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 / Vacation, Sick Leave, On-Call, Conference / Training)
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 come from a fixed set, configured at the organization level in Settings > Availability Types. Each type specifies how it affects capacity. Some ship enabled and some ship disabled — enable the ones your organization uses.
| Type | Capacity | Default | When to use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday | 0% (full day off) | Enabled | A non-working day for the member |
| Sick Leave | 0% (full day off) | Enabled | Illness, recovery |
| PTO / Vacation | 0% (full day off) | Enabled | Vacation, personal days |
| Parental Leave | 0% (full day off) | Disabled | Maternity, paternity, adoption leave |
| Bereavement | 0% (full day off) | Disabled | Loss of a family member |
| Jury Duty | 0% (full day off) | Disabled | Civic obligations |
| Unavailable | 0% (full day off) | Enabled | Any other full day off |
| On-Call | 50% reduced capacity | Enabled | On-call rotations where the person can do some planned work |
| Conference / Training | 25% reduced capacity | Disabled | Conferences, offsites, training where some work still happens |
You cannot add new type keys — the set above is fixed. What you can do per organization is enable or disable each type, relabel it, and adjust the reduction percentage for a reduced-capacity type. For example, you might raise Conference / Training from 25% to 50%, or rename Unavailable to something that fits your team.
Daily overrides
For one-off adjustments, set a specific date to a fractional capacity:
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).
Organization-level holidays
Organization holidays are days when your entire organization is closed. Unlike individual time off, they apply to every team member automatically — no one needs to log them individually.
What org holidays do
When you create an org holiday:
- Every team member in the organization has zero capacity on that date
- Plenar skips that day when scheduling work for anyone
- The holiday appears on every member’s availability calendar automatically
- No individual action is required — the holiday is applied organization-wide
Common examples: national holidays, company shutdown periods, all-hands days, annual retreats.
How they differ from individual time off
| Org holiday | Individual time off | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Everyone in the organization | One team member |
| Who creates it | Organization admin | The team member or their manager |
| Capacity | Always 0% (full day off) | Varies by type (0% for PTO, 50% for on-call, etc.) |
| Shows on calendar | All members automatically | Only the specific member |
| Removal | Admin deletes the holiday | Member or manager cancels the entry |
Creating org holidays
From the dashboard:
- Go to Settings > Org Holidays
- Click Add Holiday
- Enter the name (e.g., “Independence Day”, “Winter Shutdown”)
- Select the date or date range
- Save
From Claude Code:
"Add a company holiday on December 25"
"Create org holidays for Dec 23-27 as Winter Shutdown"
"What org holidays do we have this year?"Editing and deleting org holidays
From the dashboard: Navigate to Settings > Org Holidays, click the holiday entry to edit its name or date, or click the delete button to remove it.
From Claude Code:
"Move the team offsite holiday from June 5 to June 12"
"Delete the March 15 holiday"Deleting an org holiday immediately frees up that date for scheduling. Any tasks that were pushed past the holiday may now be scheduled earlier.
Working-day overrides
In some cases, you may need to mark a weekend day as a working day for the whole organization (e.g., a Saturday make-up day). Org-level overrides can set a non-working day to working, which makes it available for scheduling across all members.
Schedule impact
Adding or removing org holidays triggers a schedule recompute. If you add a holiday in the middle of a busy period, tasks may cascade later. The New Plan shows exactly what moves before you commit.
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:
- Sarah Chen (no time off): Build event ingestion API (3-day task) runs Monday to Wednesday
- David Kim (Wednesday off): same 3-day task runs Monday to Thursday
Plenar handles this automatically. When you look at the timeline, you might wonder why David Kim’s bar is wider than Sarah Chen’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 redistribute assignments around the reduced capacity.
Common questions
How do I record time off? Click the dates in the Availability view and pick a type, or just tell your agent (“I’m on PTO next Friday”) — it calls plenar_add_time_off for you.
Why is one person’s task bar wider than another’s for the same estimate? Plenar converts working days to calendar days using each person’s availability. A 3-day task spans more calendar days for someone with time off or partial (on-call) capacity in that window.
What’s the difference between an org holiday and personal time off? An org holiday applies 0% capacity to everyone automatically; personal time off applies to one member and can be partial (for example, on-call at 50%).
Do I need to log weekends? No. Monday–Friday at full capacity is the default and weekends are excluded automatically. Use a daily override only for an exception, like a Saturday make-up day.
What to do next
- Team management — add people and assign them to the project first.
- Skills and assignment — let Plenar match work to the right people.
- Integrations — sync time off automatically from Google Calendar.
- How scheduling works — how availability turns estimates into calendar dates.