Team Availability
Plenar only schedules work on days when a team member has capacity. Availability is what makes the schedule reflect reality — without it, Plenar would schedule tasks over weekends, PTO, and on-call rotations.
Default availability
Every team member starts with Monday through Friday at full capacity. Weekends are automatically excluded. You do not need to configure anything for basic weekday scheduling to work.
Time off
Time off reduces a member’s capacity for specific dates. This is the most common availability adjustment.
Adding time off from the dashboard
- Go to the Availability view
- Select a team member
- Click dates on the calendar to mark time off
- Choose the type (PTO, Sick, On-Call, Conference)
Adding time off from Claude Code
Just tell Claude naturally:
"I'm taking PTO next Friday"
"Mark me as on-call the week of April 14"
"I'm out sick today"
"I'll be at a conference Monday through Wednesday"Claude figures out the dates and type, calls plenar_add_time_off, and confirms.
Checking your availability
From Claude Code: “What does my schedule look like next week?” or “Do I have any time off coming up?” Claude calls plenar_get_my_availability and shows your upcoming time off and capacity.
Canceling time off
Dashboard: Click the time-off entry and delete it.
Claude Code: “Cancel my Friday PTO” — Claude looks up the entry and calls plenar_cancel_time_off.
Availability types
Availability types are configured at the organization level in Settings > Availability Types. Each type specifies how it affects capacity:
| Type | Capacity | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| PTO | 0% (full day off) | Vacation, personal days |
| Sick | 0% (full day off) | Sick leave |
| On-Call | 50% capacity | On-call rotations where the person can do some planned work |
| Conference | 0% (full day off) | Conferences, offsites, training |
Organizations can add custom types with configurable capacity percentages. For example, “Interview duty” at 75% capacity, or “Hack week” at 25%.
Daily overrides
For one-off adjustments, set a specific date to a fractional capacity:
- 0 — completely unavailable
- 0.5 — half-day
- 1.0 — full day (default)
Daily overrides take precedence over the default availability. Use them for situations that do not fit a standard time-off type: a doctor’s appointment (0.5 for one day), an offsite that is partially productive (0.5), or an extra work day on a weekend (set Saturday to 1.0).
How availability affects scheduling
Plenar converts estimates from working days to calendar days using each member’s specific availability. This means:
A 3-day task for a member with Wednesday PTO:
| Day | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Scheduled | Day 1 | Day 2 | — | Day 3 | — |
The task starts Monday, skips Wednesday, and ends Thursday. The calendar span is 4 days, but only 3 working days are consumed.
Two people, same task, different availability:
- Alice (no time off): 3-day task runs Monday to Wednesday
- Bob (Wednesday off): same 3-day task runs Monday to Thursday
Plenar handles this automatically. When you look at the timeline, you might wonder why Bob’s bar is wider than Alice’s for an identical estimate — this is why.
On-call and partial capacity
When a member is on-call at 50% capacity, a 3-day task takes 6 calendar days at that reduced rate. Each calendar day yields half a working day.
Calendar sync
If your organization has Google Calendar integration enabled, time off from calendar events can sync automatically. Configure this in Settings > Integrations > Google Calendar. Calendar-synced time off appears alongside manually-entered entries.
What triggers a schedule update
Adding or changing time off queues a pending change. Plenar runs a preview showing how the schedule shifts. For example, adding a week of PTO for a team member might push their tasks later, which cascades to dependent tasks owned by other members.
Significant availability changes (such as extended leave) may warrant a Recompute to re-optimize assignments, especially if auto-assignment is enabled.