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Absence
Manager - Features
Click
on a feature below to learn more
Absence
Manager provides a powerful workflow engine for routing leave requests.
You can
specify from one to five approvers per user as required.
The
workflow engine if very flexible, approvers can be specified for a
group using admin tools and / or further refined at the user
level - i.e. if desired you can specify different approvers for each
Absence Manager user.
The
application also implements a Deputy (fallback) approver mechanism,
should an approver not action a request in the specified default
approval time frame then the request is automatically re- routed to the
approvers deputy approver as specified on the approvers user record.
for more information on this feature please click
here.
Absence
Manager provides a central calendar for employees to see who is out of
the office at any given time, this improves time planning and resource
allocation within the organization.
The
central calendar implements a flexible security mechanism, the
administrator specifies whether users see only people absent from their
own group / department, from every department or allow users to view
calendar entries for the groups of interest to that particular user /
manager.
The
application provides both a Notes and Web shared calendar interface.
Absence
Manager provides intuitive and easy to use HCL Domino and Web based
interfaces.
See
below for screen shots:
Web
interface home page
Notes
Interface home page
Absence
Manager fully integrates with users personal Calendars, the integration
is achieved via email messages requiring NO change to the design of
your organizations mail files.
When a
request is approved the requester receives an email, on opening this
email the users personal calendar is populated with the approved leave
request, in addition the email is automatically moved to an ABS folder
in the users mail file (to avoid it being inadvertently deleted).
Should
the request subsequently be cancelled the requestor will receive
another email, on opening this the personal calendar entry will
automatically be removed.
Absence
Manager comes with several pre configured leave types, such as
Vacations, Holidays, Training, Unpaid, Doctors Appointment, Sick Leave
etc.
These
leave types can be easily added to, removed or customized to meet the
exact needs of your business.
You
specify whether a quota is attached to the leave type, this enables
accurate and flexible recording of holiday / vacation allowances etc.
Absence
Manager allows your organization to record ANY leave type you wish,
each leave type has a record describing the attributes of the
particular leave type, the leave type record is highly configurable.
Below are
screen shots showing the configuration options which are available for
each leave type:
Absence
Manager enables you to record and display different leave types in
either days or hours.
Each
leave type recorded using Absence Manager has a corresponding leave
type record, on this record you simply specify which time duration to
use to record and display time for that particular Leave Type; for
example you may want to allocate training time off in Hours
and Vacations in Days - Absence Manager provides an extremely flexible
solution supporting your changing business needs over
time � see screen shot below
Absence
Manager allows for the Accrual of leave days / hours each
month.
Each
leave type recorded by Absence Manager has a corresponding leave type
record, on this record you specify whether the leave accrues time each
month, days OR hours will be accrued each month for the leave
type if this functionality is activated - see screen shot
below:
Depending
whether the leave type is set to record and display in Days or Hours
will determine whether days or hours are accrued each month, see the
following page for further information
Absence
Manager provides the ability to book leave by the hour,
quarter day, half day or full day in both the Notes client and the web
interface.
Below
is a screen shot showing the notes interface tool to select Leave
request details:
Please
note that the ability to book leave by the hour is determined
on a user by user basis, please see the screen shot below.
.
If you
wish to use this feature you MUST turn it on for each user who should
be able to book leave by the hour.
In
addition, there is a setting which can be seen on the screen shot above
which when set to Yes allows the user to override the
default number of hours in a particular working day for which
they are requesting leave; this feature is useful when you have
employees such as shift workers who need to book time off by the hour
and do not always work the same standard working day as other employees.
The
standard number of hours in a working day is defined in the master
settings document, which is accessed via Administration \ Global
Settings, see the screen shot below:
Absence
Manager allows you to specify the date on which your Vacation / Holiday
begins, this is prompted for when you first run the application set-up
wizard, the new holiday year start date can also be changed at any time
via the global settings (NOTE - you must be an administrator to change
global settings - global settings are accessed by selecting
Administration \ Global Settings within the application).
The
application also automates the year end processing which is required at
the end of a vacation year, all entitlement allowances are
automatically updated at year end, this is a
substantial time saving feature for all organizations.
Absence
Manager fully caters for Public / Bank holidays, these dates are
automatically created for you when running the applications set-up
wizard, they can also be amended at any time by the application
administrator.
When
calculating time off requests the application automatically takes
account of public / bank holidays defined for your installation.
In
addition Absence Manager can apply different sets of public / bank
holidays to different groups of users within the application, this
provides a flexible solution allowing users from different countries
with different public holidays to use the same Absence Manager database.
1.
Creating one set of common bank holiday dates for all Absence Manger
users.
From
the 'Create' menu, select 'Bank Holidays'. The 'Bank Holiday Dates'
form will be displayed. Leave the 'Groups' field as 'Default' and enter
the year. An error occurs if a default bank holiday document already
exists for the selected year. Use the date picker icon to select the
bank holiday dates or enter the dates directly. For your own
convenience and for clarity, you may also change the name of any bank
holiday. Save and close the document.
2.
Creating different sets of bank holiday dates for groups of Absence
Manger users.
2.1
Creating the default bank holiday document
2.1.1
If a bank holiday document already exists for the required year, open
the bank holiday document, double-click to get into edit mode, then
save and close the document. This will create the 'Default' bank
holiday document as described below.
2.1.2
If there is no bank holiday document for the required year, from the
'Create' menu, select 'Bank Holidays'. The 'Bank Holiday Dates' form
will be displayed with the 'Groups' field set to 'Default'. Enter the
year and use the date picker icon to enter the bank holiday dates or
enter the dates directly. An error occurs if a default bank holiday
document already exists for the selected year. Save and close the
document.
Please
note that every year must have one bank holiday document with 'Groups'
set to 'Default' as this document will specify bank holiday dates for
all user groups not covered by a separate bank holiday document.
2.2
Creating bank holiday documents for specific user groups
From
the 'Create' menu, select 'Bank Holidays'. The 'Bank Holiday Dates'
form will be displayed. Select the user group(s) to which this set of
bank holiday dates will apply. Enter the year. An error occurs if a
bank holiday document already exists for the selected year for one of
the chosen groups. Use the date picker icon to enter the bank holiday
dates for the selected year or enter the dates directly. Save and close
the document.
Absence
Manager allows for the following scenarios when determining whether to
included / exclude weekends when calculating time off.
1.
Always include weekends when calculating time off.
2.
Never include weekends when calculating time off
3.
Prompt the user to specify whether to include weekends in date
calculations.
How
Absence Manager handles weekend calculations is determined by the
administrator see the master settings screen shot below:
If the
master setting dictates that the user is prompted they will see the
screen below when requesting leave, see screen shot below:
Absence
Manager provides essential reporting information to managers enabling
them to organize their departments and projects more efficiently.
Managers
know when employees are absent from work and what holiday / vacation
allowances they have remaining, thus allowing for effective time
management.
Absence
Manager provides a graphical bar graph interface which details the % of
staff cover a group / department has on any given day, this is an
extremely useful tool for both managers and employees to both ensure a
department is not left short staffed and encourage more efficient time
off planning.
See
the screen shot below:
Absence
Manger is available in the following languages:
English,
French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish and Portuguese
� users see the Application (Notes AND Web Interfaces) in
their chosen language simply by changing their language preference on
their user record.
Localization
is achieved using a dynamic mechanism, this enables EVERY text label
within the application to be changed if required by simply editing a
notes document.
If you
do not see the language of interest to you in the list above it is a
straightforward process to implement ANY new language for Absence
Manager due to the way translations are handled throughout the
application.
Absence
Manager allows you to specify the date on which your Vacation / Holiday
year begins.
The
application also automates the year end processing which is required at
the end of a vacation year, all entitlement allowances are
automatically updated at year end, this is a
substantial time saving feature for all organizations.
At the
beginning of a new vacation \ holiday year, an agent runs overnight
which performs the following tasks:-
- Deletes the previous year's archive.
-
Archives all requests for the year just ended.
-
Updates all user documents with the new leave quota(s) for the new
vacation year, including any carried over leave which has been allowed.
In
addition, one month before the end of your vacation \ holiday year (as
specified in the global settings document), an agent runs overnight and
issues a memo to all users who still have outstanding annual leave for
the current year. The memo warns that any leave over and above the
maximum allowable carry over figure, which is not taken by the end of
the holiday year will be lost.
Absence
Manager automates the process of reminding approvers of overdue leave
requests which are awaiting their attention.
A
global setting for your installation dictates the number of days an
approver is allowed to respond to a leave request before being sent a
reminder.
If a
fallback approver is specified the application will automatically
re-route the leave request for approval by the deputy approver if the
approval window has passed.
One of
the challenges faced by any holiday management application is the fact
that employees often make changes to holiday plans.
Absence
Manager allows users to withdraw leave requests before they are
approved or cancel requests which have been approved by managers; the
leave request remains in the application as a record of the cancelled
or withdrawn request.
When
requests are cancelled the approvers for the request receive an email
informing them of the cancellation.
The
ability for users to cancel leave requests can be turned off if
required by simply changing a setting in the global settings.
Absence
Manager uses groups to manage the users within the application, the
application has powerful security options to ensure people only see
what the administrator has specified they have access to.
The
application has administration tools which make it a very easy process
to change the attributes for a whole group such as the approver(s).
The
group admin tools also make it a straightforward process to move an
individual from one group to another.
Absence
Manager allows leave types which have a quota attached to them to be
carried over to the next holiday year.
As
with all features within the application the mechanism is flexible, the
administrator specifies how many days / hours can be carried over for a
particular leave type and when the carried over leave must be taken by
- in addition the carried over cut off date by which leave must be
taken by can be modified on a user by user basis if required.
Administrators
can specify the maximum block of vacation \ holiday which can be booked
off in one continuous block, if this is exceeded when a request is made
the leave request is allowed to continue, however a warning flag is
displayed for both the requestor and the subsequent approver(s) - it is
then up to the managers discretion as to whether the request should be
approved.
Absence
Manager has built in functionality to handle secondary
(Deputy) approvers, this is to allow for the possibility of the primary
approver being absent / on holiday etc; to activate this feature:
Ensure
the fallback approver setting is activated in the Global settings
document - (select Administration \ Global Settings to access Global
Settings)
Then
set-up the fallback (Deputy) approver for the primary approver via
their user record.
The
approval window setting in the master settings document determines how
long in days before the fallback approver is emailed to request that
they approve the request in the absence of the primary approver.
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