A. Entering availability
In your account's calendar you keep three kinds of entries. They work together: an exception overrides the rule, a block overrides everything.
Rule
Recurring, for example Monday to Saturday from 4 pm to midnight. A rule may run past midnight and applies until further notice or until a date you choose.
Exception
Applies to a single day and overrides the rule – say, a Sunday when you can work for once. Without a time, it applies to the whole day.
Block
Overrides everything. On a day blocked for the whole day, nobody can request you.
“Not specified” does not mean “no time”. If you enter nothing, you stay findable and can be requested; in a search for a specific day you simply appear behind those who have entered that day as available.
Available now
If you have time at short notice, switch on “Available now”. The note appears on your profile and ends by itself at the time you choose – at most 24 hours ahead.
B. Blocking holidays and days off
For holidays, illness or private appointments you create a block: you choose the first and the last day, and the whole period is blocked – up to 366 days in a row. You block half a day with a time.
You can add a reason – holiday, sick, private or other – and a short note. Both stay private: venues only see that you are not available that day, never why.
If one of the days already has a shift, nothing is blocked. Sunworker shows you which shifts are affected; you cancel them or decline the request first and then block. Past blocks remain as a record. Step by step, it's all in the Help centre.
C. What it does in search
When a venue searches for a specific shift day, search reads your calendar for that day. This results in one of three states:
- Confirmed available: you have entered the day as available through a rule or an exception. In the “Best match” order you are at the front.
- Not specified: you appear, but behind those who are confirmed available.
- Blocked all day: you do not appear in the results for that day and are not counted in the numbers next to the filters either.
Without a chosen day, your calendar plays no part in the order. You still cannot be requested on a blocked day: every request is checked day by day against your blocks, a half-day block only if the times overlap.
On your public profile, a monthly calendar shows the same three states – without times, without reasons and without booked shifts. Blocked days cannot be selected in the request, and an available day takes venues straight to a request for that day.
All ranking criteria are listed under How we sort.
D. Shifts in your own calendar
The calendar in your Sunworker account is always what counts. So that you still see your shifts where you usually plan, there are two ways under Add-ons.
Connect Google Calendar
Sunworker creates a separate “Sunworker” calendar in your Google account and writes only there, a few seconds after every change. Accepted shifts appear as tentative, confirmed ones as fixed, each with a reminder two hours before; cancelled ones are removed. Sunworker never sees your other appointments.
Calendar subscription (iCal)
For Apple Calendar, Outlook and other apps there is a personal subscription link. It contains your shifts from acceptance onwards, 90 days back and 365 days ahead. Apps only fetch a subscription at intervals; the Google connection is faster.
In both, your blocks appear as “Not available” – without reason and without note, because such calendars are often shared. Requests you have not yet accepted do not appear.
Don't pass the subscription link on: anyone who has it can see your shifts. If it has fallen into the wrong hands, create a new one and the old one stops working immediately. Changes you make in Google to Sunworker events are overwritten at the next sync. More in the Help centre.
Keeping your calendar up to date is not an obligation. But it makes sure venues request you on the days you can – and not on the others.