Limiting approval by role

By default, the ability to act upon pending requests is controlled by the team hierarchy and access to the Time Off Approval page. To enforce a more controlled approval process, you can limit the ability to act upon time off requests to specific roles, depending on the time off type. For example, you can limit the approval or denial of vacation requests to only supervisors and sick requests to only managers.

  1. Select Maintenance > Balances And Accruals > Time Off Type Setup.
  2. Click the Edit link next to the time off type for which you want to limit approval. The Time Off Type Setup - Details page is displayed.
  3. Scroll down to the Time Off Type Role Setup section of the page.
  4. Click the new row button, and specify this information:
    Assigned Role
    Select a role to associate with the time off type.
    Notify
    Optionally, select this check box to route notifications for this time off type to the selected role.

    See Routing notifications by time off type.

    Approver
    Ensure that this check box is selected. Users who are assigned to the selected role can approve time off requests for this time off type.
    Level
    Select the level associated with this role from the lookup. You can define up to three levels of notifications and approvals for each time off type. More than one role can be configured for a level.

    See Multi-level approval workflow.

    Upon saving, these restrictions are enforced:

    • The same role cannot be configured for multiple levels.
    • Each level except level 1 must have a previous level.
    • Update or removal of levels cannot cause a gap between levels.
    Note: If the Auto Approve option is selected for the time off type and approver roles are provided in the Time Off Type Role Setup section, the WORKBRAIN user must be a level 1 approver of the employee's team. Otherwise, an error is displayed when the employee submits the time off request.

    To associate more roles to this time off type, click the new row button.

  5. Click Save.
Only the roles that are specified in the Time Off Type Role Setup section with Approver selected can act upon future time off requests for this time off type. Users who are assigned to other roles can view the requests of their teams, but cannot act upon them.
Note: If a time off type does not have any roles configured as approvers, any user with access to the Time Off Approval page can approve requests for the members of their teams.

If a request covers multiple days, approvers can only approve or deny requests that fall on days on which the approver is assigned to the appropriate role for that employee.

If a request includes multiple time off types, approvers can only approve or deny those types that match the roles they are assigned to for that employee.

When determining if an approver is assigned to a certain role, the approver's role for both the employee's immediate team and any parent teams are considered. For example, only supervisors can approve a vacation request. When an employee submits a vacation request, the supervisor for the employee's team can approve the request. In addition, the supervisor for the employee's parent team, and so on up the team hierarchy, can approve the request.