Every leave request needs the right person to approve it. TimeLeaf routes requests to the employee's manager by default, falls back automatically when that person is away, and lets you add multi-step approval for the requests that need it.
Default routing
With no workflow set up, a leave request goes to the employee's manager. An employee's manager is the Team Manager of the team they belong to (set on the Teams tab of People › Employees & Teams), or the manager recorded for them by an import or directory sync.
If that person can't decide it because they are on leave, out of office or have left, TimeLeaf tries the next approver in this order:
- The manager's delegate, if the manager has delegated their approvals for leave starting on those dates.
- The manager's own manager, and so on up the chain.
- The team's Manager's Approver (set when you edit a team).
- The Standing escalation people, in order: Fallback approver, HR manager, CEO / President (set under Time off › Approval Delegation). Each is optional.
- Any admin or owner.
An employee is never asked to approve their own request.
Team managers' own requests
A team manager's own leave goes to their manager. On a team with no one above the manager, set Manager's Approver on the team to the person who should approve the manager's requests. For a CEO or someone nobody approves, tick Manager can approve their own vacations on their team.
Standing escalation
Go to Time off › Approval Delegation to set the three standing escalation steps. They are tried when nobody in an employee's own management chain can approve: because no manager is set, or everyone up the chain is away or has left. They apply to timesheets as well as leave, so anyone you name here can also approve hours.
The same page lists approval delegations. An admin can create one for any manager with New Delegation; managers can set up their own from the user menu. See Delegate Your Approvals.
Automatic approval
A leave type whose policy has Requires Manager Approval turned off is approved the moment it is submitted, on every plan. The balance and booking checks still apply.
One exception: on a policy that allows a negative balance, a request the balance doesn't cover goes to the manager anyway, unless the policy's When a request would go below zero setting is Approve automatically. See Leave Policies.
Multi-step workflows
On the Professional plan and above, a workflow sends matching requests through two or more approvals in order. For example: vacation of five days or more needs the manager, then the next level up.
How it works:
- A request goes through the steps one after another and stays Pending until the last step approves it. Its days are held aside meanwhile.
- A rejection at any step ends the request.
- The employee is told in the app and by email when each step approves. The final decision email and chat message, the calendar event and any shift changes wait for the last step.
- The next step's approver is notified when it's their turn.
- Requests that match no workflow follow the default routing above.
Create a workflow
Open Approval Workflows
Go to Time off › Approval Workflows and click New Workflow.
Describe which requests it covers
Fill in:
- Name and an optional Description.
- Priority: when a request matches several workflows, the highest priority wins.
- Min Days (optional) and Max Days (optional): the request length it applies to.
- Leave types (optional; none means every type) (Business plan and above): the leave policies it applies to.
- Active, and Default Workflow if this workflow should also cover requests that match no other workflow.
Click Create.
Add the steps
Expand the workflow and click Manage Steps, then Add Step. For each step set a Step Name, the Step Order and the Approver Type (see below).
Check the order
The steps are listed in the order they run. Edit or delete them from the list.
Step types
| Approver Type | Who decides | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Manager (the usual approver) | The employee's manager, with the default routing and its fall-backs. It can only be the first step. | Professional and above |
| Next level up | The next person up the approver chain, above everyone who approved an earlier step. | Professional and above |
| Named approver | A specific person you pick (for example HR for parental leave), or their delegate. If they can't decide, the next level up does. It can be any step, including the first. | Business and above |
Only the current step's approver can decide it; on a later step the direct manager doesn't decide just because they are the manager. Admins and owners can always decide the current step, and the workflow carries on from there. If no approver can be found for a step, only admins and owners can decide it.
Hand-over when nobody answers
On any step, tick If nobody decides in time, let the next person up the approver ladder decide this step too and set Hours before hand-over. Once that time has passed since the step began, the next person up can also decide the step, and they're notified. A step without hand-over hours never hands over.
Changing workflows
Changes apply to new requests. While a request is part-way through a workflow, its steps can't be changed and the workflow can't be deleted; deactivate it and create a new one instead. When an employee edits a request, it starts again at step 1.
Workflows cover leave requests only. Timesheets always go to the employee's manager with the default routing.
Chasing undecided requests
Under Settings › Working Time, Chase Pending Leave Requests After sets how many hours a request can wait undecided before the next approver up the chain is told it is waiting. It is off until you set a number. The request stays pending, and the person told can't approve it themselves; only the manager, the approver it was routed to and an admin can decide. A workflow step with hand-over hours uses its own timing instead.
Leave recorded on someone's behalf
When a manager or admin records leave for an employee, they can submit it for approval or record it as approved. Recording it as approved is allowed only when they could approve the first step themselves. See Time Off Requests.