Firstly, the availability planner is not an HR tool, rather it is essential for project planning. Non-available time in Synergy encompasses everything that is not directly related to project work. The availability planner is a Synergy Enterprise only feature.
The availability planner in Synergy works in two ways.
Staff can update their availability for their manager to approve (optional).
Managers can mark their staff as unavailable.
From the resource planning page, managers can see at a glance how changes to availability will affect resourcing for a project. From the team availability page, managers also have a register for all the times their staff were unavailable.
Why use the availability planner?
The availability planner gives managers a visual representation and also a register of when staff are unavailable for project work.