A leave calendar nobody checks is not a plan

A leave calendar helps only if you see it at the moment you make a decision. That means approving a request, staffing a project or starting the day. Plenty of teams keep leave in a calendar nobody opens. PeopleMuster puts approved leave where those decisions happen, on the dashboard, in the approval screen and on the capacity grid.

Product facts from the PeopleMuster leave, dashboard and capacity modules. Vendor prices read from each vendor's own pricing page in September 2026.

A calendar is a record until someone reads it

Your shared leave calendar records who is away. That's all it does. It doesn't stop a manager from booking a client workshop on a day when half the team is out.

The calendar isn't wrong. It just lives in a place people visit on purpose, and busy people rarely visit anything on purpose.

So leave only works as a plan when it appears inside the screens you already use to decide things.

Three moments where leave has to be visible

Leave matters most at three points in your week. Each one needs the leave record in front of the person deciding, without a second tool to open.

Approving a request, when you need to know who else is already off that week
Staffing a project, when a person's next fortnight decides whether they can take the work
Starting the day, when a lead needs to know who is out before the stand-up

Approving leave with the team in view

If you see one request at a time, you approve each one on its merits. Then three people from one team are off on the same Friday.

PeopleMuster shows Today's Info on the same screen as the requests. You see who is on leave now, what's pending, and who is off in the next 7 days and this month. You read the request against the team, then decide.

Usage sits beside it too. Each person's days used, allocated and remaining show per leave type, so you're never approving against a balance you guessed.

Planning work around approved leave

Once a request is approved, it should change the plan without anyone copying it across. In PeopleMuster it does. The capacity grid marks those days with an L for that person, and company holidays show as H.

Your project lead looking at next week's grid sees the gaps before assigning work. Nobody needs to remember to check a separate calendar, because the leave is in the plan they're already reading.

Starting the day knowing who is out

Your dashboard opens with an Out of Office count next to the team numbers. A lead sees it before the first message of the day.

Attendance knows about leave as well. Your attendance record counts approved leave as Leave rather than Absent, and it respects the company holiday calendar.

For a nudge outside the app, the notification scheduler posts recurring reminders into Slack on the schedule you set.

One more tool, or one record

Standalone leave trackers are cheap, which is why you might be tempted to add one. Vacation Tracker Core is $2 per user per month with a $50 monthly minimum. Timetastic Business is $1.50 per user per month. Both prices come from the vendors' own pricing pages in September 2026.

The price isn't the real cost. A separate tracker is one more place to check, which puts you back where you started.

PeopleMuster is $3 per person per month with every module included. That gives you leave, attendance, timesheets and the capacity grid on one record, with no seat minimum.

Questions people ask

How do I make sure managers check the leave calendar?

Put leave in the screens they already use rather than asking them to open a calendar. In PeopleMuster approved leave shows on the dashboard, beside the approval queue and on the capacity grid. It's in view whenever you make a decision.

How can I see who is on leave today?

Open the dashboard or the leave screen. PeopleMuster shows an Out of Office count on the dashboard. On the leave screen, Today's Info lists who is on leave now, who is off in the next 7 days and who is off this month.

Does approved leave update the resource plan automatically?

Yes. When a request is approved, PeopleMuster marks those days with an L on the capacity grid for that person, and company holidays show as H. There is no export and nothing to copy across.