How to use a Hijri calendar with your team

If your organisation runs on the Islamic calendar but your software only speaks Gregorian, every deadline becomes a small act of mental conversion. Ramadan planning, Eid scheduling, Hijri-dated milestones — none of it lines up with the tool. Here's how teams actually work across both calendars, and how to stop converting dates in your head.

The everyday problem

Most project and task tools show Gregorian dates only. For a team that thinks in Hijri — or a mixed team where some members do and some don't — that creates friction: one person plans around 15 Ramadan, the tool shows a Gregorian date, and everyone translates back and forth. It's error-prone, and it quietly signals that the software wasn't built with your team in mind.

What a good multi-calendar setup looks like

Working smoothly across both calendars comes down to a few principles:

• Both calendars, not one or the other. The tool should show Hijri alongside Gregorian, so nobody is locked out of the calendar they think in.
• Per-person choice. An English-speaking manager might prefer Gregorian while an Arabic- or Urdu-speaking teammate prefers Hijri — on the same project, each seeing their own.
• One source of truth. Crucially, it's the same underlying date shown two ways — not duplicated data. A deadline is one deadline; only its display changes.
• An accurate calendar — with regional flexibility. Umm al-Qura (the Saudi civil calendar) is the standard for matching official references, but dates set by local moon sighting can differ by a day in places like Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia — so the ideal tool lets each person choose how Hijri is calculated, rather than forcing one calculation on everyone.
• It should extend to everything dated. Not just a calendar widget — task due dates, timelines, reports, and even email reminders should honour the chosen calendar.

Don't forget the working week

A calendar is only half the picture. Many teams in the region work a Friday/Saturday weekend (or another pattern entirely). Software that assumes Saturday/Sunday will mis-shade your calendar and miscalculate capacity. A properly localised tool lets you set the working week, so non-working days show correctly and timesheets add up.

How Artala handles it

Artala has a native Hijri calendar built in, available in every one of its 32 languages — not just Arabic. Each person toggles Hijri or Gregorian for themselves, and chooses how Hijri is calculated: Umm al-Qura for alignment with the Saudi civil calendar, or an adjustable Hijri mode tuned to local moon sighting. Either way it's the same underlying date shown their way, across the calendar, timeline, task due dates, and email reminders — with a date picker that stays weekday-correct. Weekends are configurable per workspace, so Friday/Saturday teams see their week correctly. It's project management that fits the calendar your team already lives by.