Time off: what kinds exist, how much of each somebody gets, who approves it, and which days do not count because the office was shut anyway.
For how it is built — endpoints, models, the carry-forward job — see Leave architecture.
Setting it up#
Three things to configure, in this order, under Settings on the Leave page:
Leave types. What somebody can ask for — annual, sick, unpaid, whatever your organisation actually has. Each one decides whether it is paid, whether it needs approving, whether half days are allowed, and how much notice is required.
Policies. How much of a type somebody gets in a year, and whether the unused part carries into the next one. A policy can be aimed at particular roles or teams; somebody matched by more than one gets the most permissive quota, so overlapping policies are worth being deliberate about.
Holidays. The days the whole organisation is off. These matter beyond this module: a five-day request spanning two holidays counts as three days against the balance, and — because the Service Desk's turnaround clock reads the same calendar — a desk ticket does not age on a public holiday either.
Mark a holiday optional when it is a day people may take rather than one the organisation closes. Optional days do not stop either clock.
Balances#
A balance is a row, per person, per type, per year — not something a policy implies. If the page says there are no balances yet, the year has not been initialised, which is a setup step rather than a bug.
Booking against a balance happens on approval, not on request, so a pending request does not quietly reserve days somebody may not get.
Asking for time off#
Pick a type, pick dates, say why if it helps. Half days are allowed where the type permits them, and two half days on the same day of different types both succeed — each takes half from its own balance.
A request that needs no approval is approved as it is made. Everything else waits.
The requester has two ways out, and they are not the same thing:
- Withdraw — a pending request, never approved. Nothing was ever taken from the balance.
- Cancel — an approved request being given back. The days return to the balance.
Approving#
Requests waiting on you, with who asked, for what, and for how long. Approving writes the days against the balance; rejecting does not.
Approved leave is not only a record: it blocks the dates on the team calendar, so the days show up when somebody schedules a meeting or looks at who is around next week.
Common mistakes#
- Expecting a policy to create balances. It sets the quota; the balances for a year are rows that have to exist.
- Overlapping policies. Role-based and team-based can both match, and the larger quota wins. That is the rule, but it is rarely what somebody intended.
- Adding a holiday mid-cycle and expecting old requests to change. Day counts are computed when the request is made. Existing requests keep the number they were approved with.
- Marking a real closure as optional. An optional holiday does not reduce anybody's day count and does not pause the service desk clock.
- Confusing cancelled with withdrawn when reconciling balances. One returns days; the other never took any.
- A missed year rollover. Carry-forward runs once at the year boundary. If it was missed, balances do not carry until it is run.