Leave Management

Owned by Michelle Drewes
Last updated: yesterday at 2:26 PM
10 min read

Leave Manager Role Video Demonstration

Users with Leave Management access maintain absence thresholds, blackout dates, view district leave balances/details, escalate approvals, revert leave requests, export leave requests, view staff leave expense reports and maintain sub categories.

Role: Users with Leave Manager, District Manager or Admin roles.

Absence Thresholds

Enter ‘allowable' percentage, by building. The threshold percent is the percent of positions allowed to take leave on a given day per positions at that building.

Formula

Example: If a building has 50 employees and they only allow 10 to take leave per day, they will enter a threshold percentage of 20%.

  • The formula to determine if a building is over the threshold is leaveRequestCount / positionCount. It’s the number of positions taking leave at a building divided by the total number of positions at that building.

image-20241115-180359.png

  • If threshold has been exceeded for that day and you are submitting a new leave request for that day, you will receive the following error preventing you from posting your leave request.

image-20240814-115822.png

  • If threshold has been exceeded and you are approving a leave request, a warning notification is displayed stating there are open leave requests for a certain date and building that exceed the percentage of absences allowed for that day. This is only a warning and you may proceed with approving (or rejecting) them.

Blackout Dates

Blackout Dates consist of a period of time or specific date where leave requests are typically restricted (i.e. holidays, etc). Refer to district policy and/or USPS Job Calendars on what leave types and dates in conjunction with employees/positions or pay groups and departments are considered blackout periods on the district calendar.

Create a Blackout Date

From Blackout Dates,

  1. Click ‘Create’

  2. Provide a label for the blackout period.

  3. Check the notify managers if you want to send an email to Leave Managers if any leave is requested during the blackout date range.

  4. Check ‘Enabled’ to activate the blackout date.

  5. Check ‘Entire Day’ if it applies to the entire day or leave unchecked to select a start/ending time (i.e. 2 hour delay)

  6. Select start and end dates and start/ending times (if ‘entire day’ is unchecked) for your blackout period.

  7. If specific leave types should be included in the blackout date, select all that apply.

  8. You can filter by employee and their position. (or leave blank to include all positions for an employee).

  9. If specific employees aren’t selected, you can filter by Pay Group and/or Department Codes.

  10. Click ‘Create’ to save your Blackout date or ‘Cancel' to exit without saving changes.

If the district wants to restrict leave requests during blackout dates, in System>Configuration>Leave Type Configuration, the ‘Disallow Blackout Date’ box can be checked for specific leave types. This will prevent an employee from creating a leave request for the specified leave type during a blackout period.

Blackout Dates Grid Options

The Blackout Dates grid allows the user to filter blackout information by entering their search query in the filter row.

  • image-20240307-195934.png view entire black out record

  • image-20240307-200036.png edit an existing black out record.

  • image-20240815-010957.png delete an existing black out record

District Leave Analysis

The District Leave Analysis provides leave balance information as well as leave request details for all staff. It is split into two grids.

  • The top grid displays the leave balance information for all staff. Use the filter row to narrow down your search. If you would like to view employee leave request information, checkmark the desired employees and click on ‘See Leave for Selected’. Their leave requests details will then be displayed in the bottom grid. You also have the option to export all or selected employees leave balance information to a spreadsheet via ‘Export Grid Items’ as well as customize your top grid by clicking the more image-20240828-140732.png icon.

  • The bottom grid displays the leave request information from the employees selected from the top grid. You also have the option of exporting the selected employees leave request information to a spreadsheet via the ‘Export Grid Items' as well as customize your bottom grid using the more icon.

Escalated Approval

The Leave Request Escalated Approval grid will display outstanding staff leave requests. The user will be able to singularly or mass approve outstanding leave requests directly, bypassing the workflow approval.

View an Escalated Leave Request

If you prefer to view the details of a leave request before approving it, click on image-20240509-210708.png . It will open a window containing their leave request details. You will not be able to edit their leave request. Options to Reject or Approve it are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

  • Approve: A pop-up confirmation window will appear providing a note area to optionally enter a reason for the approval. Click Approve. The leave request will bypass the rest of the workflow and will be updated with an approved status. The originator will be notified that the request has been approved. The originator may open their leave request to view the ‘Leave Request Approval Trail’ which will include the approver who approved the leave, optional notes they entered, and the date/time the leave it was approved.

  • Reject: A pop-up confirmation window will appear providing a note area to enter a reason for the rejected request. Click Reject. The originator will be notified that the request has been rejected. The leave request will be updated with as a status of ‘rejected’ and displayed in their ‘My Leave Requests’ grid . The originator may view the leave request to click on the ‘Leave Request Approval Trail’ to see the approval trail of who rejected the leave, optional notes they entered, and the date/time the leave it was rejected. The originator also has the option of editing the leave request, if needed, and re-submitting it.

Mass Approve or Mass Reject Escalated Leave Requests

Click on one or more checkboxes to the left of each staff member listed to approve or reject their leave request(s). Click or Approve or Reject. By taking this action, it will automatically approve or reject the leave, bypassing the workflow process.

Export Leave History

Allows user to view exported leave requests, revert exported leave requests and export (reverted) leave requests again. In order for a leave request to appear on this grid, it must first be exported via Leave Requests>Export Leave Requests option.

  • image-20240814-122009.png View Requests: ability to view all exported leave requests inclusive of the date range used when exporting the leave. You may then click on the image-20240814-122009.png on each leave request to view the details.

  • image-20240814-122020.png Revert Leave Details: ability to remove exported flag from selected leave requests in order to revert their status back to ‘approved’ in ESS. The leave requests will be displayed in the Leave Requests>Export Leave Requests menu again. Select one or more leave requests to convert and click ‘Remove Exported Status Flag from Selected Records’. The reverted leave will be back at an approved status.

  • image-20240814-122031.png Export Again: Ability to recreate the already exported leave in a CSV file that may be uploaded into USPS. This option does not change the status of the leave requests, they remain with an exported status.

If you need to cancel an exported leave request that has already been posted to USPS, after using the revert option above, the leave request will be back at an approved status. From there, the user can cancel the leave request in ESS. In USPS, the district may create an adjustment to the employees attendance/leave record.

Export Leave Requests

Allows users the ability to export leave requests with a status of ‘approved’ in order to post leave information into USPS. Once exported, the leave request status will be updated to ‘exported’ and the leave request will no longer appear in the Export Leave Request grid. When viewing your leave requests via My Leave Requests (or Supervised or District Leave) options, you will be able to view the ‘exported’ leave requests.

On the bottom half, by default the grid displays all fully approved leave requests waiting to be exported unless you filter them by entering a start and/or ending date, or any of the other filter options in the top half of the Export Leave screen.

 

User may filter approved leave requests by:

  • Start Date and End Date: Enter a start date or a start and ending date and it will filter the grid on approved leave inclusive of the date(s) entered

  • Specific Employees: Select one or more specific employee(s) approved leave

  • Specific Pay Groups/Building Codes: Option to select one or more pay groups and/or building codes associated with approved leave

  • Leave Type/Appointment Type: Select approved leave by one or more specific leave types (sick. personal, etc) or appointment types (certified, classified)

Once you filtering is complete, you have the option to generate a ‘preview’ report of the absences that will be included in the export. You may select the leave requests you would like exported (or select the top box to select all, and click on ‘Print Pre-Export Report’ to generate the leave-request-export-report.CSV file. The spreadsheet will include the absence data that will be exported out of ESS. Once you have reviewed the preview report, the selected leave will remain in the grid so that you may continue on to perform the actual export using the ‘Export Leave Requests’ option.

Once again, ensure the leave requests needed for your export are selected on the grid (or select the top box to select all) and click Export Leave Requests. You will be provided with two export methods (you can only choose one export method):

  • CSV File: All filtered leave appearing in the grid will be saved into a CSV file called ‘leave-request-export.csv’. The file can then be imported into USPS manually via the USPS Utilities> Attendance/Absence Import.

  • Direct to USPS: All filtered leave appearing in the grid will be automatically posted to USPS. A resulting ‘leave-request-export-errors.csv’ will be generated listing the number of records that were posted successfully as well as any possible errors that prevented certain leave entries from posting to USPS.

Once the leave has been exported, the leave requests will be updated in ESS to an ‘exported’ status and the exported leave run will be stored under the ‘Exported Leave History’ menu option.

Leave Expense Report

Allows user to view all district leave requests that contain leave expense information. This is a view only grid. The user may use the filter row to filter leave requests as well as use the more image-20241106-142541.png button to add or remove columns from the grid.

  • image-20241115-192942.png to view the leave request details. You may click ‘Print Leave Expense Form’ to download a copy of the leave expense information in PDF format.

  • image-20241115-193042.png to download a PDF version of the leave expense report. It PDF will include today’s date as part of the filename. (leave-expense-report-2024-11-15.pdf)

For more information on defining leave expenses information on a leave request, please refer to System>Configuration>Leave Expenses Configuration.

For more information on requiring associated expenses on leave requests, please refer to System>Configuration>Leave Type Configuration.

Sub Categories

A sub category further defines a leave type. For example, when creating a personal leave request, sub categories can be displayed allowing the user to select a specific category of personal leave (i.e. family emergency, personal business, etc.) If you require staff to select a sub category while creating their leave request, you can denote that requirement for specific leave types in the System>Configuration>Leave Type settings.

Create a Sub Category

From Leave Management>Sub Category,

  1. Click ‘Create’

  2. Enter a Category for the leave request sub category. The category may be 2 character max in length.

  3. Enter a detailed description of the sub category.

  4. Select the Leave Types that apply. You may select more than one leave type.

  5. Check ‘Active’ to activate the sub category

  6. Check ‘Reason Required’ if you require a Reason to be entered on the leave request.

  7. Click ‘Create’ to save your Sub Category or ‘Cancel' to exit without saving changes.

Sub Categories Grid Options

The Sub Categories grid allows the user to filter sub category information by entering their search query in the filter row.

  • image-20240307-195934.png view entire sub category record

  • image-20240307-200036.png edit an existing sub category record.

  • image-20240522-190842.png delete an existing sub category record. For any existing leave requests that required a sub category and reason, the sub category will no longer be displayed on the leave request but the reason details will not be removed.