How to add holidays to your Teams calendar for scheduling?

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“Can I add public holidays to my Teams calendar so I don’t accidentally schedule meetings on days off?”

This is a common question for organizations using Microsoft Teams as their primary collaboration platform. When scheduling meetings with colleagues or external partners, it’s essential to be aware of public holidays to avoid booking important discussions on days when people might be unavailable. Having holidays automatically displayed in your Teams calendar provides valuable context for more effective planning and reduces scheduling conflicts.

Adding public holidays to your Microsoft Teams calendar

Since Microsoft Teams shares the same calendar system as Outlook, adding holidays to your calendar appears consistently across both platforms. This integration ensures your scheduling decisions are informed by relevant holiday information, improving team coordination and preventing unnecessary rescheduling.

When you add holidays to your Outlook calendar, they automatically appear in Teams as well. This tutorial will guide you through adding public holidays to your calendar, which will then be visible when scheduling meetings in Teams.

Note: Having holidays automatically displayed in your Teams calendar provides valuable context for more effective planning and reduces scheduling conflicts, similar to how you can integrate Microsoft Teams calendar with other scheduling tools for better coordination.

Adding public holidays to your Teams calendar

  1. Open Outlook on the web by navigating to outlook.office.com or outlook.com and signing in with your Microsoft account credentials that you use for Teams access.
  2. Access calendar settings by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the Outlook interface, then select “View all Outlook settings” at the bottom of the settings panel.
  3. Navigate to the calendar options by selecting “Calendar” from the settings menu on the left side, then click on “Holidays” which appears as a tab or option within the calendar settings section.
  4. Select your country or region from the comprehensive list of available holiday calendars, which includes most countries and regions worldwide with their respective public holidays.
  5. Add multiple regions if needed by checking the boxes next to each country or region whose holidays you want to display in your calendar, which is particularly useful for multinational teams or organizations.
  6. Click “Save” to apply your selections and the selected holiday calendars will be imported into your Outlook calendar, with each holiday appearing as an all-day event marked with the country or region name.
  7. Return to Microsoft Teams and open the calendar app from the left sidebar, where you’ll now see the public holidays displayed as all-day events on their respective dates.
  8. Verify the holidays appear correctly by navigating to different months in your Teams calendar view to ensure the holidays are properly displayed across your calendar.
  9. Use the information when scheduling by being mindful of the holiday indicators when creating new meetings or events in Teams to avoid scheduling conflicts.

Creating a team vacation calendar in Microsoft Teams

  1. Create a dedicated channel in your team by clicking the three dots next to your team name, selecting “Add channel,” and naming it something like “Time Off” or “Vacation Calendar.”
  2. Add a Shared Calendar tab to the channel by clicking the “+” at the top of the channel and selecting “Calendar” from the available tabs, which creates a collaborative calendar visible to all team members.
  3. Configure sharing permissions for the calendar by clicking on the settings gear icon within the calendar tab and adjusting who can view and edit events based on your team’s needs.
  4. Establish color-coding conventions for different types of time off such as vacation days, sick leave, or personal days to make the calendar more visually informative at a glance.
  5. Create a team policy for updating the vacation calendar that outlines when and how team members should add their planned time off to ensure consistent usage across the team.

Troubleshooting holiday calendar issues in Teams

  • If holidays aren’t appearing in your Teams calendar after adding them in Outlook, try refreshing your Teams application by closing and reopening it, or check if you need to wait for synchronization to complete which can sometimes take up to 24 hours.
  • When holidays from multiple regions create calendar clutter, consider creating a separate calendar view in Teams by clicking on the filter icon in the calendar view and selecting only the calendars you want to display at any given time.
  • For organizations with custom company holidays not included in standard country calendars, administrators can create and share a dedicated company holiday calendar through Exchange admin center that automatically appears in all employees’ Outlook and Teams calendars.

Remember: Consider creating a Power Automate flow that sends a team notification when approaching holidays to ensure everyone is aware of upcoming days off.