How to: Creating Leave Types on Vacation Tracker

The features mentioned in this article have been upgraded, and the information presented may not be up to date. Please view our recent articles, and learn about the new version of Vacation Tracker.

Vacation Tracker is a leave management tool with many useful features, and with new features added regularly.

Currently integrated with Slack, it doesn’t require any employee training, because it’s just that user-friendly.

When you first download the Vacation Tracker app for Slack, you will be able to customize it to fit your organization’s preferences and policies. The customizable features of Vacation Tracker make it the ideal leave tracking system for any team.

Instead of spending hours on managing leave, you can now do it all in a few simple clicks.

So, let’s get started with setting up Leave Types.

Who Can Set Up Leave Types?

Only Administrators can set up Leave Types, in the Settings page of the Vacation Tracker Dashboard.

Administrators have the highest permission level in Vacation Tracker. They are the only ones able to see and edit all of the company’s settings, as well as individual and team information.

Moreover, Administrators can easily configure and modify Leave Types through the “Settings” page. In fact, Administrators can make any necessary changes, save or delete any previously created Leave Types, at any time.

However, there always needs to be at least one active Leave Type. This main Leave Type cannot be deleted. Yet, this Leave Type is still completely customizable.

Up to 25 Custom Leave Types

Vacation Tracker’s Leave Types can be customized to your company’s needs, policies or preferences. Specific Leave Types can help you manage leave more effectively in your organization.

The default Leave Type is “Paid Time Off”. This default Leave Type can still be fully customizable, just like any newly created Leave Type.

In fact, your organization’s Administrator can set up another 24 completely customizable Leave Types through the Settings page.

Vacation Tracker can be customized to your company’s needs to improve your company’s leave management processes.

Create or Edit a Leave Type

Administrators can easily configure the organization’s leave types through the “Settings” page. Click on “Create New Leave Type” or edit an existing one my clicking the blue “Edit Button”.

First of all, each Leave Type has to have a name. Whether it’s a Sick Day, Conference, Working Remotely, Paternity Leave, Jury Duty, and more – you can enter any name, but the field is required.

Next, administrators can manually set preferences for each Leave Type:

Active/Inactive: For a team member to be able to select a Leave Type, it needs to be Active. The Leave Type is active when the slider is blue.

Approval Required: you might want certain Leave Types to be automatically approved. For example, if your organization encourages remote work, team members can track their days of remote work without waiting for an Admin’s response. They can simply request the “Work Remotely” Leave Type and it will be automatically approved.

Unlimited Days: Perhaps there is no cap on certain Leave Types, such as with the above-mentioned “Work Remotely” Leave Type. Enable the Unlimited Days option to remove any caps on a Leave Type.

Note that you can scroll over the informational icon to get more details about the customization feature.

Allow Half-Days: Certain Leave Types can allow for half days, such as a Sick Leave for instance. Enable this option to allow team members to request a half day of this Leave Type.

Further Customize Your Leave Types

Hide Leave Type: When enabling the “Hide Leave Type” option, this leave type will be hidden from the Calendar and in all notifications. Only Admins and the user who has requested this leave type will be able to identify it on the Calendar. The colour of this Leave Type will also be hidden to all other team members with the same access.

Colour: Pick a colour for your Leave Type, so that it can be easily seen on the Dashboard Calendar.

Allow Negative Balance: When activating the “Allow Negative Balance” toggle, you are authorizing your team members to go over the allowed number of days off set for this Leave Type. The option is enabled when the slider is blue. Keeping the option disabled limits your team to only their allotted days per year.

Days per Year: Enter the number of allotted days for a particular Leave Type. For instance, many organizations will allot 5 sick days for the year.

Reason Required: Enable this toggle to ensure that a team member enters a reason when they request a leave. For leaves that do no require a reason, this option can remain disabled.

Who Can Request Leave Types

Team members can make requests through the dashboard or the Vacation Tracker bot, by simply typing “/vacation” in the chosen Slack channel, and selecting a Leave Type.

Administrators can easily approve requests through the administrator dashboard or directly in Slack. Administrators will receive a notification as soon as a team member requests vacation letting them know which Leave Type the person is requesting.

If you are interested in learning more about Vacation Tracker, please go to our FAQ page, or request a demo. We would be more than happy to explain how Vacation Tracker could benefit your company and help you set it up.

Kristina Ousmanova

Kristina recently left behind fast-paced life of Human Resource Business Consulting to freelance as a Content Writer. A regular Vacation Tracker contributor, she can be found working remotely from her home in Montreal, usually while eating a variety of snacks.