Once you have enabled the Two-Level Leave feature, your employees will require their leave request to have approval from their primary and secondary managers. Learn how to turn on/off two-level leave approval in this article.

The way this process works is:

1. The employee lodges their leave request.
2. Primary and secondary managers will receive an email notification of this leave request.
3. A manager (any of the two managers) approves the leave request.
   
   

   Important

   The status of the request will change to Partially Approved, with the first manager's name appearing when hovering over the leave request in the availability section.

4. The second manager now approves the leave request.
   
   

   Helpful Hint

   Employees with one manager will only require the primary manager to approve their request even though two-level leave approval is active.

   Important

   The status of the request will show Approved, and both managers’ names will appear when hovering over the leave request in the availability section.

The Workflow feature lets admins set up multiple levels of leave approval or automatically approve/decline leave requests that meet certain requirements.

This feature follows a "when-if-then" sequence for every step of the workflow. For example:

WHEN Leave Request Created
IF Hours Of Leave is less than 2 hours
THEN Automatically approve

For more information on how the "when-if-then" sequence works, see the Further Information section of this article.

To set up a leave workflow, follow this process:

1. Click the WorkFlows menu.
2. Select the Leave tab.
3. Choose the type of workflow you would like to set up. For example, you can choose:
   • Time off automation
   • Multi-level leave approval
   • Automatically decline leave requests between specified dates
   • Automatically approve leave requests for specified categories
4. The triggers and conditions will automatically populate but you can change them for your requirements. Firstly, click the WHEN field.
   
5. Complete the following fields:
   • When (the options available will change depending on which workflow you have selected, below is an example only):
     • Leave request created.
     • Leave request declined.
     • Leave request approved
6. Click the Save button.
   
7. Click the IF field.
   
8. Complete the following fields:
   • Field (the options available will change depending on which workflow you have selected, below is an example only):
     • Approver.
     • Comments.
     • Days of leave.
     • Decliner.
     • End date.
     • Hours of leave.
     • Leave category.
     • Employee.
     • Start date.
     • Team.
   • Condition (the available conditions depend on the field you have selected, some examples include.
   • Value (the available values depend on the field and condition you have selected)
9. Click the Save button.
   
10. Click the THEN field.
    
11. Click the Add Action button.
    
12. Complete the following fields:
    • Then (the options available will change depending on which workflow you have selected, below is an example only):
      • Request approval.
        • Approver.
        • Backup approver.
      • Automatically approve.
        • Approver's name.
      • Automatically decline:
        • Decline reason.
        • Decliner.
      • Send email notification:
        • Type of recipients.
        • Subject.
        • Contents.
13. Click the Save button.
    
14. Click the Save and Publish button.
    
    

    Helpful Hint

    To add an additional step, click the  button below the last step. Also, you need to publish this workflow for it to become active.

    

Employment Hero sends various email notifications to keep you updated on essential activities, including payroll alerts, HR updates, and system notifications. For a complete list of the types of emails you may receive, see our article:

Understand the emails Employment Hero sends out

The Leave WorkFlows feature lets you create a set of steps that Employment Hero will take regarding leave request approvals. Each step follows the When-If-Then sequence, which is like this:

• When this happens -> If this condition is met -> Then do this.
  • "When" is the situation that will trigger the workflow.
  • "If" is the condition that decides what action should be taken.
  • "Then" is the action that the platform will take.

To visualise this better, please see the examples below. "X" and "Y" in these scenarios refer to values you can pick and enter on Employment Hero.

1. When an employee submits a leave request, If the leave hours is more than "X", Then the leave request will be sent to the executive leadership team for approval.
2. When an employee submits a leave request, If the leave hours is more than "X", Then the leave request will be automatically declined.
3. When an employee submits a leave request, If the leave request comment contains "christmas", Then the leave request will be automatically approved.
4. When an employee submits a leave request, If start date is after "X" AND end date is before "Y", Then the leave request will be automatically approved.

When you click the "IF" field when creating a workflow, the "Add conditions" panel will slide out. There, you will have to fill in the following: Field, Condition, and Value.

Below those is the Add condition button, which lets you set up an additional condition to come with the first one. When you click this button, you will be asked to choose between:

• And condition - This means the platform will take action only if BOTH the original and additional conditions are met.
• Or condition - This means the platform will take action if EITHER the original or additional condition is met.

To demonstrate this, here are some examples:

And condition:

For the image below, the platform will act only if the leave request falls between 15/02/2024 and 22/02/2024 AND has a category of Annual Leave. The platform will not take the specified action in the "THEN" field if both are not met, even if one of the conditions is followed.

Or condition:

For the image below, the platform will take action if the leave request falls between 15/02/2024 and 22/02/2024 OR is filed by employee Armin Jaeger.

There just needs to be at least one condition met for the platform to act. So, the workflow will still function if two, three, or more conditions were met.

For our example, this means the workflow will act if the leave request falls between the date range provided, even if a different employee filed it. The platform will also function if employee Armin Jaeger filed the request, even if the request falls outside the date range provided.