What’s changing
We’re adding two new options in Calendar, which will help you better communicate your work availability to your colleagues. Specifically, you can:
- Create repeating out of office entries.
- Split your working hours into multiple segments each day.
At the moment, working hour segments will only be available on the web and repeating out of office entries on the web and Android devices. See below for more information on these features, including rollout details.
Who's impacted
End users
Why it’s important
As many people have experienced changes to their working environments in the past year, their work schedules have also changed—and are now often mixed with personal commitments and other obligations. We hope that with the addition of repeating out of office entries and segmentable working hours, you can better organize your time and communicate availability to your colleagues.
You can use segmentable working hours to indicate when certain blocks of time are outside of your working hours. Working hours are visible on your calendar when someone schedules a meeting with you.
In addition to using repeating out of office entries for vacation time, you can use them to indicate time when you need to handle personal commitments—like childcare, exercise, and more. They can also be used to better communicate part-time availability or certain days when you're consistently unavailable.
Additional details
Repeating out of office entries and declining meeting behavior
If you create a repeating out of office entry and select “Automatically decline meetings,” a decline meeting notification will be sent to the organizers of any meetings scheduled during your repeating out of office entry. If the declined meeting is a recurring meeting, those organizers may get multiple notifications—these emails are bundled for Gmail users, but not always for users of other email services.
Getting started
- Admins: No action required.
- End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about splitting your working hours or creating repeating out of office entries in Google Calendar.
Segment your working hours in Google Calendar
Creating repeating out of office entries in Google Calendar
Rollout pace
Working hour segments
- Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 22, 2021
- Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 8, 2021
Repeating out of office entries
- Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 1, 2021
- Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 15, 2021
Availability
- Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers