SOURCE:    Vacation Tracker
TITLE:     Guide: What Can an Approver Do in Vacation Tracker?
URL:       https://vacationtracker.io/knowledge-base/guide-what-can-an-approver-do-in-vacation-tracker/
LANG:      en
PUBLISHED: 2020-12-29
UPDATED:   2026-07-03
READING:   4 min
SUMMARY:   What Approvers can do in Vacation Tracker: approve or deny leave for their Departments, get daily and weekly summaries, and how they differ from Admins.
Guide: What Can an Approver Do in Vacation Tracker?
Vacation Tracker
English
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Last updated on July 3, 2026

Guide: What Can an Approver Do in Vacation Tracker?

The middle tier. Approvers decide on leave for the Departments they're assigned to.

3-minute read

An Approver is a User with the extra power to decide on leave for an assigned Department. It's the middle tier between a regular User and an Administrator, and the role that keeps the day-to-day leave flow close to the team that knows the work.

Why the role exists

Not every leave decision needs to go to a central Admin. In a workspace with dozens or hundreds of Users, routing every request through one person creates delays and forces someone without team context to make calls they shouldn't be making. The Approver role solves that: leave decisions happen with the person who actually knows the team's work and coverage, while company-wide settings stay with the Administrator.

Team leads, people managers, HR business partners, and department heads are the typical fit.

What Approvers can and can't do

Can do
  • Approve, deny, edit, and cancel leave requests for their Department(s)
  • Add a leave on behalf of a User in their Department
  • Open User profiles to see balances and history
  • Create Daily, Weekly, and Birthday notifications for their teams
  • Configure a subset of Automations for the teams they own
  • Assign a Substitute Approver to cover their own time off
  • Everything a User can do for their own leave
✗Can't do
  • ✗Change Leave Types, Leave Policies, integrations, or billing
  • ✗Add, remove, or reassign Users
  • ✗Edit Locations, Departments, or holiday lists
  • ✗Access company-wide reports outside their assigned Departments
  • ✗Manage plan, billing, or workspace-wide settings

Anything outside their assigned Departments needs an Administrator.

How Approvers are assigned

Approvers are set on the Department, not on the User's profile. An Administrator opens the Department, adds a User or Admin to the Approver(s) field under Approval Flow, and saves. Two useful patterns to know:

  • One person, multiple Departments: the same Approver can cover more than one Department. Common for team leads who oversee several sub-teams.
  • Multiple Approvers on one Department: a Department can list several Approvers. Any of them can act on a request, and once one approves or denies, the request is closed. Useful for redundancy when someone is on leave themselves.

Common Questions

Yes, if they're an Approver in the same Department they belong to as a User. Because Approver assignments are set on the Department, being on that Department's Approver list means they can act on requests coming from it, including their own. If the Approver is on a different Department than the one they belong to, their leave goes to whoever approves for their Department.

Any Approver can act. As soon as one approves or denies, the request is closed. The other Approvers see who acted, so no double-decisions.

Yes. The User's profile shows their Department, and the Department lists its Approvers. When a User submits leave, the request goes to that list automatically.

What's Next?

Guide: Administrator vs Approver vs User Guide: Substitute Approver How Do I Set an Approver within Vacation Tracker?
Need help?
Regular Users: If you have any questions, email us anytime at hello@vacationtracker.io.
Admins and Approvers: You can reach us via live chat Monday to Friday, 9 AM – 5 PM EST, or email us anytime at hello@vacationtracker.io.

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