If you have freelance or temporary agents, there's a chance that they may not be included in the HR system your permanent team use to record time off.
For these cases, we usually recommend creating a new calendar that you can add to Surfboard. Here's how to do it in Google Calendar.
Step 1: Create a new time off calendar
Go to Google Calendar and press the ‘+’ button next to ‘Other calendars’ on the left sidebar.
Give your new calendar a helpful name that explains what it’s used for, e.g. Surfboard time off.
Make sure that the timezone you select is correct for your team - if you have team members in many different countries, they can set their own timezone later when creating a ‘time off’ event.
Step 2: Add the iCal link for this calendar into Surfboard
Once your calendar is created, find it in the sidebar and click the '...' button. Then select 'settings and sharing' from the menu.
You can either choose to create a public or secret link. We usually recommend a secret link for improved privacy:
Public links: Tick the box that makes this calendar public, then copy the public iCal link.
Secret links: Copy the 'secret address in iCal format' further down the page. Note, if you don't see this option then you most probably don't have permission to access this link. Ask the calendar owner to copy the link for you.
Go to Surfboard and head to settings > time off and add that iCal link to Surfboard.
💡 You can share this calendar link with your agents so that they can add it to their own calendar and book their own time off, or you can choose to control it yourself.
How do I add time off events in that calendar?
Create a new event in your calendar
Select the time of day this agent will be on time off
In the title of the event include:
the agent's first and last name, exactly as they appear in Surfboard, including any punctuation
Then, include any of these keywords so Surfboard knows which events are time off:
time off
holiday
vacation
absences
away
leave
absence
appointment
ooo
substitute day
sickness
sick
maternity
paternity
jury
floater day
🌴
substitute
not available
vacaciones
urlaub
Make sure that the calendar event is added to the time off calendar you created and added to Surfboard.
Once created, events will show up in Surfboard within 20 minutes.
FAQs
Will Surfboard also pull meetings from this calendar?
No, when a calendar is added as a time off calendar, Surfboard will only pull in events as time off blocks.
To sync in meetings or other events, agents will need to integrate Surfboard with their own Google Calendars. Read our guide to find out more
Why are my team's time off bookings not showing in Surfboard?
There are a few common reasons why bookings may be missing
The data hasn't refreshed yet: Surfboard syncs data from time off calendars every 20 minutes. Check back after a few minutes.
The agent's name did not match their name in Surfboard exactly: Check for spelling mistakes or missing punctuation, e.g. Fernandez instead of Fernández.
A keyword wasn't included: Check that the time off booking includes one of the keywords listed above. If there is a keyword your team use that isn't included (e.g. another language or time off policy) but vital for your workflows, then please make a request to our team via Intercom.
Why is the time off booking showing the wrong time?
Surfboard will use the timezone you assigned to the Google Calendar to place bookings in the schedule. If agents added time off in their own timezone, which is different to the calendar, then it may appear incorrectly.
If this is the case, let our team know and we can enable a setting to match time off bookings to the agent's timezone instead.
Can I add more than one calendar?
Yes, you can add an unlimited amount of time off calendars to Surfboard.