2024-08 Release Notes: Calendar 3.0

Release Date: August 2024

Calendar 3.0 introduces an updated calendar algorithm which includes a variety of improvements to accuracy and capabilities supported by Worklytics datasets. Below is a detailed list and description of these improvements.

New Features and Algorithm Updates

Support for Focus Block Events

Both Google and Microsoft introduced support for Focus Block events in the calendar last year. These events may contain multiple participants and therefore would have been considered valid meetings in previous versions of the Worklytics calendar algorithm. In Calendar 3.0, these events are not counted as meetings, and instead, are correctly interpreted as uninterrupted time for the purpose of metrics like Focus Time. Additionally, these events are stored and available for analysis in Event and Items level data such that one could produce a count of focus blocks scheduled or similar.

Free Time Correctly Interpreted

Google Calendar and Outlook 365 now support the ability to mark availability as ‘Free’ for the duration of any calendar event. This setting is now correctly interpreted, and the event is no longer classified as a meeting or counted in overall meeting time.

Out of Office Detection

The Calendar 3.0 algorithm detects when users have set themselves as being out of office in their calendars and considers all meetings with ‘No Response’ to have been declined, such that they are not counted as having been attended. Accepted meetings are however still counted as attended, as the assumption is made that users attended the meeting while out of office.

All Events Stored in Items Dataset

In previous versions of the algorithm, certain events (e.g., meetings with only 1 participant) would not be considered meetings and would not be stored in the Items and Events datasets. In the Calendar 3.0 algorithm, these events are not counted as valid meetings, but they are now stored in Events and Items level data such that they may be used for certain analyses.

Handling De-Syncing of Calendars

In certain conditions it is possible for different copies of the same event to desynchronize. For example, if a person deletes an event from their calendar and opts not to notify the event creator, a copy (including their attendance) would remain in the creator's calendar but not in the attendees. This would lead this meeting to incorrectly be counted as a valid meeting and not a declined event. In Calendar 3.0, both versions of the event are modeled as separate entities, and the version of the event in each individual's relevant calendar is counted on as the source of truth for whether the event was accepted or declined.

Automatic Classification of Events Based on Meeting Title

Events are automatically reclassified as non meetings if certain keywords exist in the meeting title. This is based on the assumption that users create a regular meeting to specify a focus block time or an out of the office event, rather than use the tool specific event type.

For Worklytics’ pseudonymization proxy customers this requires a minimum version of 0.4.60 which allows the preservation of these keywords.

Examples of meeting title keywords that are considered Out of Office events:

• "Out of the Office"

• "Out of Office"

• "OOO"

Examples of meeting title keywords that are considered Focus Time events:

• "No Meetings Block"

• "Focus Time Block"

• "No Meeting Block"

• "No Meetings"

• "Focus Time"

• "No Meeting"

Questions? Please contact [e-mail].