Sicon Approvals Help and User Guide – Holidays Module

1. Approvals Holidays Navigation

To enter a new holiday request, either click the Quick Link ‘Request Holiday’– this will only show if the user has permission to enter a new holiday request.  Alternatively, use the side menu and click to either Create New or use the Quick New option:

2. Pre-Requisites & Setup Overview

Before adding Holidays onto the system, the below steps will need to be followed; these steps may not all be relevant depending on whether a costing module is being used and how the system is to be configured.

Further information on these can be found throughout this Help & User Guide.

* Please make sure the Approvals Service is restarted following any changes.

This Help and User Guide will talk through;

• Pre-requisites and setup Overview
• Configuring Approvals – System Setup
• Configuring Approvals – User Setup
• Using Approvals
• Additional Holidays Features

3. Holiday Flow

Holidays will generally follow the same flow through the system:

4. Holiday Enable Configuration

For the Holiday module to be available the “Enabled Modules” must have the Holiday module ticked.

Once this is configured, Holiday options will then be visible within the system.

This is included in the online licence and cannot be ticked manually.  For further information on licencing, please speak with your Business Partner in the first instance.

5. Configuring Approvals - System Setup

The next few sections are aimed at Superusers and Business Partners setting up the system for the first time, and explain the System Setup requirements for the Holiday Module.

6. Costing Module Integration Pre-Requisites

The Approvals system can be configured to integrate with Sicon Projects, Sage Project Accounting or Approvals Projects.  Select accordingly with System Settings – Costing.  Once a costing module has been set, please restart the Approvals service.

For the Holidays Module, the main impact of the costing module is for sites who are integrating with the Timesheets module.  If not using Timesheets, the remainder of this section can be ignored.

If using both the Approvals Holiday and Timesheet modules it is necessary to define a default holiday project within Approvals which will be explained later in the Holiday Default Projects section.  Prior to this, a default Holiday Project will need to be created in the relevant costing module.

6.1. Sicon Projects

A default Holiday Project will need to be created in Sage – Sicon Projects for Holidays to post to (depending on site configuration, all holiday, absence or ‘overhead’ time may post to one project, or individual projects created for each type of absence time):

If Use Sicon Sage Timesheets is enabled in the Costing settings screen, Bank Holidays will be configured within Sicon Projects and not within Approvals:

For further information on how to configure a Project or Bank Holidays in the Sicon Projects module, please refer to the Sicon Projects Help and User Guide.

6.2. Sage Project Accounting

A default Holiday Project will need to be created in Sage – Project Accounting for Holidays to post to.  For further information on how to configure a Project in Sage Project Accounting, refer to your Sage Business Partner.

In addition to configuring the Holiday Project for Timesheets, Timesheet Integration should also be enabled in Sage Project Accounting.

Further information on Timesheet configuration is available in the Approvals Timesheet Help and User Guide.

6.3. Approvals Projects

Approvals Projects is a simple costing module which sits within Approvals and does not post to Sage – it can only be used if no other costing module is in use.

If using Holidays with the Timesheets module, ensure Projects have been created for users to select.

Ensure Project Items are available for use on the Holiday module (Project Item Types are linked with a document type; project items are then linked with the project item type).

7. Holiday System Settings

Before the Holiday module can be used, a number of initial settings need to be configured.  These settings are found under System Settings – Holidays.

7.1. System Settings - General Tab

Default holiday period start date:  set as per the organisation’s holiday period start date; the default will be configured as January 1st.  Each user can have a different holiday start date if required, this is set on their user profile (User Setup – Users – Holidays); i.e. if their holiday year starts on a different date.

Default holiday entitlement for users (hours):  enter the standard number of holiday entitlement in hours, again, this can be overridden per user on their user profile.  The default entitlement will be the number of working hours in a day multiplied by the default holiday days; e.g. 7.5 x 25 to give 187.5 as the default.

Do not allow submission of holiday requests if there is a conflict with already booked holiday of a specified user:  if enabled, conflicting users will not be able to submit holiday for the same date(s).  If not configured, conflicting users can submit holiday requests for the same date(s) and the requesting user and approver will be notified of the conflict at the point of submitting the request and when approving the request.

Allow entry of historic holiday requests:  this allows pre-dated holiday requests, within the same holiday entitlement year – a user cannot claim holiday in a date if they do not have entitlement that covers that year.  This may be required if the Holiday module is implemented part way through the holiday year and already taken holiday needs to be entered onto the system.

Do not allow submission of holiday requests if the user has not accrued enough holiday:  accrued entitlement will be calculated based either on the holiday year start date, or the employee’s start date (entered on their user profile), if this date is after the holiday year start date.  If this setting is ticked, the user cannot submit a holiday request if it is greater than their accrued holiday.

Allow booking single hours:  the system will by default allow users to book holiday in days or half day amount; enabling this setting will allow single hours on a day to be booked.

Who to send meeting requests to on final approval:  this setting will automatically email meeting requests to add approved holiday to relevant users’ Outlook calendars.  N.B. the meeting invite will be sent to the email address linked to the user on their user profile, will be sent from the system email address (as configured in System Settings – Email) and will contain details of the holiday request in the body of the email.  On final approval of a holiday request, a meeting invite can be sent to different users depending on configuration:

None – no meeting invites are sent.

Requestor – a meeting invite is sent to the user who submitted the holiday request.

Default Business Unit – if the user who submitted the holiday request has a default business unit allocated, the meeting invite is sent to all users who are part of that business unit.

All Business Units – the meeting invite will be sent to all users of all business units the user who submitted the holiday request belongs to.

All Users – the meeting invite will be sent to all active Approvals users.

Automatically set users out of office when holiday starts:  if enabled, when a user enters a holiday request they can select an alternate user to cover their holiday period.  When the holiday starts, the requesting user’s Approvals out of office is automatically switched on and any documents requiring their approval will also be sent to the chosen alternate user.

Automatically set users out of office when holiday ends:  if enabled, when a user enters a holiday request they can select an alternate user to cover their holiday period.  When the holiday has ended, the requesting user’s Approvals out of office is automatically switched off.

7.2. System Settings - Non-Working Days Tab

Approvals is installed with the default country’s bank holidays as standard and are referred to as Non-Working days – these will not be deducted from a user’s annual entitlement. At install, the default country is England but this can be changed if required (System Setup – Countries and Cities). Additional non-working days can be added as required; either for the whole year by selecting the year and clicking ‘Add bank holidays to selected country for year (GB only)’ or by selecting the country, entering a description, date and clicking ‘Add Non-Working Day’.

Please note, if using Timesheets with the Sicon Projects Module and the setting “Use Sicon Sage Timesheets” enabled, non-working days will not be visible here. Bank Holidays are instead maintained within Sage – Sicon Projects menu – Maintenance sub menu – Bank Holidays:

Please refer to the Projects Help and User Guide for further information on configuring bank holidays in Sage.

7.3. System Settings - Mandatory Holidays Tab

This function enforces mandatory holiday which will be taken from the user’s entitlement.  These mandatory holidays can be added as per the organisation’s requirements; i.e. Christmas Shutdown.

8. Work Patterns

Work patterns are common to the Timesheets and Holiday modules and are used to calculate the number of working hours on a holiday request.  A holiday work pattern needs to be set up to reflect the contracted/standard working hours and therefore multiple holiday work patterns may need to be created to accommodate all users, particularly for part time users.  A holiday work pattern is then assigned to each user on their user profile (User Profile – Holidays tab).

To create or edit a work pattern, go to System Setup – Work Patterns & Rates.

Name the work pattern accordingly and select Holiday from the pattern type drop down.  The Work Pattern Rule option can be ignored as this is only relevant for Timesheet work patterns.  For each normal working day, select the correct description, add the contracted hours using the start and end time options, pay rate and shift type.  Once a day has been configured it can be copied to other days using the Copy function at the bottom of the screen.  It is important to make sure the morning and afternoon shifts contain the same number of hours so there is no difference in entitlement deducted if a user was to take a morning or afternoon shift off.

The below holiday work pattern is a default that can be edited as required but has initially been created for users that work 7.5-hour days across 5 days in the week.  The start and end times will not be visible to the user when submitting a holiday request on the desktop so this work pattern can be used for all users working 7.5-hour days, 5 days a week, whether they do 9am – 5pm as shown below or 10am – 6pm or 8:30am – 4:30pm etc.

The corresponding default timesheet work pattern is shown below. This must match the holiday work pattern’s start and end times and the Timesheets module can be configured to use the Holiday Work Pattern to put the approved holiday request on the user’s timesheet (if the Timesheets module is being used in conjunction with the Holidays module). The timesheet work pattern is then assigned to each user on their user profile (User Profile – Timesheets tab).

9. Holiday Default Projects

If using both the Holiday and Timesheet modules it is necessary to define a default holiday project within Approvals.  Timesheets will be populated with users’ approved holiday requests, bank holidays and mandatory holidays, as configured, and these lines will need to be associated to a Project and Project Header/Project Item.  Please ensure a default cost rate is added to ensure the timesheet line is created correctly.  It is recommended to set one default holiday project or project for all users per Company but it is also possible to define specific projects at an individual user level.

Each absence type will need to be linked to a project; these can either be the same projects or different projects if required.  The separate absence types are:

• Bank Holidays
• Mandatory Holidays
• Holiday (only used with Holiday module)
• Unpaid Holiday (only used with Holiday module)
• Absence (only used with HR module)

10. Configuring Approvals - User Setup

The next few sections are aimed at Superusers and Business Partners setting up the system for the first time and explain the User Setup requirements for the Holiday Module.

11. Holiday User Type Permissions

User Type permissions determine what permissions users will have if they belong to this User Type.  To allocate relevant user type permissions, go to User Setup – User Types.

Submit Holiday Requests:  the ability for a user to submit a holiday request.

Approve Holiday Requests:  the ability for a user to approve a holiday request.

Delete Holiday Request:  the ability for a user to delete a holiday request.  N.B. once a holiday request has been fully approved, it cannot be deleted but instead needs to be cancelled and submitted as a cancellation request.

Reset Completed Holiday:  this setting allows users to reset a completed holiday request so it can be cancelled and the holiday added back onto the user’s entitlement; i.e. to cover the situation where a user has a holiday booked but ends up working on this day and wishes to cancel a holiday that has already been flagged as taken.

View Business Unit Holiday Requests:  the ability to view holiday requests submitted by other users in the same business unit.

View All Holiday Requests:  the ability to view all holiday requests in the system for all active Approvals users.

View Holiday Reports:  the ability to access reports showing entitlement and booked holiday.  Depending on permissions on the General tab, the user will either be able to see requests for themselves, their business unit users, their delegates or all users.

Enter holiday for all users:  the ability to enter holiday requests for all users.

Enter holiday for delegates:  the ability to enter holiday requests for delegate users.

Amend User Holiday Rules:  the ability to change rules for how users within the organisation conflict with other users’ holiday requests.  This permission is usually only given to the Superusers.

Perform Holiday Month End:  this gives the user the ability to perform holiday month end which will create new entitlement for coming years, identify hours to carry forward or hours to pay.  This permission should only be given to the Superusers.

Add Starting Holiday lines for users:  this will give the user the permission to access the Starting Holiday tool; generally, this is only given to the Superusers.  This tool can be used to adjust a user’s holiday entitlement is a user is starting part way through the year.

Configure Work Patterns:  the ability to create and assign work patterns; this is usually just a Superuser permission.

12. Holiday User Settings

A number of permissions can be set on the user profile relating to entering, viewing or approving holiday requests.  The next sections explain the tabs relevant to the Holiday module.  For full information on setting up Users, please refer to the User Settings Help and User Guide.

12.1. Timesheets Tab

Timesheets Work Pattern:  select the user’s timesheet work pattern from the drop-down list; these work patterns are configured in System Setup – Work Patterns & Pay Rates.

12.2. Holidays Tab

Each user needs to be setup with correct holiday entitlement and linked to the correct holiday work pattern.  This is done on their User profile – Holidays tab.  Click Add or Edit for the relevant holiday period to enter or amend holiday entitlement figures.  Holiday entitlement is always entered and booked in hours, but will be shown to the user in days to be user-friendly (the estimated days figure uses the holiday work pattern to get the average hours in a working day to then estimate the days).

If adding a user part way through the holiday year, enter the full entitlement correctly and either submit any taken holiday requests for approval so the entitlement figure will be adjusted once the holiday request is approved, or use the Starting Holiday tool explained later in this user guide.

Summary:  this will show an overview of the holiday year with entitlement figures, carried forward hours, booked, taken, remaining etc.

Period Start:  this will show the start of the holiday period.

Period End:  this will show the end of the holiday period.

Is Locked:  if the holiday year has been locked this will be ticked.  Any holiday periods that are not locked will be processed in the month end routine.

Entitlement (h):  this is the total number of hours’ holiday entitlement the user has been given.

Accrued (h):  this figure is calculated from ‘months until now’ (either from the start of the holiday year or from the employee’s start date, depending on which is the most recent date), multiplied by ‘monthly accrual’ (the entitlement hours divided by months – usually 12 as this is the number of months in a holiday period).

Remaining Accrued (h):  this figure is calculated from ‘accrued hours’ minus ‘taken hours’, ‘booked hours’ and ‘mandatory hours’.

Est Accrued (d):  the holiday work pattern is used to get the average hours in a working day to estimate the accrued hours figure into an estimated days figure.

Remaining Est Accrued (d):  the holiday work pattern is used to get the average hours in a working day to estimate the remaining accrued hours figure into an estimated days figure.

Remaining (h):  this figure is calculated from ‘entitlement hours’ plus ‘brought forward hours’ minus ‘taken hours’, ‘booked hours’ and ‘mandatory hours’.

Est Entitlement (d):  the holiday work pattern is used to get the average hours in a working day to estimate the entitlement hours figure into an estimated days figure.

Est Remaining (d):  this figure is an estimate from the ‘estimated entitlement in days’ minus ‘taken days’, ‘booked days’ and ‘mandatory days’.  The holiday work pattern is used to get the average hours in a working day.

To add a new holiday year to a user, click ‘Add’ or to make changes to an existing year, click ‘Edit’.  Make sure to click ‘Update’ before saving the user’s profile to make sure any changes are saved.

Entitlement (h):  when a holiday period is added to the user the default holiday entitlement figure will be automatically entered, but this can be overridden if required.  Any configured mandatory days will be deducted from this amount but non-working days will not so these should not be included in the entitlement figure.

Notes:  text can be entered here to explain any changes that have been made.  These notes will not be visible to the end user, they are for reference in this screen only.

Period Start and Period End:  the default holiday start and end dates will also be automatically pulled through but these can be overridden if needed.

Brought Forward (h):  if a user is carrying forward any entitlement from a previous holiday period, this can be entered in the ‘Brought Forward’ hours.  This will keep these entitlement hours separate from the standard entitlement hours.

Mandatory Hours:  if the user will have any hours deducted due to mandatory holidays, this will show the total hours.

Click the padlock icon to lock or unlock a holiday period to prevent or allow holiday requests to be submitted.  Any holiday periods that are not locked will be processed in the month end routine.

Holiday Entitlement can also be imported, or use the Holiday Year End tool explained later in this Help and User Guide.

12.3. Company Access Tab

If linking Holidays to Timesheets, the users will need to be linked through to an Employee (if Approvals is linking to Sicon Projects) or Resource (if using Project Accounting) so time posts correctly through to the Project.

Highlight the company from the available companies list that the user should have access to and click ‘Select’ to assign to the user.  Multiple companies can be allocated at a time by holding the shift button.

Resource:  if Sicon Projects or Project Accounting is enabled, link the user to the Employee or Resource by selecting the correct name from the drop-down box.  Always click Update once an Employee is selected.  A resource will be required if entering expense claims, timesheets or holiday requests, and to view projects in the project enquiry screen, where the user is marked as a project manager in Sicon Projects.

Touch Screen Default:  if using T&A Terminals and the user has access to more than one Company, select the company which should be the default on logging in or out by ticking this box.

13. User Setup - Holidays

Under User Setup – Holidays option, the Holiday Tools menu is displayed where starting holiday figures can be allocated to users (this is useful if the holiday module is being implemented part way through the holiday year), holiday rules set between users, entitlement assigned for future years or bank or mandatory holidays added or removed from users’ timesheets.

13.1. Starting Holiday

The starting holiday tool can be used to adjust a user’s holiday entitlement if they are starting with the organisation part way through the year.  The user would have been allocated a full yearly entitlement on their user profile and then this tool will deduct the hours the user has already taken in holiday up to the current date.

This tool should only be run once per user.

Once a user has been selected, their entitlement will be displayed.  To add a holiday adjustment line, click ‘Add new starting holiday’.

Start Date/Time / End Date / Time:  enter a start and end date and time; these must be in the past but within the current holiday year.  These dates are for description only to show to the user on their entitlement page.

Total Hours:  ensure the total hours are correct for the holiday the user has taken; this will be the working hours in a day multiplied by the total number of days they have taken.  In the above example the user works 7.5 hours a day and has taken 2 days.

Attempt to add to timesheet:  if required, holiday requests could be added to a timesheet line, however in most instances of using this functionality, this would not be required.

Description (Optional):  A default description is added per holiday adjustment line, but this can be edited if needed – some sites will add in the exact holiday dates the user has taken.

Once the hours are correct, save the adjustment line.  This will then show an updated entitlement chart to include the hours on the adjustment as ‘Taken’.  In the above example, the 15 hours equates to 2 days.

Once this line has been added, the user will be able to see this line under the Entitlement banner showing current requests – it will be highlighted as an adjustment line.

13.2. Holiday Rules

Holidays module can ensure that specified users either cannot request holiday when another user has already booked the day off, or approvers are warned there is a conflict between users.

Select the user account from the ‘Configure Rules For’ drop down box and select any number of users that will conflict with the user’s holiday (hold the Ctrl key while selecting users to multi select).  If any users in the selected users list already have the day(s) booked off, then the first user and the approver will either be warned or the user will not be able to submit the request (depending on system configuration).

Also create/remove reversed rules:  if this option is selected, when a rule is created for User A to be warned when User B is away, then the opposite rule will be created at the same time.  The rules are not linked and can be edited or deleted separately at any time if things change later.

Why would you use Holiday Rules?

Holiday Rules Example 1

Holiday rules may be setup to warn approvers of users within a certain team; e.g. users within a Support team may conflict so the approver does not allow all users to be off at the certain time.

Holiday Rules Example 2

Holiday rules may be setup between employees with certain roles, e.g. First Aiders or Fire Marshalls.  The organisation may require at least one first aider onsite at all times so approvers need to be made aware if this may not be possible.

Holiday Rules Example 3

If all users must be present on a certain day for mandatory staff training, set up a user called ‘Staff Training’, enter a holiday request for the training day and configure all users to conflict with this ‘Staff Training’ user.  It will then highlight to approvers if someone is submitting a holiday request which would make them absent for the training.

13.3. Holiday Entitlement Year End

This procedure is a quick way to create next year’s entitlement for many users; users might not be on the same holiday period if the user has started at different times in the year.  This functionality allows the Superuser the ability to review all users’ holiday entitlement and create future years’ entitlement for many users at once.

Select the users to either add or update entitlement, make sure the new entitlement figures are correct, enter any notes and then ‘Save’.  If users already have entitlement given for the future year, the figure will be updated if it has been changed.

This option is simply a way of creating entitlement in bulk for the following year and will not write off any holiday.  If holiday dates should be written off and marked as paid, this can be done using the Month End Process outlined later in this Help and User Guide.

13.4. Bank Holiday Tool

Note, this section is only relevant if using the Timesheet module.  This tool can be used to add or remove bank holidays from a user; for example, if a user works over a bank holiday, they should not have a line on their timesheets for this holiday.

Select the user(s) to add or remove dates from.

Choose the bank holiday dates to add or remove from the user(s); the years can be filtered if required or multiple dates selected at a time.

Once all the correct dates have been chosen, confirm whether they are to be added or removed from the user.  Note; if adding a bank holiday, this will remove any previous entries from the user’s timesheet and add again with the current default project and work pattern.

Choose whether to remove bank holiday timesheet lines, login lines and whether to delete the timesheet if there are no other entries remaining.

Start processing the bank holiday tool.  A progress bar will show along with any errors that may be logged.

For further information on Timesheets, please refer to the Timesheets Help and User Guide.

13.5. Mandatory Holiday Tool

Note, this section is only relevant if using the Timesheet module.  This tool can be used to add or remove mandatory days from a user; for example, if a user works over a mandatory day, they should not have a line on their timesheets for this.  This will not affect users’ entitlement so additional time may need adding manually.

Select the user(s) to add or remove dates from.

Choose the mandatory holiday date(s) to add or remove from the user(s); the years can be filtered if required or multiple dates selected at a time.

Once all the correct dates have been chosen, confirm whether they are to be added or removed from the user.  Note; if adding a mandatory holiday, this will remove any previous entries from the user’s timesheet and add again with the current default project and work pattern.

Choose whether to remove mandatory holiday timesheet lines, login lines and whether to delete the timesheet if there are no other entries remaining.

Start processing the mandatory holiday tool.  A progress bar will show along with any errors that may be logged.

For further information on Timesheets, please refer to the Timesheets Help and User Guide.

14. Part Time Users

If an employee is a part-time worker, it is possible to flag them as such on their user profile; this will mean that their entitlement will show in hours rather than days, and if the organisation allows for booking in single hours, this will be defaulted when the user goes to submit a holiday request.

14.1. Part Time Users' Work Patterns

Similar to full time users, a part time user requires a holiday and timesheet work pattern created; it may be that many work patterns need creating to cover all variations of part time users’ working hours.  Holiday work patterns should average the user’s weekly working hours across their working days to ensure the same hourly entitlement is deducted regardless of the holiday day requested.   The AM and PM shifts must contain the same number of hours so as not to take more entitlement from either a morning or afternoon holiday request.  If a part-time user doesn’t work a morning or afternoon shift, this will need to be added in as a non-working shift to ensure the correct entitlement is deducted.

In the below example a holiday work pattern has been created for a user who works two 7.5 hour shifts on Wednesday and Thursday and a 6-hour shift on Friday (so the average entitlement to deduct would be 7 hours across Wednesday to Friday – the user is working 21 hours across three days).  N.B. if Timesheets are also being used, Holiday AM shift start time must match the corresponding Timesheet AM shift start time, and the Holiday PM shift end time must match the corresponding Timesheet PM shift end time.  Below the Holiday work pattern is the corresponding Timesheet work pattern for reference.

For assistance with setup of Holiday work patterns, please contact your Sage BP or Sicon Project Admin contact in the first instance.

Part Time user’s holiday work pattern:

Part Time user’s timesheet work pattern:

14.2. Part Time Users' Holiday Entitlement

On the user’s profile, under the Holidays tab, select their Holiday work pattern to be the correct Part Time Work Pattern.  There is a Part Time calculator which can be used to estimate a user’s entitlement, based on the full-time work pattern and full-time entitlement.  This figure generated is only for reference and won’t automatically update the user’s entitlement.

N.B.: the user will need to be allocated entitlement for the current year before the calculation can take place.

The user’s entitlement hours will need to be updated to make sure that they are not allocated a full-time user’s yearly entitlement.

15. Configuration of Holiday Approval Routes

Before a user submits a holiday request, ensure approval routes have been setup correctly.  Approval routes can be only be configured based on the requesting user.  Approval would usually go to the user’s line manager and may also require additional approval from another manager or HR approver.  If the holiday request should go to a couple of managers at the same time, use the ‘Advanced’ option to build a user list.

Important features of holiday requests:

Holiday requests do not have a value assigned so it is not possible to set an approval value against the document type ‘Holiday Request’. In the example above, Hayden and Havana happen to both have approval values for other documents but this is not necessary; users with 0 approval will still be able to approve the holiday requests.

Holiday requests are not linked to a Sage database so this will not need to be selected when creating approval routes, either in the front end or using the import. When running reports, do not select a Sage database.

16. Using Approvals - End User

The next few sections are aimed at users who will be raising and approving Holiday Requests.

17. New Holiday Request (Holidays - Create New)

Once the system settings, user entitlement and approval route configuration has been completed, the user will be able to click New Holiday Request from their dashboard or the navigation menu (Holidays – Create New).

Holiday requests can be marked as ‘Urgent’ with an explanation provided; this means once submitted the request to approvers as soon as the holiday line is submitted, outside of the standard email thread times.

17.1. Adding a New Date

To add a new holiday line to the request, click ‘Add New Request Line’.

A pop up will show to enter dates etc.

Days / half-days:  by default, this option will be selected.  If the system has been configured to allow booking in single hours, an additional radio button will show and users can book requests in hours rather than days or half days.  If this setting is on and a user has been flagged as a part-time user, their default will be to book in single hours.

Start Date / Time:  enter the holiday start day and select when this should begin – either the beginning of the AM or PM shift.

End Date / Time:  enter the holiday end day and select when this should end – either the end of the AM or PM shift.

Description (Optional):  a description can be entered against the request if required but this is not a mandatory field.  If a description has been entered and not hidden, it will show on the holiday calendar.

Hide description:  if required, the description can be hidden – this means it will only show to the approver and will not appear on the calendar.

Leave Type:  select the correct leave type, either Annual Leave or Unpaid.  If TOIL has been enabled users can select this as an option also.

Alternative User:  if the user submitting the holiday request is an approver, they can select an alternate user here.  When the holiday starts the user’s out of office will be automatically switched on, any documents they have to approve will go to the alternate user selected above and the out of office will be switched off when the holiday request has finished.

Save or Close:  either save the request line or close to cancel.

If holiday rules have been configured and there is a conflict when a user submits a holiday request, the following message will appear:

The holiday request will show to the end user with the dates, description if entered and any conflicts.  To save the request to either make any changes or to allow for more information to be added later, click the Save button.  This will store the request without sending it for approval.  To submit the request for approval, click Save and Submit.  To close the screen without making any further changes, click the Close button.  Any additional dates will need to be submitted as a new request.

17.2. Entitlement Tab

These tabs will show to the user their current holiday period details, accrual information and all existing requests.  The user can toggle between entitlement years, if future years have been given to the user, and whether to show entitlement as days or as hours.  Make sure to click the Update button if changing how entitlement should show.

Details Sub Tab

This chart will show the breakdown of submitted, taken, booked, mandatory and remaining holiday days.  An explanation will show average hours in a day as well as any brought forward or carried forward hours.

Accrual Sub Tab

This chart will show entitlement the user has accrued (either from the start of the holiday period or from the user’s start date) compared to what the user has taken.

Requests Sub Tab

Any holiday requests the user has entered will show here as well as mandatory days and any adjustment holiday requests.

17.3. Calendar Tab

Holiday dates booked or submitted by the user can be seen in the calendar.  Depending on user type permissions, the user will be able to see their requests, their business unit requests or all users’ holiday requests.  Holiday requests on the calendar are colour coded to show the difference between un-submitted, submitted, approved and taken requests.  Bank holiday and mandatory days will also show on the calendar.

17.4. Part Time Users' Holiday Request

When a user has been marked as a part time user and puts on a holiday request, their entitlement will be automatically shown in hours (rather than days), although there is an option to convert to days if this is how the user would rather see their entitlement figures.

If the system allows for booking in single hours, when a part time user enters a new holiday request it will be defaulted for them to put on a request in single hours.  The user can switch to enter a holiday request in days or half days.

If a holiday request spans non-working days (in our part time user example they do not work Mondays or Tuesdays), this will be flagged to the approver that the request includes non-working days.  Once the holiday work pattern has been setup so any non-working days are configured correctly, the user’s holiday request will not deduct any holiday entitlement for these days.  The below request was added for Thursday – Wednesday so should only deduct three days of entitlement.

This will also show to the user submitting the holiday by hovering over the request line.

17.5. Approval History Tab

Once the holiday request has been submitted, the Approval History tab will get populated with approvers, dates and times.  If the request has been marked as urgent, the reason given will also show on this tab.

18. New Quick Holiday Request

Once the system settings, user entitlement and approval route configuration has been configured, the user will be able to create a Quick Holiday Request from the navigation menu (Menu – Holidays – Quick New).

Through this request there is no option to view additional tabs such as entitlement or calendar – these options are only visible if using the standard holiday request entry screen.  Quick holiday requests cannot be saved either, once completed they must either be submitted for approval or the pop-up closed.

Days / half-days:  this option will be selected by default.  If the system has been configured to allow booking in single hours, an additional radio button will show and users can book requests in hours rather than days or half days.  If this setting is on and a user has been flagged as a part-time user, their default will be to book in single hours.

Start Date / Time:  enter the holiday start day and select when this should begin – either the beginning of the AM or PM shift.

End Date / Time:  enter the holiday end day and select when this should end – either the end of the AM or PM shift.

Description (Optional):  a description can be entered against the request if required but this is not a mandatory field.  If a description has been entered, it will show on the holiday calendar.

Hide description:  if required, the description can be hidden – this means it will only show to the approver and will not appear on the calendar.

Leave Type:  select the correct leave type, either Annual Leave or Unpaid.  If TOIL has been enabled users can select this as an option also.

Alternative User:  if the user submitting the holiday request is an approver, they can select an alternate user here.  When the holiday starts the user’s Approvals out of office will be automatically switched on, any documents they have to approve will go to the alternate user selected above and the Approvals out of office will be switched off when the holiday request has finished.

Save & Submit or Close:  either submit the request for approval or close to cancel.

If there is a conflict, this will still show when the request has been submitted.

19. Approve Holiday Request

To get to the approval page, either click on one of the approval links on the user’s dashboard, or select Approve Holiday Requests from the side menu on the left side of the page.

To open a request to see line details, click on the arrow on the left side of the line.

19.1. Approval Page - Lines Tab

This tab will show key information to the approver which should provide enough information for the approver to either approve or reject the request.

Start and End Time:  these will show the start and end time and dates of the user’s holiday request.

Break Inc (h):  this will show if the requesting user is including their break on their holiday request (only relevant to sites using breaks in work patterns – many sites would not use this).

Total Hours:  based on the holiday pattern linked to the user this will show the total hours on the holiday request – hovering over the total hours will convert the total to days.  Any non-working days (i.e. weekends) will show in the hover over too.

Description:  if the user had entered a description on the line, this would show here.

Reject Reason:  this will only be populated if the holiday request was rejected by an approver.

Unpaid:  if when the user put on their holiday request, the request was taken selected as an unpaid request, this box would be ticked and will not be taken from the user’s annual entitlement.

Out of Office:  if the approver has this request to approve because they have been selected as another user’s out of office alternate user, this box will be ticked.

Conflicts/Conflicts With:  this will indicate that this holiday request conflicts with another user and will show the relevant user(s).  Clicking on the conflict icon will open a calendar popup to give more detail on the conflicts to see whether the conflict is across the whole holiday dates or just some of the request.

Over Entitlement:  this will be ticked if the number of days requested will take the user over their annual entitlement.

Over Accrual:  this will be ticked if the request takes the user over the amount of holiday they have accrued.

Extension:  this will be ticked if this request is an extension to another request the user has submitted; i.e. if the user put on a request for one week and submitted another request for either the following or preceding week, this will mark the second request as an extension.

Cancelled Request:  this will be ticked if the request is a cancellation request; the line will also have a strikethrough to indicate it is a cancellation request.

Approve/Reject:  the approver can approve or reject the request as applicable; if the request is rejected a reason for the rejection must be entered.

View Request Details:  this will take the approver through to the original holiday request page.

19.2. Approval Page - Approval History Tab

This tab will show detailed information on the approval history of the request; when it was submitted, when it was approved and by whom.

19.3. Approval Page - Approver Messages Tab

This tab will show a breakdown of the holiday request detailing any conflicts, descriptions, entitlement hours etc.

19.4. Approval Page - Entitlement Tab

This tab will show to the approver details on the user’s entitlement figures; how many days’ entitlement they have versus what has been submitted, booked, taken etc.  The accrual and requests tabs will also show to provide this additional information to the approver.

19.5. Approve Holiday Requests - Calendar Tab

The Calendar tab can be used by the approver to view other holiday requests that have been submitted or approved; the options at the top will be determined by the user type permissions; whether they can view business unit or all users’ requests.

19.6. Approved Holiday on Timesheet

Once the holiday has been fully approved, if linking with a costing module and the Timesheet module, the approved holiday will post onto the timesheet.  The project and header selected will be as configured in Default Holiday Projects.  For more information, please see earlier in the Help and User Guide.

20. Existing Holiday Requests

A user can view their requests by clicking the Show Existing button from within the Holidays menu. Using the Quick Links, the user is either able to view their requests or requests they have approved (if they are an approver). Holiday requests will be sorted by status and show in the relevant tabs.

The Calendar tab shows the user’s requests and if the user has relevant permissions, those submitted by other users in their Business Unit, or all users.

20.1. Viewing an Existing Holiday Request

Click on edit against a holiday request to open up and either view or make changes.  If users have permission they may be able to delete a holiday request.  Holiday requests can only be deleted if they have not been approved.

If changes are made to a request that has not been fully approved, submit it again to send for approval with the updated details.  Once a request has been fully approved changes cannot be made.

20.2. Cancelling an Existing Holiday Request

Once a holiday request has been approved, it cannot be deleted.  A user must submit a cancellation request if they no longer wish to take this holiday.  This allows the approver to either approve the cancellation request which will result in the time being added back onto the user’s entitlement, or if necessary, reject the cancellation request which will mean the user will have to take the time off.

To cancel an approved request, the user will need to find their original approved request, click to edit and then select Cancel on the line.  A prompt will appear to the user explaining this request will be submitted for approval and the hours will be available to re-book.

Once the cancellation request has been submitted, the request will be sent down the user’s holiday request approval route.  The approver is aware that this is a cancellation request as the lines are crossed through and the request has been marked as a Cancellation request on the lines and in the ‘Type’ column at the top of the list of holiday approvals.

Once the request has been fully approved, it will show to the user as Approved and Cancelled.  Once the date has passed it will move through to the Completed tab.  If the cancelled holiday was conflicting with another user, they would be sent an email notifying them of the cancellation.

20.3. Resetting a Completed holiday Request

Once a holiday request is in the past, it cannot be deleted as it is marked as Completed.  A user must submit a cancellation request if they had not taken this holiday; i.e. if a user had booked a day off but was then called in and had to work that day.  To cancel a completed request, the user will need to find their original approved request, click to view and then select Cancel on the line.  A prompt will appear to the user explaining this request will be submitted for approval and the hours will be available to re-book.

The ability to reset a completed holiday request is a user type permission.

Once the cancellation request has been submitted, the request will be sent down the user’s holiday request approval route.  The approver is aware that this is a cancellation request as the lines are crossed through and the request has been marked as a Cancellation request.

Once the request has been fully approved, it will show to the user as Completed and Cancelled.

21. Entering Holiday Requests for Other Users

If a user has permission to enter holiday requests for other users (e.g. a team leader may require the ability to enter holiday requests for their team members); when they go to enter a new holiday request, they can change the requested by field.  User Type permissions will determine whether users can enter holiday requests for all users, or their delegates.  Approval routes will be used based on the ‘Requested By’ user (the user whose holiday request it is), not the ‘Entered By’ user (the user who is putting the request on the system).

It is not possible to select another user if using the ‘Quick Holiday Request’ functionality.

22. Holiday Approval Stage

22.1. Holiday Header Status

New:  the holiday request has not yet been submitted.

Submitted:  the holiday request has been submitted for approval but not yet fully approved.

Approved:  the holiday request has been fully approved but the holiday date has not yet passed.

Rejected:  the holiday request has been rejected.

Completed:  the holiday request has either been taken or has been cancelled.

Failed:  the holiday request has failed during the approval process.  A user with the permission to clear errors would need to clear the error and repost.  A request may fail if trying to post time onto a timesheet and either the Holiday Default Project has not been set correctly, or the user’s holiday pattern has been changed since the original request was input.

22.2. Header Line Status

New Line:  the holiday line has not yet been submitted.

Waiting:  the holiday line is awaiting approval.

Authorised:  the holiday line has been approved.

Rejected:  the holiday line has been rejected.

No Authorisers:  there are no authorisers for the holiday line; check the approval route has been set correctly.

23. Approvals Holidays Additional Features

This final section explains some of the additional features within the Holidays Module, primarily aimed at Superusers and Line Managers.

24. Month End Processes

This should be a Superuser permission and is found under the Menu – Holidays – Month End menu.  This functionality can be run on a monthly basis to see which users’ holiday year is going to finish in the selected month (when users have different start/end holiday months).  It is also possible to create the next year’s entitlement with options for any remaining holiday; to either write off any remaining, to pay (this is a manual process to pay externally, it is just a record in Approvals) or to carry over to the new year’s entitlement and increase the user’s entitlement through the brought forward hours.

Once new entitlement has been created it will be visible on the user profile, under the Holiday tab:

N.B., once this tool has been run Approvals will close off the existing holiday period.  Therefore, this should only be used when the existing holiday period is ready to be closed and no further holiday booked to it.   To create a new entitlement without writing off existing holiday, it is recommended to use the Year End tool, Holiday Entitlement Import or update individual user entitlement within their User profile.

If an entitlement period already exists for the following year, any carried forward hours will be updated.  In the example below, the user already had a standard holiday year created, but at the year end the HR Administrator has run their reports and selected what to carry forward and what to pay.

User holiday prior to running Holiday Month End tool:

Month End tool used to write-off, pay, and carry forward holiday:

User holiday after running Holiday Month End tool:

25. Holiday Reports

There are three holiday reports available and as with all Approvals reports, customisation is possible by dragging columns to the top header to group, or columns moved around or removed by using the Customise button.  These reports are cookie based so it is necessary to allow cookies from the website to retain any customisation.  Specific layouts may be lost if the system is upgraded or the internet browser history is cleared.  All reports can be exported to Excel for easier manipulation if required.

With all these reports, right-click on any column header to view the options to export this to Excel or PDF if required.

25.1. Holiday Entitlement Report

This report will show all users and the current status relating to their annual entitlement such as total hours taken, booked, mandatory hours etc.  If “Use date as cut-off for calculations?” is selected, the accrual figures will change to reflect the selected date.

For example, a report can be run at the end of February to check how much holiday a user had accrued at that point and how much holiday they had taken.

25.2. Holiday Request Report

This report will show users and their holiday requests within a specified time period and cancellation requests can be shown if required.  Depending on user type permissions, the report will data from just the user running the report, their delegates, their business unit members or all users in the system.

25.3. Detailed Holiday Requests Reports

This report will show users’ requests in greater detail; it will include number of days booked, approval stages, any bank holidays in the request period etc.

26. Release Notes

The release notes page shows which release of the system includes new features or issues resolved.

At the release of Sicon v21 we announced that going forward, we will only be supporting Sage 200c and as such we are able to drop the year from our version numbers. We moved from 201.201.0.0 to 210.0.0.

New features detailed in the Release Notes relating to Pre-Release versions will not be detailed in the current Help and User Guide until the end of development phase.

27. Help & User Guide Archive

28. New Features & Important Information