Holidays let you set the dates your organization does not operate, so recurring trips stop creating requests on those dates automatically. This replaces the manual work of adding an exception date to every affected recurring trip, and removes the risk of a vehicle being dispatched on a day you are closed.
There are two ways to set them up:
Settings - add holidays one at a time from Settings > Holidays.
Scout - ask Scout to add a full year of holidays at once.
What a holiday does
A holiday is a named calendar date, plus a choice of what it applies to.
Today there is one application, Recurring trips. On a date marked as a holiday, recurring trips do not create new requests. Everything else about the recurring trip stays as it is, and it resumes normally on the next scheduled date.
Individual recurring trips can be set to ignore holidays. This is for standing trips that run regardless of closures, like dialysis appointments.
What a holiday does not do
These three points catch people out, so they are worth knowing before you start.
Holidays do not block bookings
Riders and booking agents can still book one-off trips on a holiday, and on-demand service still runs. A holiday only stops recurring trips from generating.
What to do:
If you want to stop all service on a date, add Special Hours to a Time Rule, either on its own or alongside a holiday. See Setting up Special Service Hours (Holidays and Special-Hour Days).
Holidays do not cancel trips that already exist
Recurring trip requests are created ahead of time. If you add a holiday for a date less than a week away, the requests for that date may already have been created, and they will not be removed.
What you'll see:
"Trips for this date may already have been created and won't be cancelled."
What to do:
Cancel those requests manually if you need them gone. Adding holidays well in advance avoids this entirely.
Deleting a holiday does not bring back skipped requests
If you delete a holiday, recurring trips stop skipping that date going forward, but any requests that were already skipped are not recreated.
Note: Holidays apply to your whole organization. You cannot give one service or fleet a different holiday list.
Adding a holiday
You need permission to edit your organization settings. If you can see Settings > Holidays in the sidebar, you can add, edit, and delete holidays.
Go to Settings > Holidays.
Add a holiday and give it a Name your team will recognize, like "Christmas Day" or "Thanksgiving".
Pick the Date. The form tells you which weekday it falls on, and warns you if the date is in the past or coming up too soon to take effect.
Leave Recurring trips ticked under Applies To. It is selected by default.
Save.
The Holidays page splits into Upcoming holidays and Past holidays, so past dates stay on record without cluttering the list.
Note: Holidays are single dates. A holiday added for December 25, 2026 does nothing in 2027, so add each year's dates separately. If you leave Applies To empty, the holiday saves but has no effect, and the list shows it as "Nothing, this holiday has no effect".
Adding holidays with Scout
Scout can set up a year of holidays in one go, which is much faster than adding them one at a time. Ask Scout something like:
"Add the 2027 statutory holidays for our organization."
Scout can list, create, edit, and delete holidays, and it shows you a preview of every change before anything is saved. It adds up to 20 holidays per request, which covers a full year comfortably.
Note: Spare allows two holidays on the same date, and Scout does not check for duplicates on its own. If you are topping up a list that already has entries, ask Scout to list the current holidays first.
Letting specific recurring trips run through holidays
Some trips need to happen no matter what, dialysis being the usual example.
Changing one trip
On any recurring trip, under Holiday Behavior, check Continue on organization holidays. That trip will keep creating requests on holiday dates.
What you'll see:
The recurring trip shows either "Continues on organization holidays" or "Skips organization holidays", so you can tell at a glance. New recurring trips skip holidays by default.
Changing many trips at once
If you have a lot of existing recurring trips to update, use the recurring trip export and import rather than editing each one.
Export your recurring trips. Holiday behaviour comes through in the exemptFromHolidays column.
Set that column to true for every trip that should run through holidays, and false for every trip that should skip them.
Import the file back.
Note: On an import that updates existing trips, a blank cell leaves that trip's current setting alone. It does not reset the trip to false. If you want a trip to start skipping holidays, write false in the cell rather than clearing it.
Checking that it worked
Two places show holiday activity.
On a recurring trip
The activity feed records Recurring trip request skipped (Holiday) on each date that was skipped, so you can confirm a specific trip behaved as expected.
In your organization activity log
Holiday created, edited, and deleted events are recorded with the holiday name, so you have a history of who changed what.
Recommended setup
Add your organization's holidays for the next twelve months, through Scout if you have a lot of them.
Export your recurring trips, set exemptFromHolidays to true for the trips that must run regardless, then import the file back.
Before your first holiday, open one affected recurring trip and confirm it shows "Skips organization holidays".
If a holiday should also stop on-demand and one-off bookings, add Special Hours to a Time Rule for the same date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I set a holiday to repeat every year?
Not yet. Holidays are single dates, so each year is added separately.
Can a holiday cover part of a day?
No. A holiday covers a whole calendar date. For partial days, like an early close on Christmas Eve, use Special Hours on a Time Rule.
Can different services or fleets have different holidays?
Not yet. Holidays are set once for the whole organization.
What happens to a return trip when the outbound is skipped?
Both directions are skipped together. The activity feed records one entry for the date, covering the whole trip.
Does a holiday affect duties, driver shifts, or appointment booking?
Not today. Holidays currently apply only to recurring trips.
Can I still book a trip on a holiday if I need to?
Yes. Holidays only stop recurring trips from generating. One-off bookings and on-demand service are unaffected.