A blackout period is a date range where you don't want to approve time off. Black Friday, the week of Christmas, your county fair, tax week, hurricane season — every business has them.
How they work
Blackouts don't block requests — employees can still submit time off during the period. But you get a clear warning on the approval screen, and the dates are highlighted on the schedule so you don't forget.
Setting one up
- Go to Settings → Time-off blackouts.
- Click New blackout.
- Name it (e.g. "Black Friday week"), pick start and end dates, optionally limit to certain locations or positions.
- Save.
Out-of-the-box blackouts
When you pick your industry during signup, we pre-fill a few common ones for you. Examples:
- Retail / grocery: Black Friday, the two weeks before Christmas
- Restaurant: Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, New Year's Eve
- Fitness: First two weeks of January (resolution rush)
- Education: state testing weeks, graduation
- Healthcare: peak flu season (Oct–Feb)
You can edit or delete any of these any time — they're just smart defaults to save you from a blank slate.
⚠️ Blackouts aren't a hard block by design
Sometimes you do approve time off during a blackout (employee gets a family emergency, you're overstaffed that week anyway). Hard-blocking would mean you'd have to delete blackouts every time you make an exception. The warning is enough — you stay in control.