How to use Leave Tracking in Time Doctor

Prerequisites

Leave time is managed using the Schedules feature.

If you want to let your users ask for leave time, make sure you enable the option: Allow regular users to request leave time in schedules under Company Settings. 

Purpose and use cases

The main purpose of Leave tracking is to better report on attendance and eliminate false alarms when employees who are on planned leave don’t track time using the Time Doctor desktop or silent application.

Time Doctor supports two kinds of leave time – paid and unpaid:

  • Paid leave time is included in Total Time for Payroll and Hours Tracked.
  • Unpaid leave time is NOT included in Total Time for Payroll and Hours Tracked.
  • Users on leave (paid or unpaid) are
    • Excluded from all notifications about employees who are absent or tracked no/too little time.
    • Shown as “On Leave” in the Attendance Report

When Leave Approvals are enabled (see details below), regular users can submit time off requests for approval, simplifying the management of leave time within your organization.

Setting up Leave time

Regular users

Regular users can request leave time directly from the Schedules page, provided they have been granted permission via the Company settings. To enable regular users to request leave time, navigate to Permissions in Company settings and toggle on the option "Allow regular users to request leave time in schedules".

Requesting leave time:

  • Regular users can request time off by navigating to the Schedules page.
  • They can create a new Leave request, edit an existing one, or delete it as needed.
  • If a user edits an Approved Leave, the request will return to a "Pending approval" state, requiring manager approval again.
  • When requesting time off on a day with scheduled shifts, regular users must select the shift they want to take as leave time.

paid_leave

unpaid_leave

leave1

Approving leave time:

  • Managers receive approval requests for leave time on the Approvals page.
  • They can approve or disapprove time off requests based on their discretion.
  • Once approved, leave time is added to the user's Schedule automatically.
  • Disapproved requests can be approved later by managers.

leave_approval-1

Managers, Admins, Owner

These roles (managers only if allowed in Settings) can create or edit leave time in the same way as shifts on the Schedules page:

To add, edit, or delete a leave, hover over a day that does not have any schedule item to see a plus icon for adding shift/leave or hover over existing leave to see icons for editing or deleting the leave to appear. You can also select multiple leaves or all leaves and delete them at once.

An alternative method is setting up Schedules via CSV import. You can upload a CSV file that adds both shifts and leaves:

  • Include a paid leave using a CSV by simply adding -1 after the time established for the leave.
  • Similarly, add -2 for unpaid leave.

For example, in the CSV, right in the cell of a specific user and a specific day, you can add a paid leave from 9 am to 5 pm by entering this value:

0900-1700-1

You will find several examples by clicking View more on the right side of the CSV pop-up.

Properties of leave time in Time Doctor

  • Paid leave time is included in Total Time for Payroll and Hours Tracked. (Unpaid leave time is not.)
  • The user's status during leave time is marked as "On Leave" in the Attendance Report.

attendance_leave

  • Users on leave (paid or unpaid) are excluded from all notifications about employees who are absent or tracked no/too little time.
  • Leave time can only be added, modified, or deleted from the Schedules page. (However, if the user tracks time using Time Doctor during their leave time, the leave time will get overwritten by the computer time. The same behavior applies to manual and break time.)
  • Leave time is marked in purple in various reports like Activity Summary, Hours Tracked, or Timeline. Paid and unpaid leave are distinguished by an icon.
  • Leave time will be visible on the Edit Time page as a read-only item.

leave5

To provide managers with easy access to their team's time off, a simple widget is available on the User dashboard. This widget displays approved past time off for the user, helping managers track their team's time off effectively.

dashboard_leave

For further assistance or questions regarding Leave tracking, please refer to our Help Center or contact our support team.