The Time Off Planning functionality enables organizations to set and enforce limits on the number of employees who can take time off simultaneously, based on profiles with customizable rules for employees, cost centers, skills, and schedules. It integrates with time off requests, displays availability in a calendar, and provides managers with warnings or errors if limits are exceeded during approval.
1. Creating the Time Off Planning Profile
2. Assigning the Time Off Planning Profile
3. Reviewing the Time Off Availability Calendar
4. Approving Time Off Requests
Overview
The Time Off Planning functionality provides the capability to determine the maximum number of employees who can have time off for a given time period. This functionality works with Time Off Requests. When an employee submits a Time Off Request, Time Off Planning will work in conjunction to further validate the request and help determine how many employees can be off work at the same time.
Please note: Schedules need to be populated for Time Off Planning to restrict. If the request is too far in advance and no schedule is listed on that date, no restrictions will apply.
1. Creating the Time Off Planning Profile
- Navigate to Settings > Profiles/Policies > Time Off Planning
- Click the New Time Off Planning Profile button.
- Enter a Name and Description for the profile.
- Click the Add Rule button to start adding parameters to the profile.
- Name: Enter the name of the rule.
- Description: Enter an optional description of the rule.
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Employees: Employees can be selected according to cost centers and skills.
- Employee List: Choose the Select Employees icon and choose those to be applied to this rule.
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Cost Center: If the selected employees work in multiple cost centers and you want to ensure that only certain cost centers are included in the rule, you can include or exclude a single cost center or a list of cost centers.
Please note: If a cost center tree has not been enabled for Time Off Planning, a warning note cautions that a cost center tree should be designated. This is done under Settings > Global Setup > Company Setup, in the Cost Center Trees widget. Only one tree can be enabled.
- Skills: This field is valid only if skills are assigned to employees in their accounts. You can specify required or excluded skills for selected employees. Skills can be used as additional filtering criteria to calculate time off slots for employees with specific skill sets.
- In Skills Maintenance (Settings > HR Setup > Skills), you can add skills to a list using the New List button in the Part Of The Following Lists section. This list can then be used in the rule.
- Time Off Types: Select the time off type to be considered by the rule. A single time off type or a list of time off types can be set here. For example, if your company uses Vacation and Personal time off types, and Time Off Planning should only be considered for Vacation, enter that code here.
- Schedules: If only certain shifts or schedules should be considered by the rule, enter them here.
- Daily Rules: Select one or more daily rule shifts to be considered by the rule. One daily rule or a list of daily rules can be selected for inclusion or exclusion from the rule.
- Day Types: If using day types in the system, these can be used to further qualify the type of time to be included in the rule. One day type or a list of day types can be selected for inclusion or exclusion.
- Slots: Select the number of slots that can be taken based on parameters such as the included employees, cost centers, skills, etc. Each row must contain a Days Profile and a number of slots. If a Days Profile has not been previously defined, select the look-up icon and choose Add New Profile.
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Message To Display: This section allows you to enter the message that displays and the severity of the message when the number of slots has been exceeded.
- Severity: Select Warning or Error when the number of slots has been exceeded during a time off request.
- Do Not Allow Manager Override: If Error is selected above, this option does not allow a manager to override the error. If unchecked, the approver may override an error message generated from the Time Off Planning Rule so that a time off request can be approved.
2. Assigning the Time Off Planning Profile
- Employee Information My Employees > Employee Information
- Manually assign the appropriate Time Off Planning Profile on each employee’s record, or via Mass Edit
- Time Off Planning Profiles can also be auto-assigned via Cost Center. Reach out to your CSR if this configuration is needed
- It can also be set up as a default by going to Settings> Global Setup> Company Setup> Default Tab> Default Profiles
3. Reviewing the Time Off Availability Calendar
- Navigate to the Time Off Request screen by going to My Info> My Time> Time Off>Request
- Within the time off request screen, select the time off type and the date.
If a selected date has no availability or limited availability, a triangle with an exclamation point will appear on that calendar date. Be sure to review the Slots Info section to the left of the calendar for any applicable restrictions. If the selected date is unavailable, a red notification line will also display at the bottom under Restrictions.
If the selected date has open availability, no restriction indicators will appear.
- Slots Info can be reviewed by clicking on a specific date in the calendar. To the left, the details appear on how many slots are Available, how many requests are still Pending, and how many slots are currently Taken.
- If the employee only requests Partial Day (Start/Stop) times or if the employee's scheduled time does not span the entire 8-hour day, the Slots Info will display what current hours/slots have been taken with an orange or red box and will display open time slots remaining as a pale green box.
4. Approving Time Off Requests
- When approving a Time Off Request via the Workflow (To-Do Bell), the Manager/Admin can see which employees have time off scheduled for that day by selecting the "View Scheduled People" Link.
- Managers/Admins will receive either a warning message (allows ‘Override’ if slots are exceeded) or an error message (stops approval due to slots exceeded) when approving Time Off Requests that have reached the maximum number of allowed employees off that day