How do I account for school holidays, public holidays and vacations?
Three things: in the household you choose the federal state (collabDoo then knows school and public holidays) and enter your vacation as periods. On every task you then decide per category whether it runs normally on such days, is not created, or is only created then. Examples: “tidy the room” not on vacation, “practise maths” only during the school holidays but not on vacation, “set the table” not on public holidays.
Part 1
Set the federal state
School and public holidays differ by federal state. Without a state collabDoo knows no school holidays and only the nationwide public holidays. The state is asked for when you create the team and can be changed at any time.
- Open the household
Manage → Household → section School holidays, public holidays & vacation.
- Choose the state
Under Federal state choose one of the 16 states – or No state if you do not need school holidays. Then Save.
- Check the preview
Below, the app shows the upcoming school and public holidays of your state – so you can see right away whether the choice is right.
The data comes from the OpenHolidays database (open data of the German education ministers’ conference and the states) and is available in the app for the current and the two following years – without any calendar being fetched.
Part 2
Enter a vacation
Your household’s vacation is different from the school holidays: your own periods, like the summer trip or a long weekend. You can enter as many as you like.
- Add a vacation
In the same section under Vacation tap Add vacation.
- Name and period
Name (e.g. “summer trip”), From and To. A period may be at most 366 days long. Save.
- Edit or delete
Tap an entry for Edit vacation, swipe to delete. Changes take effect on the planned tasks immediately.
The vacation here applies to the whole household and controls which tasks are created at all. If only one person is away – grandma on a short trip, a child on a school trip – enter an Abwesenheit in their profile instead: the person then gets no new tasks and their open ones go to a stand-in or up for grabs. See assignment & fairness.
Part 3
Exceptions on the task: normal, not, only
Whether a task drops out on special days or only happens then is decided on the task itself – per category with a three-position switch. This applies to task templates and routines alike.
- Open the task
Manage → Task templates → tap the task → Recurrence. When creating a new task you find the same switches in the assistant under “How often?”.
- Section “Exceptions”
There are three rows: School holidays, Public holidays, Vacation. Each has three positions: Normal – no effect · Not – the task is not created on such days · Only – the task is created exclusively on such days.
- Combine
The three categories can be mixed: “practise maths” = school holidays only, vacation not → only during the holidays, but not while you are travelling. One category cannot be “not” and “only” at the same time.
- Save and check
After saving, the task list shows the addition “· not during holidays” or “· only on vacation” after the recurrence, and the preview of the next dates already leaves out the exceptions.
If school or public holidays are set to “not” or “only” but no federal state is chosen in the household, the app warns: Bundesland unter Pflege → Haushalt festlegen. With “not” the setting then has no effect; with “only” the task is not created at all.
Part 4
Examples from family life
| Task | School holidays | Public holidays | Vacation | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pack the school bag | Not | Not | Not | School days only |
| Homework (“each for themselves”, kids group) | Not | Not | Normal | Skipped during holidays and on public holidays – otherwise one task per child |
| Practise maths | Only | Normal | Not | Only during the holidays – but not while the family is away |
| Tidy the room | Normal | Normal | Not | Always on, just not on vacation |
| Set the table | Normal | Not | Not | Not on public holidays or vacation |
| Make a long breakfast | Normal | Only | Only | Only on public holidays and vacation |
| Feed the rabbits | Normal | Normal | Normal | Every day – animals have no holidays |
Part 5
Good to know
For daily, weekly and weekday tasks the excepted day is simply skipped. For intervals (“descale every 3 months”), fixed days of the month, yearly, one-off and “after last completion” tasks nothing is lost – the date moves to the next suitable day (up to 60 days). A “Mon–Thu” time window is only skipped if all days of the window are excepted.
If you enter a vacation or change an exception, planned tasks on the affected days disappear and released days are planned anew. Completed and already started tasks stay unchanged – the past is never affected.
The task list shows “· not during holidays / on public holidays / on vacation” or “· only …” after the recurrence. The household settings show the upcoming school and public holidays of your state and all entered vacations.
The holiday data is extended once a year for the following year. Should a year be missing, the rule is: no holidays known, so no exception – the task is created as usual.
collabDoo · All for one. Done by all.
Holidays are holidays.
Choose your state, enter the vacation, set “not” or “only” per task – done.
iPhone & iPad · iOS 17 or later · Android to follow
