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Managing Absences (Admin)

View, filter, create, and manage absences for all club members to understand scheduling constraints and plan better meetings.

Who can access: Club officers (President, VP Education, Secretary, or Admin)

What Is an Absence?

An absence is a date range when a member is unavailable for club meetings or role assignments. When an absence is created:

  • The member won't be assigned any roles during those dates
  • The scheduling algorithm automatically skips them
  • Officers can see absence dates for planning purposes
  • The absence applies immediately to future schedule generation

Viewing Member Absences

As an officer, you can view absences for all club members:

  1. Navigate to the Absences page from the admin menu
  2. You'll see a list of all current and upcoming absences across your club
  3. Use filters to narrow by member, date range, or status

This gives you a complete picture of member availability when planning schedules.

Creating an Absence for a Member

Officers can create absences on behalf of members:

  1. Go to the Absences management page
  2. Click Add New Absence
  3. Select the member from the dropdown
  4. Enter the start date and end date
  5. Add an optional note (e.g., "requested via email")
  6. Click Save

This is useful when a member lets you know about an upcoming absence verbally or via email but hasn't added it themselves.

Editing and Deleting Absences

From the absences management page, you can:

  • Edit any member's absence to adjust dates or notes
  • Delete an absence if it's no longer needed

Changes take effect immediately for future schedule generation.

When to Create Absences

Create absences for members when they report:

  • Vacation or holiday travel
  • Business trips
  • Family commitments
  • Medical appointments
  • Temporary unavailability
  • Extended leaves or sabbaticals

Pro tip: Encourage members to create their own absences so they have direct control. Use the admin creation option as a backup for members who may need help.

Best Practices

  • Review absences before creating schedules --- check the absences page to understand member availability before generating a new schedule
  • Encourage self-service --- remind members at meetings to add their own absences as soon as they know their dates
  • Check for gaps --- if a member is frequently absent, consider reaching out to discuss their availability
  • Plan around clusters --- if multiple members are absent for the same dates (e.g., a holiday period), you may need to adjust the schedule accordingly
  • Create absences promptly --- when a member reports unavailability, add it right away before it's forgotten

Tips

  • Absences and published schedules --- absences only affect future schedule generation. If a schedule has already been published, you'll need to manually reassign roles for absent members.
  • No overlap needed --- the system handles overlapping absence dates gracefully. If a member has two absences that overlap, they'll simply be excluded for the full combined range.
  • Bulk planning --- before generating a schedule, send a reminder asking all members to update their absences. This reduces the need for post-publication reassignments.

Troubleshooting

A member is assigned to a role during their absence

This happens when the absence was created after the schedule was published. Edit the assignment manually to reassign the role to another member.

I can't find a member in the absence dropdown

Make sure the member is active. Inactive or deactivated members won't appear in the member list.

An absence was deleted by mistake

Create a new absence with the same dates. Deleted absences cannot be recovered.