Schedule from the side menu.
  3. Click the Add Holiday Bookings link.
  4. Select the date range for which you want holidays added.

Only holidays for years covered by the users existing holiday calendar will be added.

  1. From the When adding to an existing timesheet field, choose what should happen if a timesheet the holiday falls on has already been submitted.

You cannot mass edit holidays from user profiles.

Notifying administrators that bookings have been added

You should assign administrators who add holiday bookings the Results of holiday booking creation notification, that gives full visibility into the results of the addition.

This notification is sent after the administrator adds bookings, when all holiday bookings that can be added, have been added. It lists the bookings that were successfully added, along with details about any errors encountered that prevented addition. Administrators will typically need to address errors, then re-run the addition.

What happens if a timesheet the holiday falls on has already been submitted?

You can choose whether bookings populate timesheets that are already submitted, using the When adding to an existing timesheet field.

These are the options:

Option

Description

Reopen if fully approved

Only fully approved timesheets will be reopened and have the booking added.

Bookings will be added to submitted timesheets that are not yet fully approved, but those timesheets will not be reopened; this means submitted timesheets will not be returned to the beginning of the approval process.

Reopen if submitted

All submitted or approved timesheets will be reopened and have the booking added, allowing all to be fully approved again.

Do not add if approved

Bookings are added to all applicable timesheets, except fully approved ones.

FAQs

If we add a new holiday in a new holiday calendar, will the holiday be added when we assign the calendar to users?

No, the holiday bookings will not be created. But, you can always edit the holiday after assigning the calendar, and choose to have bookings added then.

Related links

Managing holiday bookings
Automatically generating holiday bookings
Holiday hours do not auto-populate on timesheets
How do I fix existing holiday bookings that include errors?
The Holiday time off type isn't available when booking time off