Calendar, Slack & Linear working hours and status guidelines
Defining working hours and availability for each team member across the various tools we use is essential for managing expectations and facilitating effective scheduling of meetings and tasks. You can contribute to this aspect in several ways:
IMPORTANT: We only need information about your usual daily schedule. If you need to make a change to your schedule because of a doctor’s appointment, for instance, your working hours and out-of-office periods do not need to reflect that.
Set Your Working Hours in Google Calendar
Make sure your regular working hours are updated in your Google Calendar to facilitate effective meeting scheduling and improve overall team coordination.
You can define your usual working hours in Google Calendar by following these steps:
Access Calendar settings
Define your working hours
In General → Working hours, tick the checkbox Enable Working Hours.
Select the days of the week you work.
Enter your working hours.
If you work the same schedule every day, define it for the first day and then click Copy to all.
📘 Official documentation: Google Calendar Working Hours Help
Set Your Out-of-Office Hours in Google Calendar
To automate setting your status to Out of Office in both Slack and Linear, you need to tell Google Calendar when you are out of office.
The Out of Office events need to complement the working hours you set up in the previous step.
When you are done setting your working hours and out-of-office events, your calendar should look something like this:
Working hours will be shown with a line of light color.
Events in light colors will represent out-of-office hours.
Working hours and out-of-office events complement each other and do not overlap.
To Create Out-of-Office Events
Open Google Calendar.
Create an event and select Out of office from the event type dropdown.
Set the start and end time for your out-of-office period.
Set the Repeat option to Weekly, so the same out-of-office events are copied to all weeks.
(Optional) Enable Automatically decline meetings to prevent scheduling conflicts.
Repeat steps 2–5 until you define all the timeframes you are not working.
Connect Google Calendar with Slack
Integrate Google Calendar with Slack to receive notifications about your upcoming meetings and stay updated on any schedule changes. In addition, your status will automatically change when you are in meetings, out of the office, etc.
📘 Refer to the official documentation to connect your account and calendars to Slack: Google Calendar for Slack
Connect Google Calendar with Linear
Similar to Slack, integrating Google Calendar with Linear will automatically update your Linear status to Out of Office. To connect your Google Calendar to Linear, follow these steps:
Access Linear Settings. On the Linear website, click the MarsBased workspace icon and select Settings.
Connect Google Calendar. Go to the Connected Accounts section, locate Google Calendar, and click Connect.
Complete the Connection. Follow the on-screen prompts to finish linking your Google Calendar to Linear.
Check Your Coworkers’ Availability
Once all MarsBased team members have completed the setups above, you can expect the following benefits:
Enhanced Availability Information. To view a colleague’s daily schedule, use the Meet with… option in Google Calendar. Tip: Uncheck your main calendar for easier viewing.
Accurate Status Updates. Both Slack and Linear will automatically show when a team member is In a meeting or Out of Office.
Better Google Calendar Event Planning. When scheduling an event and inviting a MarsBased team member, Google Calendar will indicate with a moon icon 🌙 if the event is planned outside of their office hours.
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