How Holiday Calendars Work in Calamari
Every employee in Calamari must be assigned to a Holiday Calendar. These calendars define non-working days (bank holidays) which are then automatically reflected in the employee’s personal schedule.
A Holiday Calendar in Calamari is a permanent entity, but its contents are managed year-by-year.
Continuous Updates: Once you create a calendar, you simply add the specific public holidays for each new year within that same calendar.
Annual Adjustments: This structure allows you to account for floating bank holidays or new national holidays that change from one year to the next without needing to create an entirely new calendar.
Automatic Sync: When a user is assigned to a calendar, their schedule is instantly populated with those holidays. Crucially, this includes past years if those holidays were configured in the calendar.
What happens if I move an employee to a different holiday calendar?
If you move an employee to a different Holiday Calendar, Calamari synchronizes their entire history with the new calendar. This includes previous years.
Example of the "Recalculation Trap":
2025: An employee is on "Calendar A." May 6th is a holiday. They take leave from May 3rd–7th. Calamari calculates this as 4 days of leave.
2026: You move the employee to "Calendar B." This new calendar does not recognize May 6th, 2025, as a holiday.
The Result: Calamari automatically recalculates the 2025 request. The system now sees that leave as 5 days, potentially causing a negative balance or incorrect accrual carry-over for the current year.
How to Protect Historical Data when switching an employee to a different Holiday Calendar.
To avoid unintended changes to past leave balances, choose one of the following two strategies based on the situation:
Option 1: Archive and Create a New Profile
If an employee is moving to a new country or has a significant contract change after several years, the safest method is to:
Archive the existing employee profile (this "freezes" their history).
Create a new profile for the employee assigned to the new Holiday Calendar.
Option 2: Create a Hybrid Individual Calendar
If the employee has only been with the company for a short time (for example: 1–2 years), you can create a custom calendar specifically for them.
The Setup: In this new calendar, manually input the holidays that matched their old location for previous years.
The Transition: For the current and future years, input the holidays for their new location.
The Result: This maintains the integrity of their historical data while ensuring future holidays are reflected correctly.