Time Off

Time Off (HCM → Time Off) is where HR sets the rules for leave and where everyone sees their balance. People still book time off with Book time off (or from HCM → Leave), and approvers approve it in the same place as before. Time Off comes with the HCM module.

The page has these tabs:

• Overview — your balances, who is off today and this week, requests waiting, and for HR a setup checklist.
• Calendar — who is off each day of the month.
• Balances — your balance, or for HR everyone's balances.
• Analytics (HR only) — absence figures and the Bradford factor.
• Setup (HR only) — types, policies, bank holidays, blocked dates and settings.

Types of time off

Under Setup → Types of time off, each type has a name, a colour and these rules:

• Uses a balance — days come off an allowance set on the policy. Turn it off for types such as unpaid leave.
• Paid, Half days allowed.
• Counts as sickness — used for the Bradford factor and sickness figures.
• Private — colleagues see "Away" instead of the type, and never the reason.
• Notice (days) — how far ahead people must book. 0 = none.
• Most days in a row — the longest single request.
• Needs evidence — for example a fit note, either always or only when the request is longer than a number of days. The person is asked to add it after booking.
• Can go below zero, and by at most how many days — lets people borrow from next year.
• Can be booked — switch a type off to stop new requests without losing history.

Annual leave is built in and cannot be removed.

Policies

A policy gives a group of people their allowances. Under Setup → Policies:

• Who it applies to — by department, branch, employment type, length of service, or named people (with people to leave out).
• Order — each person gets the first policy they match, lowest order first. Anyone who matches none gets the default policy, which cannot be removed.
• Leave year starts — the month the leave year begins.
• Working days — days off are counted on these days only. Put people with a different pattern on their own policy.
• Bank holiday calendar — which bank holidays apply.
• Allowances — for each type that uses a balance:
  • Days a year.
  • Given all at once at the start of the year, or monthly (a twelfth at the start of each month, rounded down to the half day).
  • Joiners get a part-year share, rounded up to the half day.
  • Extra days for length of service — for example +1 day after 2 years. Years are counted at the start of the leave year.
  • Carry over up to — the most unused days that move into next year.
  • Use carried days within (months) — carried days not used by then expire. Blank = no expiry.

If a person has their own annual leave days set on their employee record, that figure is used instead of the policy's annual allowance (and the extra days for length of service do not apply to them).

Bank holidays

Under Setup → Bank holidays, create a calendar and pick a region (England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland) to fill in the standard bank holidays for the year, or add your own company days. Bank holidays that fall on working days are never counted as days off. If the policy is set to take bank holidays from the allowance, they are taken off the allowance instead.

Blocked dates

Under Setup → Blocked dates, mark busy periods such as year end:

• No leave (block) — people cannot book time off on those dates.
• Discouraged (warn) — people can book, but they and their approver see a warning.

Pick which types of time off it covers (none picked = all) and who it applies to. The Why text is shown to people who try to book.

Booking

When someone picks dates, the form shows straight away:

• the working days it will use, with bank holidays left out,
• the balance left afterwards,
• any warnings, for example a blocked date or a large share of their team already off,
• whether evidence will be needed.

A request is refused when it breaks a rule: not enough notice, too many days in a row, a half day where half days are not allowed, not enough balance (or below the limit for going negative), a blocked date, no working days in the range, or overlapping leave the person already has. When HR books for someone else, these are shown as warnings so HR can still go ahead.

The team for the clash warning is the people with the same manager, or the same department if the person has no manager.

Cancelling and evidence

• People can cancel their own requests. Once approved time off has started, only HR can cancel it.
• Their manager is told when time off is cancelled, and the person is told when someone else cancels it.
• Evidence can be added as a note or a link (https) by the person or HR.

Balances

Each balance shows the allowance, days carried in, adjustments, days taken, days booked and days waiting for approval, and what is left. HR can see everyone's balances, filter by department or search, export them as CSV, and add or remove adjustments, for example time off in lieu.

What happens by itself

Every night Plenix:

• adds carry-over at the start of each person's leave year (not for people who joined that year),
• expires carried days not used in time, and tells the person,
• on the 1st of the month, reminds people with holiday left when their leave year is about to end (see Settings). The reminder says how much they can carry over.

Calendar

The month view shows who is off each day, with bank holidays marked. Filter by department. Private types show as "Away". In Settings you can choose whether everyone can see the whole team calendar or only their own department.

Analytics

For the last 12 months: days off by type, by month and by department, untaken holiday shown as a cost, and the Bradford factor for sickness (S² × D: the number of spells squared times the total days over the last 52 weeks; requests within 3 days of each other count as one spell). People above the review and action levels you set are listed so you can follow up.

Settings

• Warn when this share of a team is off (%) — default 30.
• Bradford factor: review from / action from — default 51 and 201.
• Everyone can see the team calendar.
• Remind people about unused holiday (months before year end) and Only if they have at least (days) left.