This document provides a step-by-step guide for requesting time off using the legacy system (Legacy AutoApprove Rules) and the new advanced vacation (PTO Calendar Partition Rules).
Glossary
Accrual: The accumulation or increase of something over time. In All Things Time Off, agents accumulate (accrue) hours to use for time off from work.
Accrual rates: How much and how often time accrues. May be via an external source such as an Excel spreadsheet, via the CommunityWFM accrual engine, or accrual information fed to CommunityWFM via the Community Web restful API.
Accrual schedule: The rate at which agents accumulate hours. Accrual schedules may be weekly, monthly, or annually. The amount accrued may be based on length of service if those with longer service earn more time off, or the same for all agents.
Bid round: A period of time designated for agents to ‘bid’ with other agents for time off within a PTO calendar. Bid rounds are typically for a set period of time, after which the bids are approved or denied. Calendar rules determine the allowable block sizes, the number of agents who may bid at the same time, and other parameters.
Block: A single time off request made by or on behalf of an agent during a bid round. See Selection.
Calendar partition: The calendar partition establishes time off rules, bidding rules, and manages the time off bidding process. It’s the mechanism by which agents can request to use their accrued hours in a bid round or during open selection. If participating in a calendar partition, an agent may not request time off for that time period using the legacy request system.
Classification: A way to organize and report time off. Assign events to a classification, then assign classifications to a policy. You may create multiple classifications, but the same event may not be included in more than one classification. Classifications may be included in more than one policy.
Open selection: A period of time when agents may request time off in a calendar without bidding against other agents for the same days. Calendar rules are used to validate then approve or deny the request.
Policy: Policies establish accrual rules for classifications. Employees are assigned to only one policy. Policies might include full-time exempt, part-time non-exempt, etc. You may create as many policies as needed to cover all employee situations; however, an employee may be assigned to only one policy. Employees must be assigned to a policy in order to apply accrued time and participate in calendar partitions.
PTO: Planned time off.
Published calendar: The published calendar includes all of the time off accruals and the policies governing time off requests for that time. Once published, there’s no going back. You cannot “unpublish” the calendar.
Restricted action plan (RAP): A mechanism to prevent automatic time off approval for certain agents. RAPs may also be used to restrict access to the website, mobile application, and to prevent participation in ASAPs and schedule swaps. Default reason codes include corrective action, disciplinary action, or additional training required.
Selection: In a bid round, a selection is the sum of all of the blocks (requests) within a bid round response. See Block.
Waitlist: In a calendar partition, the waitlist may be available when a request fails a brownout rule.
Time off requests
A legacy method for requesting time off similar to prior versions will remain in CommunityWFM for now (Plan > Time off requests > Request planned time off or Request a recurring time off event). However, we recommend that you explore the new features available in the time off worksheet.
The Time Off Worksheet is where you can review your time off accrual balances, time off settings, the PTO policy to which you are assigned, and whether you are on a restricted action plan. A convenient menu on the left will link you to your list of upcoming time off, current and upcoming Calendar Partitions (if participating), and links to request time off or request a recurring time off event, all in one place.
Note: If you are a participant in a calendar partition (advanced vacation), you cannot request time off unless there is as calendar partition in place. You will receive the following message:
Traditional time off requests
Plan > Time Off Requests > Request planned time off or Request a recurring time off event or use the same forms from the time off worksheet.
Request planned time off
Complete the Request time off worksheet.
Are you requesting off a portion of a day or a whole day(s)?
Select All day or partial day. Partial days can only be for a single date. If you have multiple partial day events (e.g., off every Tuesday and Thursday morning), request a recurring time off event.
Request type: Select from the available event types.
Start date / End date: Dates must be consecutive. For non-consecutive days, request a recurring time off event.
Should all dates in the date range be approved together? Is the request all or nothing? If you can’t have all of the days off, do you want to have at least some? The default option is No, some of the dates can be approved and some denied.
Note: This option must be Yes for the waitlist to be available.
Comments: Required.
Click Next.
The validation engine will run and let you know whether your request will likely be approved or denied and why. If there are rules not met, you can go back and make changes to your request. Or you can proceed and Save request.
Saving the request sends it to your supervisor team. After saving, you will see a summary of your request.
Click Finish.
Note: The green check does not mean that your request has been approved. It only means that it is likely to be approved.
Your requests will appear in the Pending and Upcoming requested time off module. Refresh the page if needed to view them.
Request a recurring time off event
Complete the recurring time off event worksheet.
Request type: Select from the available event types.
Start date / End date: Select start and end dates.
Start time / End time: Select start and end times. Must be the same for each day.
What recurrence pattern should apply to this request? Select from This event occurs every day in the specified date range and This event occurs only on selected days of the week. If only certain days, check the boxes for the selected days.
Comments: Required.
Click Save to send your request to your supervisor. Note: The validation step that occurs when requesting a non-recurring event does not run for this type of event.
On the final page, review the table of requests then click Finish.
View pending and upcoming time off requests
You can view, delete, and edit (disabled for some), or add to the waitlist (for some requests) current requests.
Go to Plan > Time off worksheet then select Time off overview from the Time off worksheet options.
Supervisor view
Supervisors will be able to review, approve, deny, and revalidate requests in their Pending requests module.
Calendar partitions / advanced vacation
There are several advantages to using the time off worksheet/calendar partitions including—
- Ability to view a calendar showing blackout and brownout dates and other rules.
- During a bid round, the ability to view other agent’s requests (with or without identification – depending on the settings).
- Adding denied requests to a waiting list (for some request types).
- Receiving an immediate estimate of whether your request is likely to be approved.
There are two parts to a calendar partition: Bid rounds and open selection.
Bid rounds
In bid rounds, a designated number of agents “bid” in rank order for time off. As one person validates and commits their request, the next agent in line is able to validate and commit their request. Even before their turn, agents can view the calendar with others’ requests and validate their own, but still must wait their turn to commit. Once all of the agents complete their bids, the system validates and completes all of the requests, placing the time off onto the agent’s schedules.
Open selection
In an open selection, individual requests are approved or denied without waiting for other agents to complete their time off requests.
Time off worksheet
Plan > Time Off Worksheet
Time off overview
The Time off overview provides all of the information regarding your time off including your total accrued hours, upcoming scheduled time off hours, and remaining hours. Click Show options to view past or future accrual calendars. You may also launch the Request time off or Request a recurring event worksheet from the options window.
Time off settings
Time off settings includes a review of General time off settings (the source of your time off rules [legacy or calendar partition] and whether you have a hire date delay in effect), a panel showing the name of your assigned PTO policy, and whether you are part of a restricted activity plan that would prevent time off requests or other activities.
PTO Classification Summary
The Classification Summary shows which classification(s) contribute to your accrued hours. For example, if you have separate vacation and sick hours, you may have one classification for each with different totals of accrued hours.
Clicking on a classification block will display the published accrual summary report where you can see daily, weekly, monthly, or annual accruals in graph and list form. Transaction details will display your time off accruals, requests, and accrual balances. Printing and downloading an image are available for this report.
Time off rules
Prior to making time off requests, it may be helpful to view the calendar time off rules.
When you receive the notification that you have been added to a calendar partition.
- Go to Plan > Time off worksheet
- In the worksheet options menu select Calendar Partitions.
3. Select the calendar partition name in Current and Upcoming Calendar partitions.
4. In the PTO Calendar overview options, select Time off rules.
Rules include blackout dates, brownout dates, and minimum interval request rules
You can change the view from calendar to list view, if desired.
In a bid round, there may be additional rules for the minimum and/or maximum number of hours you can request in a block, whether contiguous selection of days is allowed, and whether you are required to use a minimum or maximum percentage of your time. The bid round rules are visible when you select Show this bid round status.
Making time off requests
If you are part of a calendar partition that is in an active bid round, you cannot make a separate request for time off within the calendar dates. Any requests must be made through the bidding process. After all bidding is complete, the calendar may move to open selection with different rules (for example, some may have bidding for weeks of time, then move to open selection where people may request single days.
Making a request in open selection
After you receive the notifications that you are included in a calendar partition and that the calendar is available, you can submit time off requests.
Go to Plan > Time Off Worksheet
There are two ways to launch the request time off window. To view available time and the likelihood of having your request approved, use the second method (calendar partitions).
- In the left side menu select Request planned time off.
OR
1. Select Calendar Partitions.
2. In the Current and upcoming calendar partitions click on your partition.
3. Go to the Classification Summary and click Available time off or in the left side navigation click Available time off.
4. After the calendar loads, scroll to the bottom and select Request time off.
With the calendar partition view, you can see with a glance the likelihood of having your request approved and view your current requests. Green days will likely be approved. Yellow is less likely to be approved. Red is unlikely to be approved.
You can change the calendar display to include or exclude designated special days, available days, and your current requests.
Clicking on a day in the calendar will show details of current requests and whether you are likely or unlikely to receive approval for your time off request for that day.
The time off request worksheet is the same regardless of the path you take to launch it.
Are you requesting off a portion of a day or a whole day(s)? Select All day or partial day. With partial days you have the option to enter the specific hours for your request. With All day, you can indicate whether the request may be approved if only some days are available or if it must be all approved or nothing.
Request type: select the type of time off event to apply to this request.
Start date and End date: Enter the date(s) of your request. End date only appears if the request is All day.
Start time and End time: Only appears for partial day requests.
Should all dates in the date range be approved together? Only appears for All day requests. Is the request all or nothing? If you can’t have all of the days off, do you want to have at least some? The default option is No, some of the dates can be approved and some denied. To use the waiting list, the request must specify Yes, all the dates in the range must be approved together, even for a single day event.
Comments: Enter a reason for your request. This field is required.
When you click Next, the system will run validation rules against your request and let you know whether the request is likely to be approved and the reason(s) why it is approved (“passed”) or failed. If there’s a green check at the top, your request will likely be approved.
You can Save request even if it fails, or select Back to revise your request. Saved requests will be reviewed by the Auto-Approve service and your supervisor team. If you don’t have sufficient accrued time, the Auto-Approve service will deny your request and send you a notification.
On the next screen, click Finish to finalize your request.
Waitlist
If you request time off on a day with brownout rules, and there are already requests for the maximum amount of time for that day, you have the option of adding yourself to a waitlist. If the time becomes available, you have the option to accept the time off and if necessary, forfeit existing time off requests.
Notes
- Waitlist is not available during bid rounds.
- Waitlist is not available for all types of requests.
- There is no ranking in the waitlist – it’s first requested > first granted.
- When selecting to join a waitlist, you will see how many others are in line in front of you.
- If there is one day in a multi-day request that is not available for the waitlist (e.g., a blackout day), the waitlist option is not available.
- To trigger the waitlist option you must select Yes, all the dates in the range must be approved together, even for a single day request.
- When waitlist hours become available, you will receive a memo that waitlist hours are available and will need to go to your Time off worksheet to accept or decline the hours.
- You need to have available accrued hours or be willing to give up future requests to accept the waitlist offer.
Adding a request to the waitlist
When the request fails the validation rules, eligible requests will have an option to Continue to waitlist.
Review the rule type and your request. You can see here if others are ahead of you in the waitlist queue. To proceed click Setup waitlist item.
Select whether you wish to go ahead and designate time to forfeit should the waitlist time become available (and can automatically accept the time), or you can defer and make the decision when the time becomes available.
If you choose to wait, you can proceed to Save to queue.
If you decide to preselect hours, the list shows available hours and you can make your selection by checking one or more boxes. Doing this will allow you to automatically accept the waitlist time if it becomes available.
After saving to the queue, review the list and click Finish.
On the Pending and Upcoming requested time off module the waitlist request will have a Review status of Denied and a Waitlist status of Waitlisted.
Clicking the waitlist icon will launch the details of the request, allowing you to remove it from the waitlist queue or change the selected hours you wish to forfeit (if selected).
Making a request in a bid round
When participating in a bid round, you are bidding against other agents for the same blocks of time. Depending on the settings created by your WFM team, there may be multiple people bidding at the same time, or only a few, or even one. You will be able to see your place in line (your rank) and assess how likely approval is of your time off request before you make the request.
You will receive a notification when a bid round is open. At that point you can review your options for time off and validate your request, however, you can’t commit your request until it is your turn.
There are several ways to get to the area where you can make your request. The recommended way is to go to Show available PTO. This will display a calendar view showing blackout, brownout, and special calendar days, any current requests from you, requests already committed by other agents, and is a quick way to determine the likelihood that your request will be approved. Green days are very likely to be approved, yellow is less likely to be approved, and red is unlikely to be approved.
To get to Show available PTO:
- Go to Plan > Time off worksheet
- Select Calendar Partitions from the Time off worksheet options menu on the left.
3. Click on the partition name. If you are in more than one partition they will all be shown here.
4. Select Time off bid rounds from the PTO Calendar overview options on the left.
5. Open bid rounds will be green, and your place in line to bid in the upper right corner. Select Show this bid round status.
6. On the bottom right select Show available PTO.
7. From the calendar view, click Add a block at the bottom left of the calendar.
Your current requests have poker chips (the icon of the bid round).
An alternative way to reach Add a block
- In the left side menu, click Time off bid rounds. You will see your bid rounds, current and past. For past bid round you can view but not edit the details.
- To make a bid in a new round, click Show this bid round status.
- Review the details, including your bid rank, open and close date, minimum and maximum block sizes allowed, your accrued hours, hours already scheduled, etc.
- To request a new block of time, click Add a block.
8. Are you requesting off a portion of a day or a whole day(s)? In the pop-up window, select whether your request is for a full or partial day. The rules of the calendar may not allow partial days, and requests for partial days may only include a single date. Whole days may include a date range.
9. Event type: Select the event type to use for your time off. You may only select from event types including in the PTO classification.
10. Select the Start date and End date for your request. The calendar rules may require a minimum or maximum number of days for your request.
11. Comments: add a comment (required)
12. Click Next.
The validation for your block (the single request) will run and display the results. This includes checking blackout and brownout days, minimum interval request rules, minimum/maximum block size, etc. If any rules fail, you have the option to go back and adjust your request. Even if a rule fails, you still have the option of saving the block (see Requesting an exception).
A note about the timing of requests: When validating a request, the system looks at how much time you have accrued as of the date of making the request, how much time you will have accrued by the date of the request, minus any already approved time. Because of this, you may want to validate your requests in the order of your preference, i.e., if you really want that time in November, more so than the time in May, validate the November time first.
Your request will be added to your calendar partition worksheet.
13. Add any additional blocks to request other time off.
14. After you have added all of your time off requests (blocks), click Validate this round. The validation for your entire block (all of your requests) will run and display the results.
15. Click Close.
If your block passes validation and it’s your turn to complete your bid, the Commit this round button will be available. At that time, you will be at the same ranking as all other people who are eligible to commit bids. It’s first committed – first served.
This screen will automatically refresh and the button available when it’s your turn to commit.
16. Click Commit this round to confirm your selections.
17. Are you sure you want to commit this bid? You will need to check a box confirming your understanding that the selections are final. You will receive a notification that you have committed your bid.
After all bidding is complete, and your administrator has executed the bid, the system will approve or deny all requests and place the approved requests on the schedules.
Requesting an exception
If your request fails one or more rules, you can request a bid exception. For example, if the bid rules require a minimum request of 40 hours and you have only 32 hours accrued, you can request an exception to the minimum block size enforcement rule.
When the validation fails, note the text that describes why your request failed. You’ll need to select the matching text in your exception request.
1. After making and saving your block, select Request bid exception.
2. Select the reason for the exception request and add a comment (required). If you don’t have enough accrued hours, select Insufficient available accrued hours to meet bid rules. If you don’t have enough hours to meet the minimum/maximum hours required in the bid round, select Insufficient available PTO to meet time off rules.
3. Review the tabs and find the reason why your request failed and select the appropriate one to request a bid exception. After making your selections, click Save exception request.
Note: Consider sending a memo to your supervisor/scheduler letting them know you have sent an exception request as there currently isn’t an automatic notification.
You will receive a notification when there is an update to the review status. To view the status, go to the calendar partition > Bid exceptions tab. From here you can edit or delete your request until it is approved or denied.
Once approved or denied, you can no longer edit or delete the exception request.