Blocked-Out Dates

Blocked-out dates mark the days a person is unavailable: leave, appointments, or anything else. A block can cover whole days or just part of each day. Runnit treats a person’s whole-day blocks like organisation closure dates, but for that one person, and reduces the hours it will book on partially blocked days. Automatic task scheduling, capacity planning, brief resource planning, and the Chat Assistant’s availability checks all respect them.

Block out your own dates

Any organisation member can block out dates on their own schedule:

1. Open Schedule and choose Block out dates.
2. Choose the Start date and End date. The range is inclusive, so a single day uses the same date twice. A range can cover up to 366 days.
3. Under Coverage, keep Whole days or choose Part of each day for recurring partial commitments, such as a half day of leave or a daily appointment.
4. Choose a Type: Appointment, Leave, or Other.
5. Add an optional Reason, for example “Annual leave”.
6. Choose Check availability impact.

Runnit previews the effect before anything is saved. If no work is scheduled on those days, choose Block out dates to finish.

Block part of each day

With Part of each day, enter the Hours per day (in 0.25 hour steps) and choose how the number is counted:

• Hours unavailable: the hours blocked out of each day.
• Hours available: the hours the person can still work; Runnit converts this using the organisation’s daily capacity and stores the blocked hours.

A partially blocked day keeps working capacity equal to the daily capacity minus the blocked hours, and the scheduler books at most that much work on it. Entering hours at or above the daily capacity blocks the whole day.

Partial blocks that cover the same day add together. When the remaining capacity reaches zero, the day behaves exactly like a whole-day block. The hours you entered are stored as given, so if an administrator later changes the organisation’s daily capacity, each day’s remaining capacity is re-evaluated automatically.

Resolve conflicts with scheduled work

When the dates already carry scheduled work, the preview lists each affected task with its project, the dates involved, the hours booked, and the booking state (tentative, held, or confirmed). Tasks that can’t be replanned automatically are marked.

A whole-day block conflicts with any work scheduled on its days. A partial block conflicts only when the person’s total booked hours on a day exceed the remaining capacity; the preview then shows each affected day’s booked hours, remaining hours, and hours over. You then choose what happens:

• Replan affected tasks moves the work to the next available working days. For a partial block, the work is refitted so each affected day holds at most the remaining hours and the excess moves forward. Dependent tasks shift with it, and each affected assignee receives a task replanned notification.
• Block anyway and flag conflicts leaves the work where it is and raises conflict warnings so the bookings can be followed up later.

Choose Block out dates and replan (or Block out dates when flagging) to apply your choice. The result screen summarises how many tasks were replanned or flagged, and calls out any task that is now scheduled past its project due date and any dependent task that could not be shifted.

If some tasks could not be replanned, they are listed with the reason and a Retry replan action. The dates stay blocked either way, so a partial failure never leaves the days open for new bookings.

Change or remove blocked dates

You can edit or remove any entry you’re allowed to manage: always your own, and other people’s with schedule management access.

• In the Block out dates dialog, expand Manage existing to list the selected person’s entries. Each row shows the range, type, reason, and an hours-per-day badge for partial blocks, with Edit and Remove buttons.
• On the Schedule calendar, click a blocked entry to open it for editing directly. Whole-day shading shown for a single selected person isn’t clickable; use the dialog’s Manage existing list for those entries.

Edit switches the dialog into edit mode with the range, coverage, type, and reason pre-filled. Make your changes, choose Check availability impact, and finish with Save changes (or Save changes and replan after choosing to replan). The conflict flow re-runs only for days the change makes stricter: newly covered days, days that change from partial to whole, or partial hours that increase. Loosening or shrinking an entry never moves scheduled work. Converting between whole-day and partial coverage is just an edit: switch the Coverage choice, or clear the hours to make the block whole-day.

To delete an entry, use Remove in the Manage existing list, or the Delete button on the left of the edit dialog when you already have the entry open. Both ask you to confirm. The days become available for scheduling again, but work that was already moved away does not come back automatically; replan the affected tasks yourself if the freed time should be used.

Block out dates for another person

Blocking dates for someone else requires the schedule management permission (Manage Schedule). Managers, admins, and owners have it by default, and it can also be granted to an individual user. You can block dates for others in two places:

• On Schedule, choose Block out dates and pick the team member before choosing the dates.
• Open the person from Organisation Users, select the Employment tab, and use the Blocked dates section to add or remove ranges.

The same conflict preview and replan-or-flag choice applies. The affected person is notified when someone else adds, changes, or removes their blocked dates, and each change is recorded in the permission audit log.

The Blocked dates section on the person’s Employment tab lists their entries with Edit and Remove buttons, following the same rules as Change or remove blocked dates.

Organisations that manage leave in an HR system can sync it into Runnit automatically through the REST API. See the Scheduling API.

Where blocked days appear

• The Schedule calendar shades a fully blocked day when one person is selected, and shows labelled all-day markers (such as Leave or Appointment) when several people are visible. Partially blocked days show an hours chip instead, such as 2h blocked.
• The Schedule and project Capacity views and the schedule Gantt mark each person’s blocked day cells. A partially blocked day shows its reduced capacity with a badge such as 2h blocked, so you can see how much can still land there.
• The Set daily hours editor on a task refuses hours on a day the assignee has fully blocked out, even when weekend scheduling is enabled for the task. On a partially blocked day it caps the hours at what remains and shows the split, for example 2h blocked · 6h available.
• Reassigning a task to someone whose blocked dates overlap its schedule automatically reflows the schedule around their blocked days.

Reasons stay private

The reason on a blocked range is visible only to the person themself and to users with schedule management access. Everyone else who can see the schedule sees the dates and type without the reason.

Ask the Chat Assistant

Ru can manage blocked dates in chat. Ask it to list someone’s blocked dates, to block out dates for you, or to change or remove an existing entry, for example “block out next Thursday and Friday, I’m on leave”, “make my leave next week finish on Wednesday”, or “remove my appointment block on Friday”. The same permissions apply: Ru can always manage your own dates, and another person’s only when you hold schedule management access. When the dates already carry booked work, Ru reports the conflicts and asks whether to replan or flag them before going ahead. Availability checks Ru runs already exclude blocked days and report them, so its planning suggestions respect everyone’s unavailability. See Chat Assistant.

Limitations

• Partial blocks are a per-day hours amount, not clock times. Runnit reduces how much fits on the day rather than reserving a specific time of day.
• Ranges don’t recur. Enter each period of leave separately.
• Removing a block frees the days but never pulls scheduled work earlier.
• Blocked dates apply within one organisation. If you belong to several organisations, set them in each.

For how planned work and capacity fit together, see Time Tracking & Planning.