Configure my organisation's leave workflows

1. Navigate to Leave Workflows:
   • Log in to Employment Hero.
   • Go to WorkFlows and click Create New.
   • Select Leave, then click Create New.

2. Set the Trigger (WHEN this happens):

   Click the WHEN this happens field, select one of the following trigger events, and click Save:

   • Leave Request Created
   • Leave Request Fully Declined
   • Leave Request Fully Approved
   • Leave Request Cancelled

3. Define the Conditions (IF these conditions are met):

   Click the IF these conditions are met field, define your criteria, and click Save:

   • Field: Approve, Comments, Days of leave, Decline, Employee, End date, Hours of leave, Leave category, Start date, Team, or Total days of sick leave taken in the last 3, 6 or 12 months.
   • Condition: Is one of, Is not one of, Is equal to, Does not equal, Is today, Is tomorrow, or Is next month.
   • Value: Enter the target value or threshold for your chosen condition.

   Helpful Hint

   When setting thresholds for Days of leave or Total days of sick leave taken in the last 3, 6 or 12 months for hourly Sick and Personal/Carer's leave, values are calculated proportionally to two decimal places (e.g. 29 hours ÷ 7.6 hours = 3.82 days). 

4. Select the Action (THEN do this):

   Click the THEN do this field, configure one of the following actions, and click Save:

   • Request Approval:
     • Approval Flow Type: Choose All approvers must approve (sequential), All approvers must approve (parallel), or Any approver can approve.
     • Primary Approvers: Click Add approver to specify each reviewer.
     • Backup Approvers: Select whether to assign an individual backup per approver, use a single backup for all, or require no backups.
   • Automatically Approve: Specify the designated approver's name.
   • Automatically Decline: Select the decliner and supply a decline reason.

   • Send Email Notification: Specify recipients, subject, and body content.

     Helpful Hint

     • External Recipients: Enter complete email addresses (e.g., john.smith@domain.com) to send notifications outside the organization.
     • Dynamic Subject Lines: Use the dynamic variable icon in the subject field to personalize with employee names, dates, or details.
     • Clickable Hyperlinks: Use the link icon to insert URLs directly into the notification body.
     • Multiple Recipients: Combine specific employees, roles, teams, and external addresses in a single step.
   • Create Task: Useful for handover reminders and document compliance. Enter the task name, description, owner, due date, subtasks, and optional email recipients.

5. Save and Publish:

   Click Save and Publish to activate the workflow.

   Helpful Hint

   Workflows only apply to leave requests submitted after the workflow is published. Any requests submitted beforehand must be actioned manually under the previous process or resubmitted by the employee.

Available for the following EmploymentOS plans: Plus, Unlimited HR, Elite, Unlimited HR+Payroll
Available for the following HR Classic plans: Free, Standard, Premium, Platinum
Available for the following user access levels: Manager, Admin

The Restrict Admin Overrides toggle button lets you enforce mandatory approvals for specific workflows. When on, admins cannot skip steps, ensuring compliance. The setting is locked once published for stability. If no approver is found with this on, the workflow owner is notified. Admins explicitly assigned as approvers can still approve. All override attempts are validated.

If toggled OFF:

• Admins can override approval steps as needed.
• However, in the case where the default workflow (OFF) and another custom workflow (ON) are published at the same time, any leave request that matches both workflows will have admin overrides restricted (even when it is off for the default workflow).

If toggled ON:

• Admins are strictly prevented from overriding any approval steps within that workflow.
• Employment Hero will fully enforce the designed approval path with no bypass allowed.

1. Log in to Employment Hero.
2. Click the WorkFlows menu option.
3. Click the Manage Workflows tab.
4. Click Leave option.
5. Click on the Restrict Admin Overrides tile. 
6. Click on the Workflow Settings button.
7. In the pop-up screen, toggle on Restrict Admin Workflows. The toggle will appear purple when toggled on.
8. Click Save in the bottom right-hand side of the screen.

1. Log in to Employment Hero.
2. Click the WorkFlows menu option.
3. Click the Manage Workflows tab.
4. Click Leave option.
5. Click the  button for the workflow you need to publish.
6. Click the Publish button.

1. Log in to Employment Hero.
2. Click the WorkFlows menu option.
3. Click the Manage Workflows tab.
4. Click Leave button.
5. Click the  button for the workflow you need to unpublish.

6. Click the Unpublish button.

   Important

   If the default workflow for Leave Requests is unpublished, managers will be unable to approve or decline leave requests (but admins still can). Those options will be greyed out.
   
   For Leave Requests, we recommend you either keep the default workflow active or ensure another workflow is in place to allow these actions to proceed.

1. Log in to Employment Hero.
2. Click the WorkFlows menu option.
3. Click the Manage Workflows tab.
4. Click Leave button.
5. Click the  button for the workflow you need to edit.
6. Click the Edit button.
7. Edit the workflow as needed.
8. Click the Save button.

1. Log in to Employment Hero.
2. Click the WorkFlows menu option.
3. Click the Manage Workflows tab.
4. Click Leave button.
5. Click the  button for the workflow you need to delete.
6. Click the Delete button.

The Employee File Change Workflows feature lets you create a set of steps that Employment Hero will take regarding expense claims. 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 relating to expense claims. "X" and "Y" in these scenarios refer to values you can pick and enter on Employment Hero.

1. When an employee submits an expense claim request, If the expense claim amount is more than "X", Then the request will be sent to the executive leadership team for approval.
2. When an employee submits an expense claim request, If the expense claim category is "X", Then the request will be automatically declined.
3. When an employee submits an expense claim request, If the expense claim currency is "X", Then the request will be automatically approved.
4. When an employee submits an expense claim request, If purchase start date is after "X" AND end date is before "Y", Then the request will be automatically approved.

For hourly Sick and Personal/Carer's leave requests, Employment Hero uses accurate proportional calculations to determine the number of days taken.

How it is calculated

• Calculation method: Partial-day Sick and Personal/Carer's leave is calculated by dividing actual hours taken by the employee's typical working hours per day: 
  Days of Leave = Actual hours taken ÷ Typical working hours per day
• Decimal precision: Calculated days are rounded to two decimal places (e.g. 29 hours ÷ 7.6 hours = 3.82 days).
• Default working hours: If an employee's typical working day is not configured in their profile, the calculation automatically defaults to 7.6 hours per day.
• Applicable conditions: This calculation applies to the Days of leave field and the Total days of sick leave taken in the last 3, 6 or 12 months condition for hourly Sick and Personal/Carer's leave.
• Historical leave & other categories: Only approved leave is included in historical sick leave totals. Existing threshold values and evaluation time windows remain unchanged. Other leave types are not affected by this calculation logic.

No, the When-If-Then sequence cannot be changed.

An IF field must always come before a THEN field.

Examples:

You cannot perform a THEN action and then have the workflow re-evaluate new IF conditions as part of the same workflow run. You will need to split these into separate workflows.

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 expense claim amount is over 5,000 AND has a category of Miscellaneous. 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 expense claim amount is over 5,000 OR has a category of Meal Allowance. 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 expense claim amount is over 5,000, even if it falls under a different expense category. The platform will also function if the request is under the Meal Allowance category, even if the amount is less than 5,000.

Restrict Admin Overrides is evaluated at the time a request is triggered, not at the time an admin attempts to override.

Once a request is created, it inherits the toggle setting from the workflow version that was active at that moment.

This enforcement state is persisted for the lifetime of the request, even if the workflow is later unpublished or the toggle is changed.

This ensures:

• Consistent enforcement for each request.
• No retroactive changes to approval rules
• Clear audit trails and compliance alignment

• If you are creating a custom workflow, we recommend to unpublish the default workflow before publishing a custom workflow to prevent conflicts and unexpected behaviours.
• Because of the above, clients need to ensure all scenarios are considered when making custom leave workflows. If a user meets criteria in multiple workflows, only one will trigger at random, which can cause unpredictable results. This is a common issue often when a custom leave workflow is created but the default has not been unpublished. If a user meets a workflows’ criteria multiple times, only the first matching pathway will trigger.
• The default leave workflow cannot be edited.