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Public Holidays

Overview

Petboost supports bulk business-wide public holiday and closure management. You do not need to ask support to create blocked time for you.

Use this page for named Australian public holidays (loaded from Google Calendar). For a continuous multi-day shutdown such as a Christmas/New Year break, use Bulk Blocked Time instead - see Business Closures below.

How to Access

Dedicated Public Holidays Page

Navigate to Public Holidays from the sidebar, go directly to https://business.petboost.com/public-holidays, or open Schedules & Sessions → gear (Settings) menu → Public Holiday Manager.

Inline on Team Members and Resources

Each team member's Leaves tab and each resource's Blocked Times tab includes a Public Holidays card with a "Magic Load Public Holidays" button for applying holidays to that specific entity.

Business Closures & Multi-Day Breaks

For a whole-business shutdown over a date range (e.g. closed 25 December, reopening 4 January), use Bulk Add Blocked Time - not a support request.

  1. Go to Team Members or Resources and open Bulk Block Time from the actions menu (or Bulk Blocked Time from the Appointments scheduler actions menu)

  2. Select All team members and resources (or pick specific ones)

  3. Set Start Date / End Date for the closure (e.g. 25 Dec - 4 Jan), leave times as all day, and add a label such as Christmas Closure

  4. Review & Apply - Petboost adds the blocked time to every selected entity

Existing appointments on those dates are not cancelled automatically. After applying, check your calendar and reschedule or cancel any bookings that still fall inside the closure.

Loading Public Holidays

Step 1: Select Your Jurisdiction

Choose your Australian state or territory: ACT, NSW, NT, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC, or WA. Petboost pre-selects a jurisdiction based on your business timezone, but you can change it.

The holiday list is filtered to show national holidays plus holidays specific to your selected state.

Step 2: Fetch Holidays

Click "Fetch Public Holidays" (on the main page) or "Magic Load Public Holidays" (on an inline card). The system loads the official Australian holiday calendar from Google and filters out observances, keeping only actual public holidays.

Step 3: Select Holidays to Apply

After loading, you can:

  • Enable or disable individual holidays using the toggles

  • Use Enable All or Disable All for quick selection

  • Review each holiday's name and date before applying

Step 4: Choose Who Gets the Blocked Time

On the main Public Holidays page, select which team members and resources should receive the holiday blocked times. On the inline card, blocked time is applied to that specific team member or resource.

Step 5: Apply

Click Apply to create blocked time entries. Each holiday creates a full-day block (midnight to midnight) labelled "Public Holiday - {holiday name}" on the selected entities.

How It Works

  • Team members receive the holiday as leave (same as manually added leave)

  • Resources receive the holiday as blocked time (same as manually added blocks)

  • Blocked time prevents new bookings from being created for those entities on those dates

  • Existing appointments are not automatically cancelled or moved when you apply public holidays

Checking for Appointment Conflicts

From the Inline Card

When applying holidays from a team member's Leaves tab or a resource's Blocked Times tab, a follow-up dialog invites you to check each date for existing appointments. This dialog shows any overlapping appointments and lets you cancel them individually.

From the Main Page

The bulk apply on the main Public Holidays page creates blocked times but does not automatically show a conflict review. After applying, check your calendar for any appointments that fall on the holiday dates and reschedule or cancel them manually.

Important Notes

  • Holidays are not applied automatically. You must fetch and apply them each time. Nothing runs in the background to block holidays for you.

  • Re-applying the same holiday for the same entity creates a duplicate blocked time entry. The apply dialog warns about this.

  • Existing appointments remain until you reschedule or cancel them. The blocked time prevents new bookings but does not affect appointments already on the calendar.

  • Holiday data comes from Google Calendar, which maintains the official Australian public holiday schedule. An internet connection and valid API key are required for the fetch.

Common Scenarios

Christmas / New Year Closure (whole business, date range):

  1. Open Team Members (or Resources) → Bulk Block Time

  2. Select All team members and resources

  3. Set the date range (e.g. 25 Dec - 4 Jan), all day, label Christmas Closure

  4. Review & Apply

Start of Year Public Holiday Setup:

  1. Open Public Holidays (or Schedules & Sessions → gear → Public Holiday Manager)

  2. Select your state

  3. Fetch holidays for the upcoming year

  4. Enable All (or deselect any you plan to work)

  5. Select all team members and resources

  6. Apply

Adding a Holiday for One Team Member:

  1. Open the team member's profile

  2. Go to the Leaves tab

  3. Click "Magic Load Public Holidays" on the Public Holidays card

  4. Select the holidays they will observe

  5. Apply

Holiday pricing

A public holiday can carry its own rate. You set one policy rate for every holiday, then override any individual holiday with a different rate, or leave that holiday with no rate.

A holiday rule is more specific than a weekday rate or a special-dates range. If a date has a holiday rule, that rule decides. A holiday with no rate set does not take a school-holiday or Saturday rate that also covers the date.

Set these rates on the Public Holidays page. For weekday and date-range rates, and what pet owners see while they book, see Holiday and weekday pricing.

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