Frequently asked questions - Time Off

Frequently asked questions - Time Off

Policy management

Q: How does Time Off accrual work and what does an employee see for their available balances?

There’s two ways to set up policies: yearly or monthly accruals. 

  • Yearly: Yearly accruals are set using a reset date where a portion of days available is put into an employee’s available balance to use for the rest of the year. This would be what they’d have available for the entire year, not just that which they’ve accrued through a pay run. 
  • Monthly: Monthly takes your yearly balance and breaks it down into 12 monthly instalments, giving a portion of the yearly available time off each month on a day you select (typically the first or last day of the month).

Time Off does not track accruals in dollars, only hours or days. You’ll still need to keep the dollar accruals for accounting purposes on the employee pay stub.


Q: Can I track overtime using Time Off?
You can, but depending on your setup we would recommend using our Scheduling and Time Tracking product. 

Time Off is best used for time off policies that don’t link directly to accrued dollars, such as that in lieu or banked time.

A “banked time” policy would support the workflow of inputting worked time. 

App management

Q: How do I add new team members to Time Off?

Time Off syncs with People Directory so all you have to do is add the employee in the People Directory. Learn more about adding a new employee. 

As soon as you create the employee you can enrol them in any Time Off policy. 

Q: What Time Off related email notifications will I receive?

Depending on your permission levels, we will send you a few types of emails.


General Emails (meaning that everyone can receive this type of email)

- Request status update emails if your time off request has been approved or rejected.


Admin/Reviewer Emails
- If you are a reviewer, you’ll receive an email summary when you have a new request to review.

There is currently no opt-out option, all emails will be sent.


Q: Can we setup a global view where anyone can see all time off approved across the organization?

This can be done using primary departments and teams.

Administrators have the option of creating a department or team in People Directory with everyone added as a member. Then, the administrator would need to identify the all-encompassing team/dept as the individual's primary team/dept on every profile that should have this level of insight. Learn more about setting up primary teams/depts here.

The request calendar will show you who is away in your primary team and department, so if the all-person team is selected as the primary dept or team, by default you'll see everyone in the company that has requested time off. You can then choose the other option to drill to your specific dept (if team is used for the all-person group) or your specific team (if dept. is used for the all-person group). 

Addressing privacy concerns with this option: For example, if you’re not a reviewer for an employee, their request will appear in gray. If you’re their reviewer, it’ll show up in the colour you’ve chosen for the policy.This is for privacy reasons and ensures only reviewers know exactly why someone is away. Your own requests will always appear in colour.


Requesting time off

Q: I made a mistake when entering time off, but I submitted the request, can I cancel it and make a new one?

Any requests that occur in the future, if they are either in review or approved, can be cancelled by the requestee. Administrators also have the ability to cancel any requests in the past that are not already closed (rejected or already cancelled).

Learn more about cancelling requests here. 


Q: If my policy allows for carry over, and I have carried over time off from the previous year unused, will the product know to use my carried over vacation first?

Your carry over will always be used first to ensure you’re not losing any yearly accruals available to you. However, be sure to look if your time off policy has carry over that expires. If so, you will lose any unused balance that fits the carry over expiry criteria of your policy. 


Information about your policy such as if it has carry over or expiry is available on your Time Off dashboard.


Q: Can I use multiple policies to make a request?

Yes. However, have to be contiguous (next to each other or together in sequence). This means you can book May 1-10 using one policy and May 11-13 using a second policy. You cannot, however, book a request on May 1-10 and May 12-14 in the same request as this is not contiguous. The Time Off request calendar is similar to how a regular calendar works where the separate requests would have to be created under two separate request workflows.


Q: Can I, as an administrator, record time off taken for an employee?

Yes. Through each employee’s personal Time Off dashboard, you can access the record time taken button which creates auto-approved time off requests (either in the past and the future). This is especially handy for sick days when someone calls in sick, but can’t make it to the computer to record their leave.

Learn more about managing time off as an admin here. 


Q: Can I request time off into the negative?

We’ve designed a very flexible request calendar to accommodate exceptions and allow for negative requests. The reviewer is empowered with information such as balance before and after the time off request, net impact on the requestee’s balance, applicable comments made by the reviewer, and related requests already occurring in a person’s team to make an informed decision on whether to approve requests that will go into negative balances.


Best practice is to always check with your administrator on what rules apply to your specific balance before approving time off in the negative.


General questions 

Q: How does Away Today calendar view work? 
From this view you will see any time off requests made by your primary department and primary team. If you are also a manager, you will see the requests made by the people you manage. 

Q: Will the app know to not count weekends or holidays when I make a request?
The request calendar will be pre-loaded with stat holidays specific to your province. These appear as a red blue dot at the top. When making a request over a stat holiday or weekend, the balance being taken for that day will automatically be zero. 
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However, if you work weekends and need to instead flip the days been taken from your balance you can use the balance modifier when making a request to instead count Saturday/Sunday as 1 day each and instead, leave Monday/Tuesday as counting for 0. 

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