Employees request time off from their dashboard, the right person approves it, and the balance, calendar and payroll follow. This page explains how the whole flow works for employees, managers and admins.
For step-by-step guides, see Request Time Off for employees and Approve Time Off for managers.
How it fits together
- An admin sets up leave policies (how much leave people earn and the booking rules) and assigns them to employees. See Leave Policies.
- An employee books leave on one of their policies.
- TimeLeaf checks the request against the balance, the employee's other leave, blackout periods and minimum notice.
- The request goes to its approver, or is approved straight away if the leave type doesn't need approval.
- Once approved, the leave shows on the Who's off calendar, counts against the balance, releases any shifts it covers, and is included in payroll exports.
Requesting time off
Employees click Request Time Off in Quick Actions on their dashboard. There is no separate time-off page.
The form has:
- Leave Type: one of the policies assigned to the employee, with their remaining balance shown.
- Start Date and End Date.
- Half-day request, with First half of day or Second half of day, when the policy allows half days.
- Hourly request, with how many Hours and when they start (Starting at), when the policy allows hourly requests. An hourly request can't be longer than one working day.
- Title (optional) and Notes (optional).
- Attach a file (optional): a PDF or photo up to 10 MB, for example a sick note. On a phone, employees can take the photo directly.
If the dates overlap shifts the employee is rostered on, the form says This overlaps with N scheduled shifts before they submit.
Clicking Submit Request sends it. The employee's dashboard shows it under Requests, and the approver is notified in the app, by email, and in Slack, Microsoft Teams or Google Chat if your workspace uses them. Emails go out in each person's own language once your workspace has an email provider, and anyone can turn email off in their notification settings.
What can stop a request
A request is refused, with a message saying why, when:
- It would take the balance below what the employee is projected to have, and the policy doesn't allow a negative balance.
- The employee already has leave booked on one of those days. Overlapping your own leave is never allowed. Overlapping a colleague's leave is fine: the approver sees how many others are off before deciding.
- None of the days is a working day for the employee.
- The employee is still in the policy's qualifying period, or the leave falls after their last day of employment.
- The dates fall in a blackout period that doesn't allow exceptions.
- It gives less notice than the policy's minimum, and your workspace is set to refuse short notice. Under the default setting, short-notice requests go through and the approver sees them marked as short notice.
Who approves
By default the request goes to the employee's manager (their team's manager), with automatic fall-backs when that person is away or has left. Professional and Business plans can add multi-step approval workflows. A leave type whose policy doesn't require approval is approved the moment it is submitted. See Approval Workflows.
Approvers decide from the To decide list on Team Reports, from the notification bell, or from the Slack, Teams or Google Chat message. They can see the employee's balance and how many others they can see are off at the same time, and they can add a comment. See Approve Time Off.
Request statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Submitted and waiting for a decision. On a multi-step workflow it stays pending between steps. |
| Approved | Booked. It counts against the balance and shows on the Who's off calendar. |
| Denied | Not approved. The employee is told, with the approver's comment if they left one. |
| Cancelled | Withdrawn by the employee, or cancelled by an admin. |
| Draft | Saved but not yet submitted. Nobody has been asked to approve it. |
| Date passed, not decided | The leave dates have gone by and nobody decided the request. The approver can still decide it. |
When a request stays undecided for more than a week after its last day, TimeLeaf checks the employee's timesheet. If they worked all of those hours, the request is closed automatically and the days go back to the balance; otherwise the approver is told what the timesheet shows.
Balances
Each employee sees their balances in the Time off card on their dashboard:
- Accrued: earned so far this leave year, plus days carried over.
- Booked: leave already approved anywhere in this leave year.
- Pending: leave requested but not yet decided. These days are held aside as soon as the request is submitted.
- Available: Accrued minus Booked minus Pending.
A denied or cancelled request gives its days straight back. Booking ahead can take Available to 0 long before the leave is taken; that's normal, because accrual catches up through the year.
Changing a request
While the leave is still in the future, employees can edit a pending or approved request from the Requests card. Changing the dates sends it for approval again. Title and notes can be edited at any time, even after the leave.
Cancelling leave
- Employees can cancel their own pending or approved request until the day the leave starts. Cancelling gives the days back and tells the approver.
- Once the leave has started, only an admin can cancel it, and must give a reason. The one exception is leave a manager recorded on an employee's behalf: the person who recorded it can still correct or cancel it within 24 hours of recording it.
- Admins can also permanently delete a request that is already cancelled, with a reason.
Recording leave for an employee
Admins and managers can record leave on an employee's behalf, for example a sick day phoned in. Admins use Add leave for… in the employee's Actions menu under People › Employees & Teams; managers use it on Team Reports. It is the same form employees use, including the attachment.
- Who: admins for anyone; managers for the employees whose requests they approve.
- Submit for approval sends it to the usual approver, as if the employee had submitted it.
- Record as approved approves it straight away. This is allowed only when you could approve it yourself at its first step; if a workflow puts that step with someone else, submit it instead. On a multi-step workflow, the later steps still need their approvals.
- Balances, the employee's other leave, minimum notice and blackout periods apply exactly as for the employee. An admin can override minimum notice or a blackout for one booking by ticking the box shown for each rule in the way; the override is recorded in the audit log. The balance check is never overridden.
- The employee is told in the app and by email that leave was recorded for them, and whether it is approved.
Attachments
A file attached to a request (such as a sick note) can be opened by the employee, their manager and admins. It is never shown on the Who's off calendar or to colleagues. The employee can add, replace or remove the file while the leave is still in the future or the request is undecided. Whoever recorded leave on an employee's behalf can attach the file within 24 hours of recording it.
Shifts and leave
When leave is approved for someone who has shifts on those days, the shifts are released so they can be covered. When a manager assigns a shift that clashes with approved leave, TimeLeaf warns them and asks them to confirm. See Shift Scheduling.
Reports
Every plan includes the Leave Register report: one row per leave request with the employee, team, leave type, dates, days and hours, status, and who decided it and when. Professional and above add balance, absence and liability reports. See Reports.