> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.legalancer.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Availability
> Block out the time you can't work, connect an outside calendar, and pause new offers when you need a break.
Legalancer assumes you're available. There's no weekly schedule to fill in and nowhere to say "I'm free Tuesdays" — you start open to everything and close off the time you can't work. Every entry on this calendar is time you are unavailable.
Open it from the status item at the foot of the sidebar, which reads Available or Unavailable, or from Profile → Availability.
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## Block out time you can't work
The Mark Unavailable window opens. In Month view you can double-click the day instead and it opens with that date already filled in.
Required, minimum three characters, and staff read it. "Jury duty" or "Out of state, back Monday" is plenty.
Start Date and End Date. For a single day, put the same date in both — a one-off block has to have an end date.
The block appears on the calendar immediately.
The timezone defaults to the agency's operating timezone. Change it when the hours you're blocking belong somewhere else, because a block is compared against a job's session times in whichever zone you picked.
### Part of a day
Turn All Day off and Start Time and End Time appear in 15-minute steps. Only those hours close; the rest of the day stays open. Quicker route: in Week, Work Week or Day view, click the time slot you want — the window opens with a one-hour block starting there, ready to stretch before you save.
### The same time every week
Turn on Recurring Unavailability for anything standing: a class every Wednesday morning, the first three days of every month.
Pick a Frequency of daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, then an Interval — `2` on a weekly rule means every other week. Weekly rules add a row of day buttons, monthly rules a list of month days. Check the preview underneath against what you meant before saving.
Start Date anchors the rule; End Date can stay `Never` when there's no end in sight. Each occurrence covers a single day, so a recurring block can't span a weekend — use two rules for that, or a one-off block.
### Change or remove a block
Click the block to reopen it. Edit anything and save, or use Delete in the window's header — that removes it on the spot, with no confirmation step and no undo.
A recurring block is one rule rather than a string of separate entries, so editing it changes every occurrence and deleting it removes them all. To open up a single week, delete the rule and rebuild it around the gap.
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## Let an outside calendar block time for you
If your schedule already lives in Google Calendar, Outlook or iCloud, connect the feed and stop entering the same commitment twice. Every event in it becomes an unavailable block here, treated exactly like one you entered yourself.
The connection lives on the Integrations tab, not this one — it's the next tab along in Profile. Click Add Calendar, give the calendar a name, paste its `.ics` feed URL and pick a color. The feed is fetched and checked before anything is stored, so a URL that doesn't return a readable calendar is rejected with the reason; once it passes, the first sync runs straight away. The question-mark button beside Add Calendar walks you through finding the URL in each provider. In Google, take the secret address in iCal format if it's offered — the public one leaves out events you've marked private, which are exactly the ones that should be blocking your time.
The connection only ever reads. Legalancer never writes to your calendar, and a synced event can't be edited from inside Legalancer — change it where it lives and it changes here at the next sync.
### What actually comes across
Every event blocks you. Legalancer doesn't read free/busy flags, so an event you marked as free still blocks you, and a subscribed feed full of holidays, birthdays or fixtures will block you out of work you'd happily have taken. Connect the calendar that holds your real commitments, not the one that holds everything.
All-day events block the whole day, timed events block their hours, multi-day events block every day they cover, and recurring events come across as a repeating rule, run through the same recurrence engine as your own recurring blocks.
Titles come across too, and staff can read them on this calendar. An untitled event shows as `Busy (External)`. If something is on there you'd rather not explain, keep it on a calendar you don't connect and add a plain block instead.
### Syncing, pausing, disconnecting
Connected calendars re-sync twice a day. To pull a change through immediately, use Sync Now in the row's menu. Each sync replaces that calendar's events wholesale rather than merging, so anything you delete or move is corrected on the next pass. The Status column reads Synced, Pending until the first pass completes, Error (hover the badge for the reason, usually a revoked URL or a calendar that's no longer shared), or Disabled.
Edit renames a calendar, recolors it, or points it at a different URL, which is validated and re-synced on the spot. The same window has an Enable Sync tick box: clearing it stops future syncs but leaves the events already synced in place, still blocking your time. If your intention is to stop a calendar affecting your availability, delete it — that removes the calendar and every event it synced, immediately and with no undo.
The scheduling tools staff use look 180 days ahead. Events further out still sync and still show on your own calendar, but they won't be taken into account when work is assigned until the date comes closer.
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## Pause new work entirely
This is a separate mechanism from a block, with no dates attached. Click the sidebar status item while it reads Available and confirm, and you come off the roster: no new offers until you switch back.
Work you've already accepted is untouched — same jobs, same deadlines. Nothing expires the pause either. After 15 days Legalancer emails you a nudge asking whether you're ready to come back, and repeats every 15 days until you are. That email also goes to staff, and it isn't one you can switch off in [Notifications](/team-adF2334soP/account/notifications). The same prompt appears in the app when you sign in; dismissing it holds it off for a week.
Going away for two weeks? A time block is usually the better tool. It has an end date, so you come back automatically and nobody has to remember to switch you on.
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## What staff see
Staff open this same calendar from your worker record: every block with its dates, times and reason, every synced event with its title, and whether you're currently Available or Unavailable. Write reasons the way you'd say them to a colleague, because one is reading them.
They can add, edit and delete blocks on your record and flip your status too. If a block turns up that you didn't create, that's where it came from — raise it on the relevant job's [thread](/team-adF2334soP/threads). What staff cannot touch is the calendar connection: adding, editing, pausing and removing a feed happens only on your Integrations tab, by you.
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## How this changes what you're offered
On the proceedings side, anything blocking you — your own block or a synced event — moves you out of the available list into a "No Availability" group for any job whose sessions overlap it. That's a strong signal rather than a lock, so staff can still reach you when they're stuck. Marking yourself unavailable is the firm stop: while it's on you can't be selected onto a proceeding at all.
On the transcription side, blocks come off the daily capacity staff see for the days between now and a job's deadline. Enough of them and you move out of the available list into Limited Capacity, No Capacity, or No Availability if every working day before the deadline is blocked. None of those stops staff picking you — they're a warning beside your name on a list you're still on.
Nothing is padded on your behalf. Your blocks and synced events are compared against a job's session times exactly as written, so if you need travel, setup or teardown protected, put it inside the block.
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## Your jobs aren't on this calendar
This calendar shows blocks and synced events only. Proceedings you've accepted live on the Calendar tab in [Proceedings](/team-adF2334soP/proceedings/manage), which also exports the sessions currently in view as an `.ics` file — a one-time snapshot rather than a live feed, and not something to paste back in as a connected calendar.