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Hi! I operate out of two locations, each with a different schedule (I don’t work the same hours regardless of timezones).  I have two sets of events that I enable or disable depending on where I am, but that’s clumsy and prevents me from allowing someone to book ahead for a meeting where I’ll be in a different timezone.  I can imagine a couple of ways to fix this - one is to allow multiple schedules for an event with start and end dates.  Another is to have multiple events, each with a start date.  I don’t want to use fixed start and end dates for these things (although that’s what I’m doing now) since I’d prefer to avoid having to edit these events back to the usual rolling date schedule.  There’s probably a new feature or two in all of this or maybe just something I haven’t discovered yet.  Thanks!

Hi @jeffrey04737!

You’ve hit on most of the things we’d tell someone to do in this situation with the separate schedules and different set of events. If I’m understanding your problem correctly, it sounds like there are days that you need to be unavailable in one location but available in the other.

Have you considered modifying the schedule associated with each location to block off whole days? So let’s say you know you’re in Boston from November 1st-15th and Paris 16th-30th. You’d block off the Paris schedule 1st-15th and Boston 16th-30th.

Let me know what you think!


Hi @jillian  - my schedule tends to have much longer blocks of time in a given location, so I’d be blocking off months at a time. The date-specific settings are tedious (you have to select each day) so at a minimum I’d want support for a range of dates.  Think of it as I’m in Boston through November and then in Paris from December to February, and then back to Boston through June.  When I’m in Paris, I’m going to adjust my availability to allow for meetings with the folks in the US while taking into account that I don’t want to be up too late at night for meetings (e.g. while in Paris, I might only want meetings from 6-10 PM but while in Boston, my schedule is 9-5). 

Using two different events is my current workaround, but that’s clumsy because I have to share the specific event link that corresponds to the location.  Ideally, I’d have a single event that has multiple schedules, each with a date range.  Consider the problem of a rolling 2 week schedule, where I change locations in the middle - having 2 events makes it difficult for someone to schedule - they have to try both link to see which dates are available.  

What I’ve been doing is this - I have two events, one for each location (let’s keep using Boston and Paris).  As I get close to the date I’m going to Paris, I change the settings of the Boston event from a rolling 2 week schedule to a fixed set of dates, reflecting the end date.  I set the Paris event also to a fixed set of dates reflecting when I’m going to be there.  Then I enable the Paris event.  After I’m in Paris, I disable the Boston event and reset the Paris event to be on a rolling 2 week schedule.  It’s kind of a complicated dance.

If this were implemented through schedules, I’d have a one event with two schedules.  The Boston and Paris schedules would have effective start and end dates (non-overlapping).  When going from Boston to Paris, I’d have to set the end date for Boston and the start date for Paris.  When returning, I’d go back into the event and set a stop date for Paris and a start date for Boston.  The rolling 2 week schedule for the event would “just work”. The dance would be a bit less complicated.  

I can probably think of other ways to do this, maybe in settings with a “current location” and “next location” (with a start date) tied to schedules.  

Hope this helps explain.  I have to imagine that this is a common scenario for remote workers - I’m sure not all of them maintain the same hours as their home office and may travel from location to location while working.  Thanks for the reply!


Hi @jeffrey04737

 

This is an interesting idea, creating two schedules to the same event that can be toggled between. I’ll admit this is kind of backwards from the current logic we use to create events. I’ve marked this as a feature request in our system. I’ll make sure our product team reviews this post when they are considering feature updates. I’ll return here with any updates as they come. 


Hi @Sean Marlin - thanks for considering this!  Happy to share further thoughts on this.  Meta (former employer) implemented something similar where you could set your location and work hours as an adjunct to your calendar.  The location information was in part for tax collection, but it was common for people to adjust their work hours based on location and to do so in advance of changing locations to avoid meetings being scheduled during times that someone wasn’t working.