Configuring Public Holidays and Company Close-Downs

Article Contents

1. Introduction
2. Setting Public Holidays or Close Downs in Who's In?
3. Tips for Public Holidays and Regional Variations

Introduction

Who's In? is Hiro’s calendar-based tool for managing staff availability — including leave, public holidays, and company-wide shutdowns.

Within Who’s In?, you can mark certain days as public holidays or define a period as a company close-down. These are collectively referred to in Hiro as blockout dates.

When a day is marked as a blockout date:

• Staff cannot submit leave requests for that day

• It appears clearly on the Who's In? calendar for visibility

• Public holiday dates will also appear in:

  • The Payroll Spreadsheet

  • The Timesheets Per Day Summary report

⚠️ Note: Hiro does not include any public holidays by default.
You’ll need to configure these yourself, as public holidays vary between Australian states and local government areas (e.g. regional show days).

Setting Public Holidays or Close-Downs in Who’s In?

To configure a public holiday or close-down:

1. Go to Who's In?

2. Click the pencil icon in the top-left corner of the day you want to edit.

   • To apply a close-down across multiple days, click the pencil icon on any date in the intended range.

   🔧 Permissions: If you don’t see the pencil icon, you may not have access to edit. You’ll need to be a Global Admin, or have the right permissions granted. See this article for more details.

3. In the Edit Properties popup:

   • Set “Is this day a blockout day?” to Yes

   • Then choose one or both options:

     • Public holiday

     • Whole of company close-down

   • If both are selected, Hiro will treat the day as a public holiday first, with close-down as a fallback.

4. For public holidays:

   • Enter the name (e.g. New Year's Day) — this will display on the calendar.

   • If the holiday only applies to certain locations, use the “Limit to branches” option. This is helpful for things like local show days.

   • Staff who belong to other branches will still be able to request leave for that day.

     

5. For close-down periods:

   • Enter a name for the close-down (e.g. Christmas shutdown)

   • Select the start and end dates
     

     

6. Click Save to apply your changes.

Tips for Public Holidays and Regional Variations

Because public holidays vary across states and even between LGAs:

• Create separate public holidays for each region as needed

• Use the “limit to branches” setting to control where each holiday applies

• Make sure each staff member’s branch is correctly assigned in User Accounts — this determines which holidays apply to them