September news: split the school holidays, handle an unexpected day, customise appointment categories

Since launch, most of the feedback we receive fits in one sentence: "the yearly schedule is sorted; what hurts are the exceptions." Holidays, which have to be cut up by hand. A sick child on a Tuesday morning, to be announced by phone and then copied into the calendar. The speech therapist appointment that ends up under "Other" because no category fits. Today's three features tackle exactly those exceptions.

1. Split the school holidays on a single screen

CoParent already knew the school holidays of all 26 cantons through 2028. It could display them, not share them. That changes today: a "Holidays" button in the calendar header opens a panel that fits on one screen, with no step-by-step wizard, because a holiday split is decided by looking at the result.

• Which holidays: the upcoming periods for your household's canton or cantons (sports week, Easter, summer, autumn, Christmas), each flagged "to split" or "already split".
• How to share: half and half, one week each, or everything with one parent. Only three rules, on purpose: holidays are discussed, not optimised.
• Who starts: one click on the parent.
• Day-by-day preview: a coloured dot per day and each parent's count, refreshed on every change.

The split respects the monthly schedule rules. On a month still in draft, days are written directly. On a month already approved by both parents, every changed day goes through a swap request with the usual notice period: the other parent's approval keeps its full value. And every split is recorded in the audit log, with the period, the chosen rule and the parent who starts.

2. "Unexpected" mode for today and tomorrow

A feverish child, a meeting that runs late, a cancelled train. Until now you had to call, agree, then remember to fix the calendar, or leave it wrong. The "Unexpected" button settles it in two gestures: today or tomorrow, then the reason (sick child, held up, transport issue, other). Everything else is shown, not asked: who has the child, which parent the day switches to, and which compensation day will be proposed.

It is the only place in CoParent where a day changes parent without prior agreement, and that is deliberate: the fact is already true on the ground, and waiting for an agreement would only change what the schedule says about it. Three safeguards frame this mode:

• A two-day horizon: beyond that, it is no longer an emergency but planning, and the regular swap request takes over.
• Immediate notification: the co-parent is told within the minute, by SMS enabled by default for this one type of message (you can switch it off in your settings). Learning by email the next day that the child was not picked up helps no one.
• Audit log: day, direction, reason and compensation are timestamped. Abuse shows in black and white.

The proposed compensation follows a rule that needs no explanation: the same weekday, from the following week, with the parent who just took the day. It goes out as an ordinary swap request: the emergency is not negotiable, the compensation is. Finally, an approved month stays approved: one unexpected day does not send the whole schedule back to draft.

3. Appointment categories that look like your family

Doctor, dentist, school, sport, culture, family, other: seven categories covered most cases, not all. Household settings gain a new tab, built like the expense categories: rename, add, reorder or archive categories, each with its own icon and colour.

• Nothing breaks: renaming "Doctor" to "Paediatrician" invalidates no existing appointment.
• Four languages preserved: as long as you do not rename an original category, each parent reads it in their own language. A parent in Ticino sees "Medico" where a parent in Lausanne sees "Médecin".
• Readable in the calendar: every appointment takes its category's colour and icon, with black or white text chosen automatically to stay legible. On mobile, only the icon remains.

Also in this release

Several fixes ship alongside: notification labels that sometimes arrived as technical codes, month names in the expenses chart that stayed in English, and the calendar side panel that slid under the top bar. Recurring appointments, released in early September, also let you create a weekly or fortnightly series in one go, up to two years ahead.

As always, your feedback shapes what comes next. The next piece of work on the calendar is a completeness check at monthly submission: flagging days with no parent before the schedule goes out for approval.