PMO | Checklist for Out of Office Preparation

Before traveling or taking a leave of absence, please complete these suggested steps to prepare for your time off:

1. Give notice in advance to coworkers and managers.
2. Set up a calendar event to block the leave days. Ensure the event on the personal calendar is set up as an "All day" task and has time to be "Busy." Create an all-day event without blocking the time on the team calendar. 
3. Delegate the current tasks and the hosted meetings to another person when the leave is longer than 2 days. If necessary, create a knowledge transfer document to outline the delegation details, including the jobs, meetings, and delegated contact details. Select a project team member to host your meetings who can send meeting minutes per PMO guidelines. 
4. Delegate approval authority and arrange to cover contact for different function areas. 
5. Create an out-of-office auto-email reply. Be careful to avoid setting server-side rules. Instead, use the company-recommended application to prevent duplicate auto-replies that could flood other people's inboxes. 
6. Set your online application status, e.g., update the status in Slack with the /Status command (/Status Clear) 

With these settings, you can ensure all have been taken care of before your leave. ​