# Time off and cover

Add vacation, sick leave or training, hand bookings over to a cover and import out-of-office entries from your calendar.

Source: https://docs.getridian.com/scheduling/absences/
Language: en
Reviewed: 2026-11-02

Under **Scheduling > Settings > Time off** you add when you're away. We offer no times with you during it.

## Add time off

With **Add** you choose:

- **Period:** all day from one day to another (the last day counts) or with times, at most 366 days.
- **Reason:** Vacation, Sick, Training or Other. Only you, owners and admins see the reason. Other members see “Away”, bookers only “away until …”.
- **Cover** (optional): another member of the workspace. With **Link the cover on the profile page**, bookers see a link to the cover's page.

You add your own time off. Owners and admins also add, edit and delete it for others.

## What changes

- **Available times:** During time off there are no slots with you on the booking page, in the widget, in funnels and through Alvin, MCP and the API. An appointment that ends exactly when the time off starts stays bookable; buffers don't count for this.
- **Round robin:** Whoever is away gets no new bookings. After you return, round robin balances out, so you don't get every booking at once.
- **Collective:** A time is only offered when all hosts are there.
- **Your page:** Your profile page and your event types show “away until …”, with the cover if you link it.

An out-of-office entry in a calendar that Ridian checks for conflicts already blocks your times.

## Hand over bookings

After saving, we show the bookings in the period. **Hand over bookings** opens the list again at any time.

1. Choose who takes the bookings: the cover, another member, or for round robin **Next available person**.
2. Choose the new person's calendar. Preselected is the one their bookings went to most recently.
3. Select the bookings and click **Hand over**.

For each booking we create the appointment in the new person's calendar, with a new meeting link for Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and then remove the old one. The booker gets an email with the new person, the link and the updated calendar file; the new person gets an email about the handover. For leads from the booking, the owner moves along if it was you. If the new person is busy or away at that time, the booking stays with you and we show why.

Bookings of one-on-one, group, round robin and collective event types can be handed over; group bookings move together. You hand over your own bookings; owners and admins hand over any booking.

## Import from your calendar

**Import from calendar** reads the next 90 days of your connected calendars:

- Google Calendar: “Out of office” entries in your primary calendar.
- Microsoft Outlook: events shown as “Away”.

Only what you select is added, each with a reason. Entries you already imported don't appear again.

## Alvin, MCP and webhooks

Tell Alvin, for example, “I'm on vacation next week, Julius covers for me”. Alvin shows the period and the affected bookings and then offers the handover, each for you to confirm. Tools and webhooks are under [For developers](https://docs.getridian.com/scheduling/developers/).