Calamari What's New

Managing shift patterns in a spreadsheet or on paper takes time; it's easy to make mistakes, and decisions get lost in emails and chat threads.

We've started work on a new module that will make organizing duty rotations much easier: a single, unified view, always up to date and connected to the rest of Calamari.

What we're planning for the first version:

• Plan by person or by role – build a schedule for your team and see coverage for a given position.
• Absences and holidays visible right away – you plan with a view of leave and days off, so you won't schedule a shift for someone who's away.
• Draft mode – keep the schedule as a draft until you're ready, then publish it and employees get a notification in the web and mobile app.
• See the plan and the actual hours – scheduled hours connect to your timesheet in the Time & Attendance module.

Most scheduling apps stop at the schedule itself. In Calamari, planned work connects to everything around it: absences, timesheets and employee data.

Launching this fall. Want to be one of the first to try it?

👉 Join the waitlist and we'll let you know when it's ready →

The mobile app has a few new things for you, from Live Activities to a new Apple Watch app.

What's new:

• Live Activities (iOS) – your ongoing shift shows up on the lock screen and in Dynamic Island. Without opening the app, you can end a shift, start or end a break, or switch projects.
• Refreshed calendar (iOS and Android) – a clean view with Week and Day modes, plus quick date selection.
• Your key teams within reach (iOS and Android) – pin the teams and people you choose, and they move to the top of the Company view.
• Calamari on Apple Watch (watchOS) – clock in and out, choose a project, manage breaks, and check today's details, right from your wrist.

👉 Update on the App Store
👉 Update on Google Play

It's peak time-off season. If you use the Google Workspace integration, Calamari can now automatically set an out-of-office reply in Gmail for the time off requested in the system.

How it works:

• An out-of-office message – when an employee requests time off, Calamari sets an automatic Gmail reply for exactly that period.
• Cover person included – if the request names someone covering for the employee, that shows up in the message.

Turning the feature on requires an admin to grant the right permissions in the Google Workspace admin console.

👉 See how to turn on automatic Gmail replies →

Last month we launched Employee Requests. Now, based on your feedback, we've added the first set of improvements: more visibility into the request flow for admins, and less manual work when setting things up.

What's changed:

• "All requests" view for admins – the whole request flow across the organization in one place, without having to ask assignees for a status update
• Duplicate a request type – create a similar form with one click
• Delete requests – remove test or incorrectly submitted requests from the list or from the detail view
• Automatic reminders – every 3 days, the system reminds assignees about pending requests

👉 See everything Employee Requests can do →

A review conversation works best when you see not just the result, but also the goals someone was working toward. That's why the Performance module now shows a person's goals and their progress right there during the review.

What you'll find in Calamari Goals:

• Set goals for anyone – a goal can be created by an admin for anyone in the company, by a manager for members of their team, or by employees for themselves.
• Track progress as you go – update the completion percentage with an optional comment, and flag a goal as at risk if it needs attention.
• Four ways to close a goal – achieved, partially achieved, not achieved, or cancelled. The "cancelled" status makes it clear the goal shouldn't count, for example in a conversation about a raise or bonus.
• Goals visible during the review – the reviewer sees the person's goals and can factor in progress when giving a rating.
• Full change history – every update to a goal is logged, so you can see exactly how it progressed.

👉 Learn more about Goals in the Performance module →

This is our biggest launch this month. Glasses reimbursement, a laptop request, a bank account change, an employment certificate: you can now handle all of these inside Calamari instead of digging through emails or your company chat.

You build your own request catalog for your organization. Define the forms, decide who has access to them, decide who handles them. Every request keeps its own status, history and comments, so nothing gets lost along the way.

How it works:

• Admin builds the forms, chooses which employee groups have access, and assigns who handles them (Configuration → Requests).
• Employee picks a request from the catalog, fills in the form, and tracks its status and comments (Requests → Catalog / Mine).
• Assignee sees how many requests are waiting, can filter them, and close them one at a time, in a group, or all at once, and can undo it if needed.

Notifications about new requests go out by email, Slack or MS Teams, to both sides. This is just the first version, and we're building more improvements based on your feedback.

Available for Core HR module users.

👉 Learn more about Employee Requests

Through MCP, you can already log time and submit leave requests in Calamari. Now your AI assistant does a lot more: it fills in a whole week's timesheet and checks how many days you have left in a given leave allowance.

Here's what you can now ask the assistant to do:

• Timesheets for the whole week. Fill in your hours for the whole week in one prompt, just like you'd do it in the browser (e.g. 9am–5pm). It confirms right away which entries it saved.
• Leave balances on demand. Ask how many days you have left in a given allowance this year — annual leave or sick leave, for example.

Turning on the integration is simpler now too. The terminal starts automatically, and the configuration screen links to step-by-step instructions.

👉 Try it out by turning on the integration in Configuration → Integrations → AI Integration

The next step in Performance will be the Goals feature. It's the missing piece: after a review conversation, you set goals, then track progress until the next review.

Here's how it'll work in the first version:

• A goal gets a name, an owner and a due date. Save it as a draft or activate it right away.
• Update the completion percentage as you go, add a comment, flag one that's at risk so you can step in before it's too late.
• Close it out as achieved, partially achieved, not achieved, or cancelled.
• Every change is logged, who changed what and when, which matters once goals are used in reviews and raises.

Visibility depends on the role: employees see their own goals, managers see their team's, admins see everything.

We'll let you know as soon as it's ready. Goals will be part of the Performance module, which is already live today.

👉 Learn more about goals

Smart Tables now work like a spreadsheet. In bulk-edit mode, grab a value in a column and drag it up or down, and Calamari copies it to the other rows, exactly the way you'd do it in Excel.

Where it helps:

• Set the same contract type for a group of people hired around the same time.
• Assign one position or team to a dozen employees after a reorg.
• Fill in the same holiday calendar or custom field value for a whole department.

Drag-to-copy works in columns where copying actually makes sense: position, teams, contract type, holiday calendars, lists and custom fields. First name, last name, email stay untouched, on purpose.

👉 Turn on bulk edit in the People view and give drag-to-fill a try

Do you work with contractors, freelancers, or external partners? You can now include their perspective in the performance review process – without creating a Calamari account for them.

How it works:

• New review type: external review. Add it to your process configuration alongside self-assessment or peer review.
• A unique link for each reviewer. Copy it and send it to your partner via email or any messaging app.
• No login required. The external reviewer opens the link in any browser, fills out the form, and submits their feedback.
• All results in one place. External reviews appear alongside other responses, with export to Excel and PDF.

External review is optional – it doesn't have to be completed to close the process.

👉 Set up external review in Performance Configuration → Review Process -> Feedback or book a Performance module demo