Approving Leave
Where decisions are made, who may make them, and what a decision does. Four screens can record a decision, and they all share one rule set.
Who: whoever a request is waiting on: the employee's supervisor, the department head, or the holder of the HR Leave Approval Manager role, as the leave type requires. HR may revert a decision.
The four places
| Screen | Best for | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Leave Dashboard → The approval queue | Working the whole queue, longest wait first, with age and stage | Approve, reject, and in bulk. Assign cover. Cancel approved leave |
| HR → My Approvals | Your cross-module inbox: leave sits beside cash requests and everything else routed to you | Approve or reject with remarks |
| Leave Records | Deciding in context: the full request, the reviewers so far, and every other request in the register | Approve, reject, revert |
| Leave Calendar → request drawer | Deciding with the roster in front of you: what this approval does to cover | Approve, reject |
The employee's balances and prior requests are shown on all of them. Deciding from one place or another is the same act: the same workflow step is written, so the trail is identical wherever you pressed the button.
The rules every screen shares
- Only the reviewer a request is waiting on can decide it. Being able to see the queue does not grant authority. Trying to decide someone else's stage is refused with "This request is not waiting on you", and the dashboard reports "N not waiting on you" on a bulk decision.
- Approval is complete when every mandatory reviewer has approved. One rejection ends it. Unless the workflow is configured as sequential, reviewers may act in any order; a sequential workflow refuses an out-of-turn reviewer with "[Name] has to Approve Before You. You are Number N in the Approval Order".
- An intermediate approval is acknowledged, with the message that other reviewers are still pending before a final status can be determined.
- A voided request cannot be reviewed. If the employee withdrew it after you opened it, you are told "This leave request has been withdrawn and can no longer be reviewed".
- A decision is written once. The Decision chip never changes afterwards, except by an explicit Revert.
- Suspended employees. Approving from Leave Records for an employee under an active disciplinary suspension is refused: "This employee is under an active suspension - leave cannot be approved until it is lifted". The other screens do not apply this check, so use Leave Records when in doubt about a discipline case.
What each decision does
| Decision | Effect |
|---|---|
| Approve (final) | The decision axis becomes Approved. The lifecycle becomes Scheduled, or In progress if the start date has already arrived. The days move from pending to booked on the employee's balance, the leave appears on the calendar and the coverage grid, and the employee sees Approved on the portal |
| Reject | The decision axis becomes Rejected. Nothing is deducted; the leave is never drawn on the calendar. The employee sees Rejected |
| Revert (Leave Records only) | Puts a decided request back to Awaiting decision and rebuilds the approval route from the start, so it cannot return to pending with nobody owing a decision. The outcome already communicated no longer stands |
| Cancel (dashboard) | For approved leave the employee will no longer take. The lifecycle becomes Cancelled, the days return to the balance, the reason is recorded |
| Assign cover (dashboard) | Names who holds the desk while the person is away. Approval and backfill are one decision; the dashboard flags approved leave with cover not assigned |
Deciding on the dashboard queue
The queue is sorted longest wait first. Each row shows the reference, employee and unit, leave type and days, start date (a red soon chip inside seven days), the stage and person it is waiting on, and its age at the current stage coloured against the SLA. A retro chip marks a request filed after the leave had begun.
- The tick and cross on a row decide that one request. Approve acts immediately; Reject asks for confirmation.
- Tick several rows (or the header box) and a batch bar appears with Approve and Reject, plus a comment box. The comment is recorded against every decision in the batch.
- A batch is deliberately not all-or-nothing. A row a colleague decided seconds ago comes back as Already approved or Already rejected; rows not waiting on you are counted and reported; everything else goes through. The result message says how many applied.
Deciding in My Approvals
Each row is a request routed to you, with its type, requester, record number, your remarks and status. The eye icon opens the request: the left side is the full leave request with the employee's balances and history, the right side is Enter Your Review: remarks, an Approve or Reject radio, and Submit Review. Once the whole request has concluded the step is locked and shown read-only with a padlock.
Deciding on Leave Records
Open the row's eye icon. The dialog shows the request, where it stands, and a Reviewers timeline with every stage: who, whether they have decided, when, and their remarks. Approve and Reject sit at the bottom while the request is pending; otherwise the row offers Revert decision. Every action confirms first with the employee's name and dates, and the register updates in place.
Deciding on the calendar
Click a hatched (undecided) bar. The drawer shows the request, whose desk it is on, the reviewers so far, and an If you approve this panel: the unit's thinnest day, the available count against its floor, and a green, amber or red verdict. The figure already includes this request. Approve and Reject act immediately, with no confirmation.
When an approver is away
The dashboard's Approvers away tile counts approvers who are themselves on approved leave today while holding open requests, and names their cover (their own supervisor). The system does not re-route the request to the cover; it reports the stall so somebody can act. If a stage is regularly blocked this way, add a second reviewer on the workflow or use Revert to rebuild the route once the supervisor has changed.
Common questions
I can see the request but the buttons do nothing / I am told it is not waiting on me. You are not the reviewer for the open stage. Check the Waiting on column.
The queue shows "no approver resolved". The stage exists but nobody holds the role: the employee has no supervisor, the department has no head, or nobody holds the HR Leave Approval Manager role. Fix the setup; the request can still be decided by whoever does hold it.
Can I approve leave for a date that has already passed? Yes. The request goes straight to In progress or Ended as the dates dictate. It is marked retro and counts against the "approval before start" control for annual and study leave.
An approved request needs new dates. Revert it from Leave Records, have the employee edit it on the portal (or edit it on Leave Requests), and let it route again.