Absence Types - Best Practice

Overview

This guide will help you understand why absence types are so important and what they control in the edays system.   

What is an Absence Type?

An Absence Type is exactly as it sounds, a type of absence (leave). There are two fundamental types of absence: planned or unplanned, and this differentiates all the types of leave an individual can take within an organisation. For example, Holiday would be a planned type, whereas Sickness would be unplanned. There are then multiple types of each, depending on the level of detail that your business wants to record and report on.

Flexibility of Absence Types?

You can add as many Absence Types as you require in the system via the going to admin – absence type setup. These can be configured at a global level, for a subset of users, or on an individual level. You can also control who is able to request the types of leave, the visibility of each and all the different options below.

A video on the configuration and example configuration can be found here: https://www.e-days.com/learning-centre-overview/11-absence-type-setup

Functionality of Absence Types?

For each Absence Type, you will see a host of different options which have been defined below:

General Settings:

Core settings required to create an Absence Type in edays:

1. Record Type: If the Absence Type is Planned or Unplanned and which section on the front end the Absence Type will show. 
2. Time Unit: Is the Absence Type booked in Hours or Days
3. Additional Form: Used for Unplanned absences, mainly Sickness, when you are enabling the default Return to Work Form or Self Certificate Form. 
4. Defined Reasons: If used, a separate list will appear to be more granular with the Absence Type e.g. If Sickness is the absence type, the defined reason may be Headache. These can be added via the ‘Manage defined reasons’ on the global – absence type setup section. 
5. Colour: Sets the Colour of the Absence Type and will appear in the Absence Colour Key on the frontend system calendar. 
6. Affected Entitlement: Does the Absence Type need to affect a particular entitlement which may have been created. For example, Volunteer leave, in which a user is entitled to 2 days each year (please refer to the entitlement setup for more details on the knowledge base).
7. Sort Index: Which order do the Absence Type show in the list on the front end. 
8. Third Party Code: Used if you are using edays to connect to another system which also has absence types, and you need to be able to correlate the two.

Cancellation Settings:

Options around who can, and how cancellation can, be configured for an Absence Type:

1. Allow Cancellation by users: Allows the individual who has placed the request the ability to cancel this.
2. Use Authorisation for cancellation: If a user cancels their request, this would go through the approval process before being fully cancelled in the system. 
3. Allow cancellation by authorisers: Gives the ability for the Manager of the individual to cancel a request on their behalf. 

Booking settings:

Depend on your role and permission, what Absence types can you see in the drop-down on the front-end booking form:

1. Can book own absences – Allows for the individual to place a request for this Absence Type themselves. 
2. Can book reportees' absences – Allows for the Manager to place a request for this Absence Type on behalf of their reportees. 
3. Can book others' absences – If you have access to being able to see other individuals via the staff records, then you will have the ability to place this request on their behalf. 

Min/Max Settings:

Settings covering some additional options around min/max length bookings and notice periods:

1. Minimum length (in day): Allows to set a min absence length for an Absence Type, e.g., 2 days must be booked for Holiday in one occurrence. 
2. Maximum length (in days): Allows to set a max absence length for an Absence Type, e.g., 5 days maximum can be booked for Training in one occurrence. 
3. Minimum notice period (in days) – The number of days ahead of the absence date before a user is unable to place a request, i.e., 7 days’ notice period is required. 
4. Maximum notice period (in days) – Rarely used but allows you to set the number of days into the future in which an individual can place a request.

Attachment Settings:

The attachment settings below can be enabled for different Absence Types, mainly used when a doctor’s note is needed to submit a Sickness absence. 

1. Allow file attachments: Enable or Disable the ability to upload files.
2. Enforce file attachments 
3. Allow multiple file attachments
4. Include attachment links in emails: The ability to set the attachments to be sent on the absence request emails to the Manager.
5. Allowed attachment types: Provides different format types which are allowed to be uploaded to edays. 

Please remember to look at the permission section for visibility and uploading settings for attachments.

Additional Settings:

Advanced configuration, which can be enabled for certain Absence Types:

1. No authorisation required: Overrides the authorisation process and allows the Absence Type to be added without going through to the Manager. This is normally used for Training absence types. 
2. Allow booking in non-working days: Allows for booking to be made on days the users do not work, mainly used for (work-related) Travelling absence types when people flights might be on the weekend. 
3. Enforce details capture: Enables the option on the description box on the booking form to ensure users place some detail before submission.
4. Enforce reason capture: If using the defined reasons, then these will enforce the users to select an option from the drop-down. 
5. Affects Bradford Factor (BF): Used for Unplanned Absence Types which need to affect the BF score.
6. Percentage absent impacts duration: Allows for users to specify a percentage when placing a request, e.g., if you place a 5-day request and put 50% in, then the amount will show as 2.5 days. 
7. Can be linked – Rarely used option which allows linking absence together via the admin panel – absence records for the Bradford Factor score.
8. Allow absence cover: Allows for a user to select another individual who will be covering them when on leave. This will come through on the email to the Manager. 
9. Exclude from minimum staff levels: Mainly used for Maternity when you have already organised your resource to cover through the maternity period.
10. Full-day bookings only: Removes the options for AM or PM bookings. 
11. Allow recurrence: Allows to enable the tools to create a recurring absence, for example, if someone needs to place 5 training days on Friday for the next 5 weeks. 
12. Paid status: Gives the ability to specify if an absence has been paid or not via the admin – absence records for administrators.
13. Absence contributes to time tracking: If set to “Include”, then the absence record in this type is included as worked time in the timesheet overview and when calculating overtime where applicable. When "Copy in rota" is enabled, time cannot be added over absences of this type. If set to “Exclude”, then the absences will be treated as zero worked hours. This is used when it should still be recorded over absences of this type. 
14. Time tracking accrues entitlement while absent: When enabled, users still accrue entitlement for time tracking when taking this type of absence.

Permissions:

Visibility of information and functionality in the edays based on an individual, managers, and people who have wider views. All these will be based on your role or visibility settings, please refer to the knowledge base to provide more information on these:

1. Can view in record: The ability to see the Leave request under the planned or unplanned section. 
2. Can view description in record: The ability to see the description of the Leave request under the planned or unplanned section.
3. Can view in calendar: The ability to see the Absence request on the calendar and will show as a solid colour. 
4. Can view pending in calendar: The ability to see Pending Absence request on the calendar, these will show in a lightly shaded colour.
5. Can view absence information in calendar: Hover over, which shows the Absence name and description if enabled on the below setting.
6. Can view description in calendar: Allow to see the description of the Absence request on the calendar. 
7. Can view description in exported calendar: Allows for the description to be exported via the ICAL sync which you will find on the group calendar to pull the data out of edays into your email system. 
8. Can upload attachment: Give the permission to be able to upload the attachments.
9. Can view attachment: Gives the ability to see the attachments against the Absence requests on the planned or unplanned section.
10. Can delete attachment: Ability to delete the attachments against the Absence requests on the planned or unplanned section.
11. Enable percentage absent: Linked to the above option ‘Percentage absent affects duration’ and who can see this tool.
12. Can share comments in info box: Ability to enable a comments section which will show against the Absence request to add details and share comments with other users in the edays system.

You can view guides on how to create an Absence Types here:

1. Global level absence type permissions

2. User level absence type permissions

3. Template level absence type permissions