SOURCE:    Vacation Tracker
TITLE:     How to Allow Hourly and Half-Day Leave Requests
URL:       https://vacationtracker.io/knowledge-base/how-can-i-set-hourly-intervals-to-leave-policies/
LANG:      en
PUBLISHED: 2022-06-20
UPDATED:   2026-07-01
READING:   3 min
SUMMARY:   Set the shortest leave duration per policy: full day, half day, 1 hour, 30 or 15 minutes. Half days work on all plans; hourly options need the Complete plan.
How to Allow Hourly and Half-Day Leave Requests
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Last updated on July 1, 2026

How Do I Set Shorter Leave Durations?

Not every leave is a full day. The Shortest Leave Duration setting on each leave policy controls the smallest slice an employee can request — from full days and half-days down to 1 hour, 30 minutes, or 15 minutes.

Plan gating
The 1 hour, 30 minutes, and 15 minutes options are only available on the Complete plan. Full Day and Half day are available on all plans.

The Five Duration Options

Every leave policy carries a Shortest Leave Duration dropdown with five choices. Pick the one that matches how the team actually uses that leave type.

Full Day All plans

Requests are in whole-day blocks only. A Sick Day or a Maternity Leave where it doesn't make sense to split the day.

Half day All plans

Employees can request a morning or afternoon half. Useful for appointments, early starts, or half-day Fridays. See How Do I Set Half-Day Intervals? for the full walkthrough.

1 hour Complete plan

One-hour increments. Good fit for quick errands, short appointments, or office time-off policies where hours are the natural unit.

30 minutes Complete plan

Half-hour increments — useful for walk-in appointments or short pickups that genuinely aren't an hour.

15 minutes Complete plan

Fine-grained quarter-hour tracking. The most granular option, appropriate for teams that bill or audit time by the quarter-hour.

How to Change the Setting

The setting lives on each leave policy — per Location, per Leave Type. A Sick Day policy can require Full Day while the same Location's Work From Home policy allows 15-minute increments. The toggles are independent.

  1. Sign in at app.vacationtracker.io.
  2. In the left-hand menu, expand Leave Setup and click Locations.
  3. On the Location you want to configure, click Edit Leave Policies.
  4. Find the leave policy you want to update and click the edit (pencil) icon on its row.
  5. Open the Shortest Leave Duration dropdown and pick one of the five options.
  6. Click Update at the bottom of the page to save your changes.
Leave policy editor with the shortest leave duration dropdown open and 1 hour highlighted
Tip
For time-based leaves that measure quota in hours rather than days (like a 100-hour sick bank), Vacation Tracker also supports dedicated Hourly leave type variants — look for leave types named (Hourly). Those surface a dedicated Date + Time range picker on the Request Leave form, which is the typical experience when you want employees to clock in a specific start and end time.

Which Option Should I Pick?

A few patterns we see in the wild:

  • Vacation: usually Full Day or Half day. Hourly vacation requests get noisy fast.
  • Sick Day: Full Day on most teams, or Half day if your culture allows "leave at lunch" for illness.
  • Work From Home: often 1 hour or shorter — people need to log "left early for the kids" without burning a half-day.
  • Appointments / Personal Time: 30 minutes or 15 minutes — the whole point of these leave types is small, precise time off.

Common Questions

Shortest Leave Duration is the smallest unit a policy will accept — a setting on any leave policy. An Hourly leave type (e.g., Vacation (Hourly)) is a distinct leave type whose quota is measured in hours rather than days, and whose request form asks for a Date + Time range directly. If you want employees to punch in specific start and end times, use an Hourly leave type; if you just want to shorten the minimum increment on an existing days-based policy, change Shortest Leave Duration.

The 1 hour, 30 minute, and 15 minute increments are all part of the Complete plan — Core covers Full Day and Half day only. You can upgrade any time — see How Can I Change My Subscription? for the steps.

No — it's per leave policy, and every leave policy is tied to one Leave Type at one Location. You can allow 15-minute Work From Home on the Canada team while keeping US Vacation at Full Day. Each policy's setting is independent.

What's Next?

How Do I Set Half-Day Intervals? How Can I Change My Subscription? (Core/Complete and Annual/Monthly) How Do I Create and Configure Leave Policies?
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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