Holidays

A holiday is one non-working date — a public holiday, a restricted (optional) holiday or a weekly off — that you record once so that the features which plan work can skip it. You add the year's holidays after your companies, branches and business hours exist, and before people start booking appointments, checking in on the mobile app or generating fiscal days. Each feature then decides for itself which holidays apply to it, so it is worth reading Which holidays each feature reads before you enter the list.

Overview

A holiday record holds very little:

• Date — the day that is not worked. One record covers one date; a three-day festival is three records.
• Holiday Type — a short text: Public, Restricted or WeeklyOff. Some features treat these differently.
• Partner Account and Branch — the company and the location the holiday belongs to. Holidays with no branch, or no company, are wider in scope.
• Is Active — whether the date still counts.

The same holiday list serves several features. Mobile attendance, appointment slots and the booking wizard, fiscal days, the support desk's SLA clock, training sessions, the service time-sheet console and the mobile target-pace card all read it. Payroll does not: pay is prorated on calendar days less unpaid leave, so holidays neither add nor remove payable days.

When to use it

• At the start of each year, to load that year's public holidays for each company and branch.
• When a branch closes for a local holiday or an event, to stop slots being offered and check-ins being accepted that day.
• When you want fiscal days to show the right number of working days per month.
• When a support desk promises response times in working hours and must not count holidays.

How xMatix handles it

Which holidays each feature reads

No two features scope holidays in quite the same way. In the table, company-wide means a holiday with no Branch, and tenant-wide means a holiday with neither Branch nor Partner Account.

Three consequences are worth remembering:

• A holiday you add for one feature also reaches the others. A tenant-wide holiday entered for the SLA calendar also closes appointment slots, blocks mobile check-in and marks fiscal days non-working.
• Fiscal days never see branch holidays. To mark a date non-working on fiscal days, the holiday must have no branch.
• Tick Is Active. Appointment slots, the booking wizard and the target-pace card only count holidays whose Is Active is ticked; a holiday with the box left empty still counts for check-in, fiscal days and SLAs.

Holiday Type

Holiday Type is a free-text box, not a list, so type the value exactly. Only two values are recognised, and the comparison ignores capitals:

• WeeklyOff — fiscal days show the date as a weekly off rather than a holiday, and training sessions describe it as "a weekly off". Everywhere else it behaves like any holiday.
• Restricted — the booking wizard and training sessions ignore it, so the date stays bookable and a trainer can be scheduled. Mobile check-in, slot release, fiscal days and the time-sheet console still treat it as a holiday.

Any other text, such as Public, is an ordinary holiday. A misspelling (for example Weekly Off with a space) is also just an ordinary holiday.

Names and numbering

Each holiday is numbered automatically from the HO series when it is saved (Holiday Name Setting). The standard forms have no field for a descriptive name, so screens show the number or the Holiday Type rather than, say, "Independence Day": the mobile check-in message names the holiday by its number, and the booking wizard badge shows the Holiday Type.

What is not checked

There is no validation beyond the required fields on the form. Two holidays on the same date for the same branch are both saved, a date in the past is accepted, and deleting a holiday is immediate.

Prerequisites

• The companies (Partner Accounts) and branches the holidays belong to. See Branches.
• For SLA holidays: the business-hours calendar they belong to, and the Business Hours field added to the Holiday form (see Configuration).
• Access to the Holidays list through Payroll → Settings or Support → Settings (see Permissions).

Procedure

Step 1 — Open the holidays list

Open Payroll → Settings and, in the People group, select Holiday. The same list is also a card under Support → Settings. The All Holiday view shows Name, Partner Account, Branch, Holiday Type, Date and the audit columns.

Step 2 — Decide the scope of each date

For every date, decide which features must treat it as a holiday, using the table above:

• A holiday that applies to one location only: give it that Branch.
• A holiday that applies to a whole company and must appear on fiscal days: leave Branch empty and set the company. (The standard form requires a branch — see Step 3.)
• A day only some staff take off: use Holiday Type Restricted.

Step 3 — Create the holiday

1. Select New.
2. Choose the Partner Account (company). Only accounts marked as partner accounts are offered.
3. Choose the Branch. Only branches of the chosen company are offered.
4. Type the Holiday Type: Public, Restricted or WeeklyOff.
5. Pick the Date.
6. Tick Is Active.
7. Select Save.

Partner Account, Branch, Holiday Type and Date are all required on the standard form. If your organization runs a single company or a single location, the Partner Account or Branch field is hidden and the holiday is saved without it — which makes it company-wide or tenant-wide.

The holiday opens with its HO number, the company and branch in the header, and a Key Information panel with Holiday Type, Date and Is Active.

To create holidays with no branch on a multi-branch setup — for example so fiscal days pick them up — use Import data and leave the Branch column empty.

Step 4 — Load a whole year at once

For a full calendar, prepare a file with one row per date and the columns Date, Holiday Type, Partner Account, Branch and Is Active, then load it with Import data. Import is also the way to set Business Hours on many holidays without changing the form.

Step 5 — Change, copy or retire a holiday

• To change a holiday, open it and select Edit. The form is the same as the create form. Changes apply from the next time each feature reads the list; see Business rules for fiscal days.
• To give the same date to another branch, create a second holiday. The standard holiday page shows only Edit and Delete; there is no copy button on it.
• To retire a holiday without deleting it, clear Is Active and save. Make sure the box is unticked and saved as false: a holiday that was never ticked still counts for check-in, fiscal days and SLAs.

Step 6 — Delete a holiday

Select Delete on the holiday page, or on its row in the list, and confirm. The date stops counting at once in every feature, except that fiscal days already generated keep their flag until the holiday sync is run (see below).

Fields

Business rules

• Numbering. The HO document-name setting names every new holiday on save.
• Lookup filters. Partner Account offers only accounts marked as partner accounts; Branch offers only branches of the selected Partner Account.
• No duplicate or date checks. Overlapping holidays are all stored. Features that read one holiday per date take one of them; the booking wizard prefers the branch's own holiday for its badge.
• Fiscal days. Generate Fiscal Days reads the holiday list when it creates the days. A holiday added, changed or removed later is applied to future fiscal days only when the Sync fiscal-day holidays job runs, and no schedule for that job is set up by default. Past days are never re-flagged.
• Appointment slots are released by a recurring background run, so a new holiday closes that date's slots at the next run, not the moment you save.
• SLA due dates already set on open cases are not recalculated when you add a holiday.
• Payroll never reads holidays.

Example

A distributor has two companies and a branch in each of three cities. In December, the administrator prepares the next year's list:

1. National public holidays apply to every location. The administrator imports them for each company with an empty Branch and Holiday Type Public, so they reach fiscal days, mobile check-in and the booking wizard.
2. One city has a local festival on 14 April. On the holidays list, the administrator selects New, chooses the company and that city's branch, types Public, picks 14 April and ticks Is Active. Only that branch's appointment slots close and only its staff are blocked from checking in.
3. A regional festival is optional for staff at the second city's branch. The administrator adds it for that branch with Holiday Type Restricted. The booking wizard keeps the day open there, while mobile check-in for that branch's staff is still blocked if the gate is on.
4. In January the administrator generates fiscal days for the new year; the national holidays appear as non-working days.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox:

1. Open Payroll → Settings → Holiday and create a holiday for next Monday for one branch, with Holiday Type Public and Is Active ticked.
2. Open the booking wizard for a branch time slot at that branch and go to the date step.
3. Change the holiday's Holiday Type to Restricted, save, and reopen the date step.

Expected result: in step 2, next Monday is disabled with a Holiday badge reading "Public". In step 3, the date is bookable again, because the booking wizard ignores restricted holidays.

Quick reference

• One record per date; one branch per record on the standard form.
• Holiday Type is free text: Public, Restricted, WeeklyOff.
• Always tick Is Active.
• Fiscal days use only holidays with no branch.
• SLA holidays need the Business Hours field, which is not on the standard form.
• Restricted holidays stay bookable in the booking wizard and for training sessions.
• After changing holidays, run the Sync fiscal-day holidays job if you use fiscal days.
• Payroll does not read holidays.

Permissions

• Seeing and changing holidays follows the entity grants on your security profile. In the shipped profiles, StandardUser, SalesExecutive and SystemAdmin have full access to holidays.
• New is granted to StandardUser and SystemAdmin; Edit, Delete and Clone are granted to all three.
• Reaching the list needs view access to the settings app it sits in. In the shipped profiles, only SystemAdmin can view the Payroll and Support settings apps, so other users need that app permission added to their profile.

A user without the app permission sees no Holidays entry under Settings; a user without the entity grant cannot open the list. See Security profiles.

Configuration

Holidays can also arrive from an HR system through a connector; see Integrations.

Common problems

Staff could check in on a holiday

The Block on holidays gate is off by default; turn it on in the mobile app configuration. If it is on, check that the holiday has no branch or the person's default branch, and that the date is the person's local date.

Appointment slots are still offered on a holiday

Slot release counts only holidays with Is Active ticked, and ignores a holiday that has a company but no branch. Tick Is Active, or give the holiday the branch. The change applies at the next slot release run.

A restricted holiday can still be booked

That is intended: the booking wizard and training sessions skip Restricted holidays. Use Public if the date must close.

Fiscal days don't show our holidays

Fiscal days ignore holidays that have a branch, and the standard form requires one. Import the holidays with an empty Branch (or make Branch optional on the form). For fiscal days already generated, run the Sync fiscal-day holidays job.

The weekly off shows as a holiday

Holiday Type must be exactly WeeklyOff (capitals don't matter, a space does). Correct the type and run the fiscal-day sync.

SLA due dates ignore our holidays

The SLA clock counts only holidays linked to the policy's business-hours calendar, and the standard form has no Business Hours field. Add the field, link the holidays, and note that open cases keep their due dates. See Business hours.

The holiday shows as a number instead of its name

Holidays are named from the HO series and the standard form has no descriptive name field, so screens show the number or the Holiday Type.

A whole day is blocked in the time-sheet console

The console closes the day for every technician when any holiday that day has no branch — including inactive and restricted ones. Give such holidays a branch, or delete those that no longer apply.

Common questions

Do holidays reduce pay?

No. Payroll prorates on calendar days in the period less approved unpaid leave, and does not read the holiday list. A holiday neither adds nor removes payable days. If you pay differently for holidays, handle it through payroll adjustments. See Payroll periods.

Should I create one holiday per branch or one for the company?

It depends on the features you use. One company-wide holiday (no branch) reaches fiscal days, check-in for everyone, the booking wizard and training sessions, but appointment slot release ignores it unless it also has no company. Branch holidays reach slot release, check-in and the booking wizard, but never fiscal days. Many organizations keep national holidays company-wide and local closures per branch.

What does Restricted mean?

A restricted holiday is one staff may choose to take. xMatix keeps the booking wizard and training sessions open on those dates, but mobile check-in, appointment slot release, fiscal days and the time-sheet console still treat them as holidays. If you want a restricted holiday to block nothing, don't record it, or record it for the branches that observe it.

Does adding a holiday move existing bookings?

No. Appointment slots for the date are closed and existing bookings are flagged as overcommitted so staff can rebook them. Nothing is moved or cancelled automatically, and SLA due dates on open cases are not recalculated.

Related topics

• Business hours
• Branches
• Branch time slots
• Attendance
• Appointments
• Fiscal years
• SLAs
• Holiday entity reference