For an in depth walkthrough of leave type settings and accruals, refer to this video tutorial, or see below for written step by step explanation.

PART 1) NAVIGATION

To configure AttendanceBot leave types and accruals for your organization, head to the leave type tab in your settings dashboard (type settings then navigate to Vacation Management --> Leaves --> Leave Types and Quotas. From here, you'll be able to see and edit all active and inactive leaves types. You can enable or disable any leave type for everyone by toggling between the Active and Inactive status for each leave type. To delete any leave type permanently, click on the edit pencil and delete from the configuration window.

Note: By default, we have 8 different kinds of leave types, each with an unlimited balance and annual accrual interval. This means everyone can use every leave type, and the single governing limitation is approval. To configure more specific rules and policy, see Part 5 below.

PART 2) THE BASICS

You can also create any number of custom leave types. To do so, click "Create New", title the leave and assign synonyms associated with the leaves from the keywords section. Leave synonyms are the words which are associated with that particular leave and can be used while applying for a leave in AttendanceBot. For example, in the case of parental leave you might include synonyms like maternity, paternity, or child care. In the case of "Working from office", keywords might include wfo, ito, or hq. Just mention all permutations of phrases you'd like to denote the leave type during a request.

This is also a good place to do some language localization. If you are creating vacation types for non English-speaking employees, you can add synonyms in any local language.

All rules pertaining to leave nomenclature, color coding, visibility, and privacy will be on the first "Basic Leave Settings" tab of the edit window. Full explanations are included next to each option.

PART 3) ADVANCED CONFIG 

To set up specific leave accrual rules and policies, you navigate to the second tab of the edit screen entitled "accrual settings." This is also the tab to turn on or off approval and determine the minimum length of a request.

a) Universal versus Segment: The first decision you'll have is whether to begin configuring a universal leave policy or a policy for one specific employee "set". If your policy involves different rules for different segments of your workforce (for instance by geographical region, by office/department, or by employee tenure) you'll want to click the "Create New Set" button before proceeding. This will create a "set" wherein the leave policy saves applies specifically to the defined segment of employees.

b) Active versus Inactive: The second decision to make is whether to keep a leave as active or inactive. This is the same setting as the quick-toggle outside the edit screen, but if you've created multiple employee sets above, you'll be able to inactivate access to a leave type for some employee sets while retaining active access to the leave type for other subgroups of employees. Note that inactivating a leave type retains full historical data, while DELETING a leave type removes that leave from historicals.

c)  Unlimited versus Limited Balances: The third decision will be whether to keep the leave as unlimited, where the pool available is unlimited and governed only by manager approval, or set a limited accrual policy that unlocks further configuration options. If unlimited, there's nothing left to do but decide whether approval is required and what increments the leave may be requested (see 4d). If limited, you'll open up Part 5.

d) Leave Request Rules: All leave, limited or unlimited, with provide three additional "accrual settings" at the bottom of the menu

>Allow hourly time offs: this is to allow leave to be requested within hourly or minute-to-minute increments.

>Enable half days: this enables increments of half-a-day. If hourly is on but half days are off, employees may still request half a day but will have to specify specific hours rather than just "first half" or "second half"

>Approval required: if turned off, managers will still receive FYI notifications, as will any additional users per approval routing, however manager will not be able to approve or deny leave requests. If turned on, leaves must be approved to go to the calendar.

Unlimited Leaves allotted 

Limited Leaves allotted

PART 5) ACCRUAL CONFIGURATION

If you've chosen limited leave with some form of accrual, you open a new menu of options:

5a) Fixed or Hourly: Fixed leave is most common and is accrued on a regular cadence throughout time. Hourly leave, on the other hand, allows employees to accrue leave based on time worked on their timesheet.

Note: this is different that time off in lieu for which employees gain time off by working overtime. For more info about that type of leave, see this article or search this knowledge base for TOIL.

5b) Calendar or Anniversary: this governs the rollover aka carry over period, and in some cases the accrual period itself. Calendar year means an annual accrual would commence on Jan 1 and roll over on Dec 31 (contact support if your organization has a different calendar year), whereas Anniversary means accrual commences in full at join date and rolls overs (or resets) each anniversary.

Note: Calendar year periods will still disburse accrual at join date depending on your pro-rata setting (below), however each new year begins and ends with the calendar rather than anniversary date.

5c) Accrual Period: this defines the cadence and period by which accrual occurs. Annual means once per year, half yearly means once every six months, etc. Note that this does not affect the carry over period itself.

5d) Annual leave count in days: this is the annualized number of days accrued, so the effective yearly allotment of leave to employee bank or balance. Very importantly, this is irrespective of accrual period and whether you view & accrue by hour or day. AttendanceBot will automatically calculate the amount accrued each period by dividing this annual number based on the chosen period. Similarly, number of hours in a day is configurable in the general settings section, and is 8 hours by default. If you track leave hourly and know you accrue 4hours every 2 weeks, then you would enter 13 days (4 hours * 26 periods / 8 hours/day).

5e) Rollover in days: this is the number of unused days rolled over (aka "carried over") from one year to the next. If leave never expires and the leave bank continues to build year over year with unlimited carry over, set this to 365. If all leave expires each year and balances rest - so a "use it or lose it" policy - set this to 0. If leave is carried over but there is a limit to how much gets rolled over year to year, set a number in days.

5f) Cap on annual leave count: this is the maximum leave balance allowed in days, past which accrual stops. This is irrelevant if rollover=0 and in that case should be set to 365. If rollover >0 or unlimited (365), the cap creates a maximum balance that can be accrued after which not further balance can be accrued.

5g) Enable pro rata: this is only relevant for fixed calendar year leave with an annual or half-yearly accrual period. In these cases, turning on pro rata will automatically disperse a pro-rated balance to new joinees based on the month of the year that they joined.

5h) Allow negative balance: by default AttendanceBot will automatically reject leave requests that exceed available leave balance. If turned on, you can set any minimum negative threshold which is allowable, meaning AttendanceBot will still accept requests up to the negative balance, pending manager approval.