Request, approve and plan staff time off

Time off lets you record a vacation, a sick day or a part-day absence for a team member without editing their weekly hours. While it is approved, that person cannot be booked during those dates.

Time off can start two ways. When you, as the owner, record it, it is approved straight away. When a team member who signs in asks for it themselves, it starts as Pending and waits for your decision. You can approve it or reject it.

You can also give each person a yearly allowance in days, and set house rules for your whole company. The rules warn you when a request goes against them. They never stop a request or an approval.

1. For a team member to ask for time off themselves, they need product sign-in switched on. Their own page is where you do it. See the staff directory article.
2. Optional: decide how many days each person gets this year, and whether you want a notice period, a limit on how many people can be away at once, or a carry-over cap.

Record time off yourself

1. Open Staff and open the person's page.
2. In Time off, choose the Kind: Vacation, the option for paid time off right after it, Sick or Unpaid. The kind is required.
3. Keep All day ticked and set From (date) and To (date). Untick it to set Starts and Ends with times instead.
4. To cover half a day, tick Half day, then choose which day and which half of it: Morning of the first day, Afternoon of the first day, Morning of the last day or Afternoon of the last day.
5. Add a Reason (optional) and press Record time off. It is approved immediately.
6. Under What this costs, before you send it, the screen shows how many booked visits fall in those dates, which services nobody else working then covers, and any house-rule warnings.

Decide on requests

1. Open Staff and press the Time off tab. A number on the tab counts the requests waiting. You can also press View and approve time off for the whole team → from a person's page.
2. Who's away shows the next four weeks. Pending requests are drawn dashed and marked Pending, not yet blocking.
3. Under Waiting on you, each request shows who asked, the kind, the dates, the reason, how many booked visits fall inside, and the person's balance before and after.
4. Press Approve or Reject. The record keeps who asked and who decided.
5. Approved and upcoming lists what is coming.

Set allowances and house rules

1. On a person's page, in Balances, type the number of days under Allowance and press Save. The table shows Allowance, Taken, Booked ahead, Remaining and Sick.
2. On the Time off tab, the House rules card shows Notice needed for vacation, Most people off at once, Blackout weeks and Unused days carry over, or Not set for any you have not decided. Press Edit to open Edit house rules. Fill in Notice required for vacation (days), Maximum people off at once and Carry-over cap (days), and add each blackout range with + Add blackout, choosing From and To (Remove takes one away). Each blackout needs a start that is not after its end. Press Save rules. All of it is optional, and the window reminds you that the rules warn and never block.
3. Balances this year on the Time off tab shows everyone at once. Someone with two days or fewer left is marked Low.

If you are a team member asking for time off

1. Open Schedule and press Request time off.
2. Choose the Kind, the First day and the Last day. Tick Half day if you need it.
3. Check What this costs. It shows the booked visits in those dates, how many days you have left and any house-rule warnings.
4. Add a Note for the approver (optional) and press Send request.
5. A pending request can be taken back with Withdraw. Once it is approved or rejected, you can no longer change it.

When time off leaves booked visits without anyone

1. When the dates you chose, or the request you are approving, cover visits that are already booked, a warning appears. It shows how many visits are affected and which services they are for. It also says when nobody else performs a service. It never shows client names, and it never stops you from saving or approving.
2. Press Review reassignment to open a plan for that person. Each visit gets a suggested replacement, grouped as Ready, Review or Needs a decision, with a small tag saying why it is in the plan, such as Time off or Called in sick.
3. Accept a suggestion, choose someone else, cancel the visit or leave it for later. Nothing moves until you press Apply plan, and the screen tells you how many clients will be told.
4. Visits for clients who chose that person show a note, because those clients get a link to keep the new arrangement or change it.

Same-day absences and urgent mode

Urgent mode is off by default. You turn it on in your company settings, under Same-day absences. When it is on and someone is out today, visits that already have a clear, free replacement, the Ready ones, are moved without waiting for you, and their clients are told. Everything else stays in the plan, and you get a notification that some visits need a decision. Leave it off if you prefer to review every change yourself.

Freed times and the waitlist

When a visit moves or is cancelled, the time it frees is offered to people on the waitlist. Clients who marked that person as a favorite are offered it first, and the order they joined the waitlist breaks ties. Short gaps are offered too. Clients whose visit was moved away from their favorite are offered that favorite's openings when they appear.

• Approved time off blocks the person on the booking page for those dates. A half day blocks only that half, so the other half stays bookable. All-day time off covers the whole day in the location's own time zone.
• A pending request blocks nothing. The person stays bookable until you approve it.
• Rejected requests block nothing.
• Approving time off does not move or cancel appointments that were already booked inside it. Those clients keep their appointments until you review the reassignment plan and apply it, or, with urgent mode on, until a same-day absence moves the ready ones. Check What this costs before you approve.
• Deleting time off does not change existing appointments either.

• Assuming approval reschedules clients. It does not. Move or cancel those appointments yourself.
• Expecting a pending request to block bookings. Only approved time off blocks them.
• Treating warnings as locks. A short notice, too many people off at once or a blackout date shows a warning only. The warning names the rule that is broken, for example "Breaks the house rule: 14 days of notice for vacation", and you can still approve.
• Expecting every kind to use the allowance. Unpaid time off, and older records with no kind, use none of it. Sick days are counted separately. A half day counts as half a day.
• Expecting an allowance of zero when none is set. The balance then shows No allowance set, which is different from zero days.
• Setting a notice rule and expecting it to cover every kind. The notice rule is about vacation.
• A team member who cannot ask. They need product sign-in enabled on their record, and they can only manage their own requests.

The staff directory, roles and policies, and closures and holidays have their own articles.