A further explanation of the use of entrée Holiday categories:

 

Floating Holiday category: Is for an annual event which occurs at a specific time of the month.

 

For instance, Thanksgiving is defined as the fourth Thursday in November which means that the actual date of the holiday changes from year to year. To define an entry for Thanksgiving you would select "Floating Holiday" and set the drop-downs to show "Fourth Thursday of November" and then click "OK".

 

Immediately below the holiday definition is the "Offset Days" value. This allows you to define one holiday entry in relation to another. For instance, if you are also closed on the day AFTER Thanksgiving then that day may, or may not, be the fourth Friday of November (in 2002, and again in 2013, it is the FIFTH Friday of the month). This feature allows you to define your new entry in relation to the main Thanksgiving entry by defining "Day after Thanksgiving", setting it for the "Fourth Thursday of November" and then set the offset to +1 (you can go positive or negative).

 

Fixed Holiday date category: To define a holiday like Independence Day, you would select the "Fixed Holiday" option and set the drop-downs to read "July 4".

 

The "fixed" holiday gives you two additional options:

•A "Monday holiday" option for holidays, like Memorial Day, which occur on a specific date, but are actually observed on the previous Monday. So Memorial Day could be defined as "May 31" with a "Monday holiday" qualification. (You could also define Memorial Day as a "floating" holiday using "Last Monday of May" but other Monday holidays don't give you such an easy alternative.)

 

•The "Fixed Holiday" category "one time" option (which is mutually exclusive with the "Monday" option), is a single event which will occur only once. You are required to provide the full date field values month day and year for the holiday.

 

Monthly event category:  

Let's say that your company is normally closed on Sunday but each month it is opened on the second Sunday.

 

As with the main "floating" definition, here too you have the offset feature to shift the date of the event one way or the other from your reference point.

 

The "Monthly event" category also offers you the "Fixed date" option which assigns the event to a specific day of the month, in which case the holiday will recur on that same day each month (such as the 10th). If you define an entry using a date which is to large for the current month, such as using the 31st in April, then in months which are shorter than the specified date the event will occur on the last day of the month.