Apply restrictions for time off requests

You can apply restrictions for time requests by configuring settings within a time off policy.

Oliver Cook avatar
Written by Oliver Cook
Updated over a week ago

If there are restrictions you want to apply to time off requests, for example, you want it so that employees can only request time off more than a week in advance of their request date(s), this can be done within the settings of a time off policy.

Many restrictive settings for time off requests are found within the Conditions section of a time off policy's settings, but there are also some within Workflow and Additional fields.

To get to these settings:

  1. Click your name on the top right, then click Settings.

  2. On the settings menu click Time off, then click Policies.

  3. Click Settings on the time off policy you want to amend.

  4. Scroll down then click on the arrow next to Conditions/Workflow/Additional fields to expand this section.

Here are multiple settings that you can enable which apply restrictions to time off requests.

📎NOTE: Whatever you apply is for the individual time off policy only. To apply to others you must follow the same steps again for each policy.

📌TIP: Any setting you apply make sure you click Save.


Conditions

These settings are within the Conditions section.


Allow employees to make time off requests from a time off policy

If you enable Allow employee to request time off from this policy employees can request time off themselves from this policy.

If disabled only admins and managers can request time off from this policy on behalf of the employee.


Allow part-day time off requests

If you want to be able to request part days for time off, for example, be able to request an afternoon off rather than the whole day, under Allow employees to request part days using this policy? select Yes.

Two more settings become available:

  • You can control whether employees can edit the hours field when a part days is selected in a time off request. If enabled, the hours field in a time off request is greyed out.

  • You can control whether a specific time span is required for a part-time request. If enabled you can enter the hours of the part-day request, e.g. 12pm-4pm.


Allow employees to request time off during a probation period

If you enable the time off policy to have a probation period, you can choose whether employees are able to request time off during this period.

To allow this, select Yes under Can employees request time off during this period?


You can also choose to have individual periods of time off not exceeding a certain amount of consecutive.


Prevent employees booking more days than what is remaining in the current period

This setting prevents employees from booking leaver over their remaining available days. If the time off request exceeds their available days they receive a warning and the time off request can't be submitted.

To enable this select Do not allow to book more days than remaining in the current period.


Enable a minimum notice period for time off requests

If employees must give enough notice for their time off, for example, employees can only have time off if submitted more than a week in advance, you can enable this setting.

Once enabled, employees can only submit time off requests more than the specified days before the date of the time off.

If 7 days is entered, if someone tried to book time off with too little notice, a message appears and they are prevented from submitting the request.


Apply a minimum number of days for a time off request

If, for example, employees in your company have to take a week's holiday minimum at a time, you can apply a minimum number of days for a request.

  1. Select Require minimum number of days per request.

  2. Enter the amount of days there must be at least for the request.


Apply a maximum number of days for a time off request

If, for example, employees in your company can't take more than two weeks off at a time, you can apply a maximum number of days.

  1. Select Limit maximum number of days employee can add in one request.

  2. Enter the maximum number of days.


Require available days in another policy must be used first

If you have employees assigned to multiple time off policies, you can configure settings so that employees can't request time off using a policy until all days have been used in another policy.

  1. Select Require another policy to be fully used before time off from this policy can be requested.

  2. Select the other policy to be fully used.


Limit how many times time off can be taken in a year

For a policy, if you want employees to only be able to request time off for it, for example five times in a year, you can limit the amount of blocks time off is taken for that policy. when enabled this limits the number of blocks of consecutive days that an employee's time off allowance can be split into.

  1. Select Limit allowance to be taken in ___blocks.

  2. Enter the amount of blocks.


Workflow

These settings are within the Workflow section.

Require a replacement person when submitting a time off request

If someone needs to ensure they have a replacement person in place when they're off work, you can make it mandatory for them to select someone before they submit their time off request.

  1. Select Allow to add replacement person.

  2. Select Make it mandatory.



Additional fields

These settings are within the Additional fields section.

Make 'Details' field mandatory

You can make it mandatory that an employee must enter details for the time off request before they can submit it.

  1. Select Show "Details" field.

  2. Select Make "Details" field mandatory.


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