Overview

Template users offer a way to set absences for a whole group in one shot. All absences set for a template user are also applied to all other users of the same group(s) that the template user is assigned to. This can either be a regular user (real person in your group) or a dummy user that can also be hidden from display. If also the group he is assigned to is hidden the templates are completely invisible to regular users.

How to use

Let's say you are managing an international software development team. You have created the groups "Programmer" and "Tester". The Tester group has team members in Canada and in Germany. Now there is training planned for the testers in Germany while your team members in Canada have to work. You want to set the absence type "Training" for all your Germany based testers in one TeamCal Pro transaction and want to be prepared if such events happen again for your Germany team. Perform the following steps (needs Administrator rights):

1. Create a group "Germany"
2. Create a user "Germany". On the Privileges tab check the "Template User..." button.
3. Assign the user "Germany" to the group "Germany"
4. Assign all your Germany based testers to the group "Germany"
5. Switch to the calendar view and open the calendar of the template user "Germany"
6. Set the dates of training and click Apply. The click Done.
7. The Training absence has been applied to all other members of "Germany"
8. Now hide the group "Germany"
9. Also hide the template user "Germany"
10. Unhide both, group and template user the next time you want to set team wide absences

Image: Template user option

Rules

Template absences are not applied without honoring certain rules, meaning they do not overwrite any other absence in any case. The following rules apply:

• If the user is currently present on the day in question the absence is applied
• If the user is not present the absence is not applied except the absence type is the same as the previous template absence

Example

1. A template absence "Training" is created.
2. The user is currently present => the absence is applied to the user.
3. Later, one user sets himself to "Sick" on the first day of that training => the template absence is overwritten
4. The training is postponed for one day and the template absence "Training" is deleted from the first day => The user that is sick is not overwritten, all others that still hold the "Training" absence are unset again (set to present).

I recommend to play around with this feature to learn about its many and powerful capabilities.