Public Holidays

Overview

Astalty automatically applies state-based public holidays to participants based on their location. This ensures that relevant holidays are recognised without additional setup. However, you can also manually add local or special public holidays and assign them to participant groups as needed.

Accessing the Public Holidays Page

To access the Public Holidays page:

• From the left-hand side menu, go to Settings.
• Select Scheduling Settings.
• Scroll down and look for Public Holidays.

Alternatively, you can go directly to the page here: Public Holidays Settings

Adding Public Holidays

In the event that you would like to add public holidays to certain participants, you may first need to consider that your organisation could be working across multiple locations. For example, you might have participants in Sydney as well as participants in Brisbane, each with different local holidays. To manage this effectively, you can use Public Holiday Groups.

When public holidays are added or removed, Astalty automatically updates any supports scheduled on those dates to ensure the correct charge item rate is applied. For example, if a support was originally scheduled on a standard day, it will be adjusted to use public holiday rates once that date is marked as a public holiday.

Public Holiday Groups

Public Holiday Groups allow you to assign specific holidays only to the participants who are affected. This ensures that each participant’s schedule reflects the correct public holidays for their region.

How to Create a Public Holiday Group

• Go to Public Holiday Groups.

• Click Create Public Holiday Group.

• Give the group a clear name (e.g., Sydney Participants, Brisbane Participants).

Once a group is created, you can assign holidays to it.

Adding a Public Holiday

If a public holiday is missing from the system, you can add it manually and link it to the relevant group. For example, if you need to add the Sydney Show holiday for participants in Sydney:

• Select Add Public Holiday.

• Enter the following details:
  • Holiday Name (e.g., Sydney Show)
  • Date
  • State
• Assign the holiday to the relevant Public Holiday Group (e.g., Sydney Region).

If the public holiday you’re adding is already in the system, a notification will appear when you attempt to create it. This helps prevent duplicate entries.

Assigning a Public Holiday Group to a Participant

• Open the participant’s Profile.
• Scroll down and click More.

• Go to Scheduling Settings.
• Select Edit.

• Apply the relevant Public Holiday Group.

• Click Create (or Save) to confirm.

This ensures that each participant’s schedule correctly reflects the public holidays relevant to their location.

Setting a Default Public Holiday Group

You can assign or change a default Public Holiday Group that will automatically apply to all new Participants.

• Go to Settings.
• Select Scheduling.

• Scroll down to Public Holidays.
• Click Public Holiday Groups.

• Select the ellipsis next to the group you want to set as the default, then choose Make Default.

The selected group will now be the default Public Holiday Group for all new Participants. You can view this in each Participant's Scheduling Settings.

If you need to make changes, simply remove the default group from their settings and select another group, or add additional Public Holiday Groups as needed.

How Public Holidays Affect Charging and Pay

Public holidays flow through to both sides of a support:

• Participant charging — supports scheduled on an applicable public holiday use public holiday charge item rates. Astalty adjusts these automatically when holidays are added or removed.
• Employee pay — award interpretation (the Award Pay Report, timesheet exports, and scheduling award alerts) pays a shift at public holiday rates when the shift falls on a public holiday that applies to a participant on that shift.

Which participants a holiday applies to follows the same rules everywhere:

• A holiday without any Public Holiday Groups applies to all participants in its state.
• A holiday assigned to Public Holiday Groups applies only to participants in those groups. For a group support, the holiday applies when any participant on the group support is in one of the holiday's groups — and the whole shift is then paid at public holiday rates.

This means a local holiday such as a regional show day, added manually and scoped to a Public Holiday Group, affects both the charge rates for the assigned participants and the pay rates of the employees working their supports on that day — no additional employee-side setup is required.

Video Overview

The following video provides an overview of Public Holidays settings.