Google Calendar’s new features to help users communicate better on their availability at work

Google is adding new features to Google Calendar to help users communicate better on their work availability to their colleagues.

Users can now create repeating out of office entries and split their working hours into multiple segments each day.

Currently, working hour segments will be available only on the web and repeating out of office entries will be available on the web as well as on Android devices.

“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 (OOO) entries and segmentable working hours, you can better organize your time and communicate availability to your colleagues,” Google said in a blog post.

Users can use segmentable working hours to indicate when certain blocks of time are outside of their working hours. Working hours are visible on a users’ calendar when someone schedules a meeting with them.

Additionally, they can also leverage repeating out of office entries for vacation time and to indicate the time when they need to handle personal commitments—like childcare and exercise.

“They can also be used to better communicate part-time availability or certain days when you're consistently unavailable,” Google said.

“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 OOO,” it explained.

“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,” it added.

The gradual rollout of the working hour segments feature for Rapid Release domains has begun. While the extended rollout for Scheduled Release domains will be starting on March 8, 2021.

For repeating out of office entries, the extended rollout for Rapid Release domains will be starting on March 1, 2021. The gradual rollout for Scheduled Release domains will begin on March 15, 2021.

The features will be 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.

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