Automated Digital Leave Requests
Submitting a leave request takes two minutes. Checking it takes longer: how many days does this person actually have left, and who else is away that week? The workflow answers both before the manager decides, then writes the approved leave into every system that is kept by hand today.
The request is simple, the check is not
Three questions have to be answered before anyone can write “approved”, and each answer sits somewhere else. What is the balance today? Payroll knows. Who else is off that week? The team calendar, the shift roster, or a paper planner on the workshop wall. And what applies when two people want the same week? The team lead knows; it is rarely written down. None of the three answers travels with the request.
The first question is the hardest, because an entitlement is rarely a fixed number. It moves with a start date mid-year, a change from five days a week to four, carry-over from December, and sick days during leave that go back onto the account. The figure in the HR system is a snapshot: it knows the days taken up to the last month-end, not the ones already approved and still to come. Out of that gap come the two mistakes that show up every year – leave signed off in the autumn that no longer exists on paper, and days left over in December that the roster cannot absorb.
The other two questions belong together: who else is away can be counted, whether that is too many cannot. “One of you two has to be here” is a sentence in the team lead's head, not a rule a machine can test. It does not say whether “one” means anybody or the one person allowed to take the out-of-hours calls. Software can count absences, but only against a number somebody has committed to first. So we build that number first, then the route that applies it to every request without taking the decision away.
Which absences are worth automating
We start with the request type that comes up most often at your company. Every further type later shares the same balance calculation and the same approval route.
Ordinary annual leave
The most common case: several days in a row, somebody covering, and a manager who does not carry the balance in her head.
Single days, bridge days, half days
The 2nd of January, the Friday after a bank holiday: half the team asks for the same day, and arrival times start to matter.
Shift work and minimum cover
Where a service desk or a production line has to keep running, headcount is not the point: two people present do not replace a switching authorisation.
Special and unpaid leave
A house move, a wedding, caring for a relative: separate allowances and evidence. Whether HR or the manager signs these off is your call.
Illness during leave, cancellations, changes
The case most likely to be left half-finished by hand: the days go back onto the balance, the calendar still shows a holiday.
Year end, carry-over and expiry
From October, who still has how much left – plus the reminder to staff that an employer should be able to evidence later.
One team, one leave year, one clash
Five people in a service team as of mid-July: what is approved, what is requested, how many days are left – and the week in which minimum cover breaks.
Swipe sideways for the remaining months.
| Person | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Left |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S. BergerScheduling | 4days approved | 10days approved | 5days requested | 16of 30 · 5 requested | |||||||||
| M. YildizTechnical | 3days approved | 12days approved | 5days approved | 10of 30 | |||||||||
| K. AndersService desk | 5days approved | 8days requested, clash | 3days requested | 25of 30 · 11 requested | |||||||||
| T. NowakSpare parts | 6days approved | 10days approved | 14of 30 | ||||||||||
| R. FeldmannService · 3 days/week | 2days approved | 4days approved | 12of 18 · reminder due | ||||||||||
| On dutytightest week | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2below minimum cover | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3minimum cover |
- Week 31, 27 to 31 July: three absences meet, which would leave two of five people on duty. The third request is not rejected – it reaches the team lead with exactly this figure and the time it was submitted.
- R. Feldmann, 12 days left: not a single request by mid-July. From the cut-off date you choose – 1 October in this example – the workflow reminds the employee and the manager, with the date in the log.
The telling part is not K. Anders' request but the row beneath it: both holidays approved for July were harmless on their own. Only the third request pushes cover below three – and you see that only if every request sits in the same view.
Illustrative extract from one leave year, shortened to five people and whole months. In practice the workflow counts day by day, using the public-holiday calendar of the site and each person's working-time pattern.
From the request to the calendar entry
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The request arrives with its numbers
A form in Teams, on the intranet or behind a web link asks for dates, absence type and cover. The working days come from the site's public-holiday calendar and the person's working-time pattern, not from the requester's estimate.
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Balance worked out as of today
Entitlement, carry-over and days taken come from your authoritative source. The workflow deducts what is approved but not yet taken and shows both: the source as it stands, and the position once every promise is counted.
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Overlap tested against a written rule
For every day of the requested period the workflow counts who else is away and compares that with your minimum cover per team, site or qualification. Blocked periods such as a stocktake or a shutdown sit alongside as a calendar.
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Approval with a deadline, a reminder and a log
The manager decides where she already works, with balance, overlap and submission time in front of her. How long she has and who takes over in her absence are our proposals, settled with you in the intro call. Each decision is logged with the data it rested on.
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After approval the workflow writes
An all-day entry in the team and Outlook calendars, a confirmation to requester and cover, an entry in time recording, roster and HR system. Cancellations and illness during leave run the same steps in reverse.
What changes day to day
Today
- Requests arrive on paper, in chat, by email and in passing
- The manager estimates the balance, HR corrects it later
- Overlaps surface when somebody writes the next roster
- Approved leave is retyped into every system separately
- How much leave is still open only shows up in December
With the workflow
- One route for every request, with required fields and cover
- The balance sits in the request, approved days included
- The overlap sits in the request, before anyone decides
- After approval the workflow writes everywhere at once
- From your cut-off date the open days speak up on their own
What a leave workflow will not fix
Four points we raise before quoting – the first is a reason to leave the project alone:
- Below roughly twenty employees this rarely pays off. Where one shared calendar shows who is off when and the manager carries the balances in her head, €1,290 will not come back in saved minutes; a spreadsheet and a short conversation are the more honest tool. The case turns with shift work, several sites, or a cover level that has to hold.
- The balance is only as good as its source. We do not recalculate entitlements, we carry them forward. Pro-rata entitlement for starters and leavers, a change of working pattern mid-year, parental leave, long-term sickness: the binding number stays in payroll. If it is wrong today, the workflow shows the difference – it cannot put it right.
- The minimum cover is yours to set, not ours. One number per team, per site and per period, in shift work per qualification as well – that means meetings with your managers, not a settings page. It gets uncomfortable, because unspoken privileges come up there: who has had August for years, and why. We chair it and write down the outcome.
- A human still decides who is turned down. Whether the colleague with school-age children takes priority over the one who stood back last year is not a rule that fits into a form. Expect some of your managers to experience this as a step backwards: a refusal that used to disappear into a corridor conversation now sits in the log, dated and open to challenge.
Fits your systems
Scope and price
The entry price covers one request type with balance calculation, one rule set and the calendar entry. What moves the price, we say before the quote.
- Request form in Teams, on the intranet or as a web link
- Working-day calculation with holidays and part-time patterns
- Connection to one authoritative source for entitlements
- One rule set for overlap and minimum cover
- Approval with deadline, reminder, escalation and log
- Calendar entry plus confirmation to requester and cover
- Documentation, handover and 30 days of support
What increases the price
- Shift rosters with qualifications instead of plain headcount
- Several sites with their own holidays or works agreements
- Writing back into an HR or payroll system with no interface
- Further absence types with their own rules and evidence
- Reports on leave accounts, carry-over and expiry at year end
Shift rosters with qualifications, several sites and writing back into a payroll system typically land in the range of our Workflow Advanced package from €2,490. We quote the binding fixed price after the intro call.
All prices excl. VAT · operation and further development optionally via a support package
What you get
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A live request and approval route
From form to calendar entry, signed off with real requests
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A documented rule set
Minimum cover, blocked periods, deadlines and ownership – changeable without us
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A traceable log
Who decided what, when and on which data, plus the expiry reminders
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A handover for HR and managers
How cancellations, illness during leave and moved dates work
Frequently asked questions about digital leave requests
These solutions fit alongside
Approval Workflows
The same logic for every other sign-off: roles, deadlines, reminders, escalation.
Employee Onboarding Workflows
The step before: a new starter's pro-rata entitlement for the year.
Employee Offboarding
At the end the same balance counts – leave still to take, or paid out.
Expenses and Travel Costs
The other HR routine with evidence, approval and payroll handover.
Do you know today who is left in August?
In the free intro call we walk through last summer: how many requests there were, where the balance came from and what cover you actually need. Afterwards you know whether the workflow pays off at your team size.
Book a free intro callWhere digital leave requests creates value in everyday work
The workflow captures dates and cover, checks defined rules, requests approval from the right person and updates calendars and teams after approval.
Three concrete operating scenarios to compare with your own process.Approve standard leave
Request, cover and calendar overview are available to the manager in one view.
Identify team overlaps
Parallel absences are shown as guidance without making the decision automatically.
Communicate absence
Calendars and cover are updated reliably after approval.
A strong fit when …
Recurring office tasks follow clear rules, consume small blocks of time every day and should run reliably without replacing existing systems.
- You handle recurring leave requests using repeatable rules.
- The intake, target system and accountable business role can be named clearly.
- Exceptions are allowed to remain visible and move to people deliberately.
Deliberate automation boundary
Employment-law decisions, special leave, conflicts and authoritative balance calculations remain with HR and management.
Explore the technical approach and platformsEstimate time savings with your own volume
The calculator uses 12 minutes today and 4 minutes after automation as fixed example assumptions. It does not replace process analysis.
Illustrative estimate based on the visible assumptions — not a guarantee.