WinTeam and eHub - Employee Time Off Requests

Overview

The time off request feature lets employees submit requests for time off for supervisor approval in eHub and eHub Mobile, making the time off management process more efficient and helping to reduce the paying of unearned benefits. Previously, employees would create an action item when requesting time off, and supervisors would have to manually review the employee's hourly benefits balance to see if the employee had enough hours available for the request. Otherwise, employees could get paid for time off even if they did not have enough hours available. This feature helps to prevent this problem by only allowing requests for PTO to be submitted if the number of hours in the request does not exceed the employee's available balance.

In addition to the content below, you can also watch this time off requests video to learn more about this feature.

Feature Comparison

The time off request feature has been set up in eHub Mobile to generally mirror the functionality in eHub. However, there are some visual and functional differences. The table below provides a summary of which features are available in WinTeam, eHub, and eHub Mobile.

Setup

Time Off

A new Time Off tab has been added to the SYS: eHub Setup window in WinTeam. From this tab, you can access the Absence Reasons pop-up window by clicking on the Absence Reasons button.

This pop-up window is an enhanced version of the previous Absence Reasons Add/Edit list, which could only be accessed by drilling into the Reason field when viewing the Absence Tracker or Time Off Planner.

The Request Type is driven by the Time Off Reason and can be any of the following:

• Paid - Benefit Required
• Paid - Benefit Not Required
• Unpaid

Reason Description is an optional field that can display helpful text to employees—for example, if they need to supply additional information for the reason they selected.

The previous Include field from the Absence Reasons Add/Edit list has been divided into two fields: Show to EE (Employee) and Show to SV (Supervisor). The previous Include value now maps to Show to SV (Supervisor).

Note:  If Show to EE is selected, Show to SV must also be selected.

Request Settings

The Allow Unpaid as a Benefit Option check box is selected by default and gives employees the option of selecting Unpaid from Hourly Benefit drop-down list in eHub for request types of Paid - Benefit Required.

For each individual time off request, supervisors can choose how many days to allow between dates requested. The default is three days, but this value can be changed to allow a gap anywhere between zero and seven days. For example, if the value is three, an employee could submit a request for Monday, Tuesday, and Friday of the same week, but they could not submit a request for Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday of the same week since the last date is not within three days of the other dates.

Notification Setup

Notifications upon employees submitting a request or making an update or a supervisor making an update can be received via push notification to eHub Mobile or email. The message details include the employee, date range, and a link to the request in eHub. By default, the Employee, JMF Supervisor and EMF Supervisor are selected to receive notifications. If enabled, employees receive a notification when a time off request has been submitted, approved, denied, cancelled, or returned to the employee for edits. Supervisors receive a notification only when a time off request has been submitted or cancelled.

Security

The eHub security screen HR Request Time Off must be enabled to display the time off request feature. There are three security features under the HR Request Time Off screen to give you greater control over supervisors' access to components of the Employee Time Off Requests feature.

• Cannot Approve Deny Return Requests–Supervisors can view requests submitted by employee for whom they have supervisor access, but they cannot approve, deny, or return those requests to the employee.
• Cannot Submit on Behalf of Employee–Supervisors can only create requests for themselves–they can view the requests submitted by employees for whom they have supervisor access in the Request Time Off list view, but they will not have the options to update or cancel those requests.
• Do Not Auto Approve–The requests supervisors enter or update on behalf of another employee are never automatically approved. (Requests are automatically approved when they are Unpaid or Paid - Benefit Required and the benefits match with an Hours Description on the primary job.)

Note:  If the previously existing widget for supervisors is in use, note that it has been renamed to Submit Time Off. The Security Group setting for this feature has also been renamed from HR Time Off to HR Submit Time Off since it does not contain the request workflow.

Request Time Off (eHub)

Request Time Off Widget

A new Request Time Off widget has been added to the Employee and Supervisor Dashboard for users who have the HR Request Time Off eHub security screen enabled. When clicking View Search >, a list of time off requests appears. When clicking New Time Off Request (+), the Request Time Off form appears. If an employee has any time off requests that are pending approval or need further action taken (for instances where the supervisor returned a request to an employee), status indicators appear inside the widget. When clicked, only time off requests with the selected status appear. Status indicators only appear if time off requests with a status of Pending Approval or Pending Employee Update are present.

Below are a few examples of how the widget could appear, depending on which statuses are present:

Request Time Off Form

The Time Off Request form lets employees submit time off requests. A list of the employee's hourly benefits displays at the top of the form. The Reason for Time Off drop-down lets the employee select a reason for the request. If there is an associated Reason Description set in WinTeam for the selected Reason for Time Off, it will appear below the drop-down. You can also choose to add Notes for further explanation.

The Date(s) Requested must be within one year from the current date and can only be added after selecting a Reason for Time Off. If the request contains multiple dates, the last date must be within the allowed number of days—specified in WinTeam—between the other date(s) in the request. The Hourly Benefit drop-down will appear if the Reason selected is of the type Paid - Benefit Required. For requests involving an hourly benefit, the number of Hours requested must be less than or equal to the sum of the available balance, which includes any hours already included in the request, other pending requests, and other pending usage.

Can an employee submit a time off request for a date if they do not currently have enough hours available for the request but will have accrued enough hours by the date of the request?

To ensure the available balance remains above zero, this feature does not consider any hours that might be available in the future if an employee accrues additional hours over time. Thus, for these instances, we recommend the employee select Unpaid in place of an hourly benefit for the days/hours that cannot be covered yet by benefit hours. This way, the request can be approved initially, then once the employee has enough hours available, they can either update the request (if timekeeping records haven’t already been created) or submit another request to get paid for those hours.

Note:  In the Hourly Benefit drop-down, Unpaid will show as an option at the end of the list of options only if the Allow Unpaid as a Benefit Option check box is selected in WinTeam.

Benefit Details

When clicking View Details for a particular hourly benefit, the Benefit Details pop-up window appears and displays the Benefit Balance, any hours that are pending, and how many hours are available after accounting for any pending hours. This window also shows a running history of Pending Usage hours in comparison to what the employee’s balance currently is. Pending Usage could include:

• Timekeeping approved hours
• Timekeeping pending hours
• Schedules
• Approved requests
• Pending requests

Additionally, to view further usage history, you can click View Benefit History, which navigates to the Hourly Benefits page after confirming that any request details entered would be lost when proceeding.

No Hourly Benefits

If an employee has no hourly benefits available for use, a message stating no hourly benefits are available will display. If the employee then selects a Reason that requires a benefit, an error message will appear also indicating no hours are available.

Request Time Off (eHub Mobile)

Android

For Android users, a time off request can be created by tapping the floating green + button in the lower right corner of the home screen and selecting Time Off Request, or from the Time Off list view.

iOS

For iOS users, a time off request can be created by tapping the More tab at the bottom of the screen, selecting Time Off, and then tapping the + icon in the upper right corner of the screen.

Viewing Benefit Details

The process of filling out the time off request form and viewing benefit details in eHub Mobile mirrors the process in eHub, with a few slight visual differences. Employees can view their benefit balance that considers pending requests, Personnel Scheduling, and timekeeping by tapping the magnifying glass icon.

Similar to eHub, an error message will appear if an employee tries to use more hours than they have available for a time off request.

Searching for Time Off Requests (eHub)

Employee

Employees can view a list of their time off requests by clicking View Search > in the Request Time Off widget. Employees can also specify a date range to limit which time off requests are shown and filter requests by status.

If a request is in either a state of Pending Approval or Pending Employee Update, an employee can make changes to the request and resubmit for approval. Employees can also see any comments provided by the supervisor.

Supervisor

Supervisors can view a list of requests that are pending approval by clicking View Search > in the Request Time Off widget. Like employees, supervisors can also specify a date range to limit which time off requests display. Additionally, supervisors can also search by employee or filter by status. Statuses include:

• Pending Approval - the initial state once an employee submits a request
• Pending Employee Update - if the supervisor returns a request to an employee to make changes
• Approved
• Denied
• Cancelled
• Needs TK Records - includes requests that do not have any timekeeping records tied to it
• Any - includes all the above

Supervisors can expand a request by clicking Details. When expanded, supervisors can then view, approve, return to employee for edits, or deny a time off request by clicking the appropriate button.

Supervisors can also override the employee reason with their own supervisor reason, if desired. However, supervisors cannot change the request type and instead must return the request to the employee with instructions to change request type, if needed.

When viewing a time off request for an employee, supervisors can easily view any other time off requests that include the same date of the current request, giving supervisors more visibility into how many employees have time off scheduled for certain days and helping with the management of time off requests.

Viewing Time Off Requests (eHub Mobile)

On eHub Mobile, Hourly Benefits is now split into two tabs: Balances and Time Off. The Balances tab displays the same list as before, whereas the Time Off tab displays a list of the logged-in employee's time off requests, including any requests from the last 30 days and all requests with a future date. Previous requests from before the last 30 days can be accessed in eHub. Each request in the list displays the reason for the request, the date(s) requested, the number of hours, and the status of the request, along with an icon indicating the status.

For Android users, employees can view a list of their time off requests by tapping the slide-out menu at the top left corner of the screen and selecting Time Off. For iOS users, employees can achieve the same result by tapping the More tab at the bottom of the screen and selecting Time Off from the menu.

Alternatively, employees can view their time off requests by opening the Hourly Benefits widget and selecting the Time Off tab at the top of the screen. However, this option requires the Hourly Benefits screen feature to be enabled.

Supervisor Proxy as Employee

Supervisors can enter a time off record for an employee. When using the Request Time Off widget on the supervisor's employee proxy view, there is an Employee field the supervisor shows the selected employee by default and allows the supervisor to make edits, if necessary. The supervisor cannot enter their own name in this field. This is particularly useful for tracking absences and entering disciplinary items. For this reason, employees cannot update or cancel a time off record that was entered by their supervisor. Request entered for an employee by a supervisor are indicated by the icon and have a Supervisor Only label.

Supervisor Absence Reason

Supervisors can also provide their own reason for submitted employee time off requests. Changing the absence reason could allow for the time off request to flow differently into the Absence Tracker (Excused vs. Unexcused) or Time Off Planner. Employees cannot see changes to the Reason made by the supervisor.

By default the Supervisor Reason is the same as the Employee Reason, but the supervisor can change the Supervisor Reason. An error message displays if the two reasons are different request types (for example one is Paid - Benefit Required and the other is Paid - Benefit Not Required).

Note:  The Request Types are set in the Absence Reasons window that opens from the TeamTime Defaults, Employee Absence Tracker, Post Watch - Confirm Changes, and SYS: eHub Setup windows.

Updating or Canceling a Request (Supervisor)

If a time off request was added by a supervisor for an employee, any supervisor can update or cancel the request. The existing system rules that control when a record can be updated or canceled still apply.

On the request list view, there is information in the footer section that shows the date, time, and creator of the request.

Automatic Approval of Requests Submitted by a Supervisor for an Employee

When a supervisor submits a request for an employee, the request is automatically approved when the following system conditions are met:

Request Type	Status
Note:  The Request Types are set in the Absence Reasons window that opens from the TeamTime Defaults, Employee Absence Tracker, Post Watch - Confirm Changes, and SYS: eHub Setup windows.
Unpaid	Automatically approved
Paid with Benefit	If the system can match the benefit, job, and hours for the employee then the request is approved. If this information cannot be matched, the request goes to a Pending Approval status and must be manually processed.
Paid without Benefits	The request goes to a Pending Approval status and must be manually processed.

Updating or Canceling a Request (Employee)

Requests can be updated or canceled based on certain criteria. Employees can cancel a request until a timekeeping record associated to the request has been paid. They can also update a request until timekeeping records are tied to the request. This allows for increased flexibility in the time off request and approval process.

Timekeeping

Once a time off request is approved, the supervisor will be prompted to create timekeeping records. They can also wait until a later time to create timekeeping records. When clicking Create Timekeeping Records, records are created for each day of the request that are not considered unpaid.

Note:   A request can include both paid and unpaid days.

The time off feature respects the valid dates for Timekeeping which means Timekeeping records cannot be entered to a closed period when creating a time off request. If a user enters a request outside of the valid dates, the system blocks the attempt and a warning message displays.

Tip:  Use the Time Off Requests report to find requests that are missing Timekeeping records, particularly as part of the fiscal year roll-over process.

Requests that are approved but still need timekeeping records created can be quickly accessed by applying a filter of Needs TK Records in the Filter By Status drop-down.

For requests with the type Paid - Benefit Required, the system will attempt to auto-fill the timekeeping records according to the employee’s primary job and the benefit selected. If there is a 1-to-1 match for which hours type it could be for that employee, then the timekeeping records will populate automatically. If there are many hours types that match the benefit for that employee, an Hours Type must be selected before timekeeping records can be created. If there are zero matches, an error will appear indicating there is no match for benefit at this job. If this happens, the supervisor must change to a job with the selected benefit or make benefit changes in WinTeam.

Note:  A warning icon will appear for “many” and “zero” cases.

Time Off Planner and Absence Tracker Updates

When a request is approved, the information is pushed to the Time Off Planner and/or Absence Tracker according to the absence reasons configuration in WinTeam.

Note:  The supervisor reason determines where the information gets pushed, which is editable separately from the employee’s provided reason.

Time Off Requests Report

Viewing the Time Off Requests Report

A new Time Off Requests report has been added in WinTeam providing a powerful grid view of all request information. This report can be accessed from three modules:

• Payroll > Reports > Time Off Requests
• Personnel Scheduling > Reports > Time Off Requests
• Human Resources > Reports > Time Off Requests

The report displays each request as an expandable row. When expanded, additional details about each date of the request are shown. Click Expand All to quickly view all detail records and then Collapse All to close them.

Filtering Request Data

You have several options for filtering requests, including by Job, Employee, or Tier Template. You can also filter by Date(s) Requested, Statuses, or by requests that need timekeeping records or already have timekeeping records. For records that have a timekeeping record, you can expand the detail view and drill into the timekeeping window for that record. Clicking Advanced Filter Options gives you additional filtering options. A row of filter controls is also available in the grid columns.

Exporting Data

The Export button gives you the following options:

• Excel Export
• Excel Data Only Export (XLSX)
• Export as a Flat File (CSV)

Exporting as a flat file creates a single table out of the request headers and detail rows so that each detail row will contain the request header details. This means the request header row is repeated for however many days are in the request. The flat format allows for easier data transformation when managing time off request data outside of WinTeam.

Time Off Request History

WinTeam

You can click the notes icon at the end of each request row to view the Time Off Request History for the selected request. This pop-up window provides meaningful information into what was changed, by whom, and when. It is read-only and tracks changes from eHub, eHub Mobile, and WinTeam. Details of the days/hours/benefits tied to the date(s) in the request are also tracked.

eHub

A supervisor can view a history of the employee time off requests by clicking the View History link on the Time Off Requests page.