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Work time & absences

Overview of the Work Time module - request leave, follow your balances, see who is off, approve requests and configure absence types, schedules and holidays.

Who can do thisEmployeeManagerManager creatorScoped adminAdminSuper admin
WorkTime on the website

The Work Time module manages absences and leave in OpenAleph. Employees request time off and follow their leave balances, managers approve their team's requests and see who is off, and admins configure the absence types, accrual policies, working schedules and public holidays that drive every calculation.

Note: Work Time is licensed per company. If you don't see Work Time in the sidebar, your company may not have the module enabled; ask your admin (see Modules and licences).

Where to find it

In the sidebar, open Work Time. Depending on your access level you see up to four entries:

Menu entry Who sees it What it is for
Work Time › My Calendar Everyone Your own calendar, your leave balances and the history of your requests. This is the default page of the module.
Work Time › Planning Everyone The team planning: who is absent, when, across your team or the whole company.
Work Time › Requests Manager and above The approval queue for your team's absence requests.
Work Time › Configuration Admin and above Settings: Absence types, Holidays and Company schedules.

Key concepts

Term Meaning
Absence type A kind of absence, for example paid leave, RTT, sick leave or unpaid leave. It has a colour, a category (Balanced or Unbalanced), a Paid / Unpaid flag and a Day counting mode.
Balanced absence type A type that uses a day balance which is credited automatically by one or more policies (typical for paid leave). You can only take what your balance allows, unless the policy accepts a negative balance.
Unbalanced absence type A type without a balance (typical for sick leave or special leave). Anyone can request it, there is nothing to accrue.
Policy The accrual rule of a balanced absence type: how many days are credited (Earning rate), how often (Month or Year), when (Beginning of period or End of period), over which period, and until when the days can be used (Valid to). Employees are assigned to policies.
Leave balance The number of days you have on a policy. It moves with accruals, approved absences, cancellations, manual adjustments and expiry.
Day counting How an absence is priced: Worked days (the days you actually work), Open days (Monday to Saturday, French "jours ouvrables") or Calendar days (every day). Set once per absence type.
Company schedule A working week (which days are worked full day, morning only, afternoon only or not at all). A default schedule, Monday to Friday, applies to everyone who is not assigned to another schedule.
Holiday A company public holiday or closing day. It is excluded from worked-days and open-days counts.
Request statuses Pending (waiting for approval), Approved, Rejected, Canceled. Only approved requests take days off your balance.
Reference contact The colleague to contact while you are away. It defaults to your manager.

Who does what

Access levels are explained in Roles and access and Access levels. Work Time relies on the manager set on each profile (see Edit and deactivate users): it decides who receives and approves requests.

Role What they can do in Work Time
Employee See their calendar and balances, request absences (full or half days), attach a document, cancel a pending request, export their own balance history, see the planning (other people's absences show as "Absent" without details).
Manager Everything an employee can do, plus: see the details of their direct and indirect reports' absences in the planning, approve or reject their pending requests, cancel their approved requests, receive an email for each new request of their direct reports.
Manager creator Same as a manager, plus the Export absences (planning Excel file) and Export history (balance history) exports from the planning page.
Scoped admin Same as a manager in Work Time: they approve or reject the requests of the people who report to them.
Admin / Super admin Everything above for the whole company, plus: add absences on behalf of one or several members, adjust balances, and configure absence types, policies, company schedules and holidays.

Typical workflow

  1. An admin prepares the module in Work Time › Configuration: creates the absence types, a policy for each balanced type and assigns members to it, checks the default company schedule and adds the holidays.
  2. Balances are credited automatically, every month or every year, according to the policies (see Balances and exports).
  3. An employee requests an absence from My Calendar. The request is Pending and their manager receives an email and a notification.
  4. The manager approves or rejects it from Work Time › Requests, optionally with a message. The employee is notified. On approval, the days are taken from the balance.
  5. Everyone can check the planning to see who is off.
  6. Admins can add absences on behalf of members (for example a company closing day), adjust balances and export the planning or the balance history.

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