Leave management
Approval chains
Send leave requests through several approvers in order, such as manager, then HR, then a director.
- Plans
- ProEnterprise
- Who
- Owner, Admin, HR
- Where
- Settings → Leave → Approval chains
- How to enable
- Create a chain, then pick it in a leave policy.
An approval chain is an ordered list of approvers that a leave request passes through. You build a chain once and attach it to any number of leave policies. Policies without a chain use the default: one approval from the employee's manager.
How it works
- Steps. A chain has 1 to 10 steps. Each step is the employee's direct manager, their manager's manager, or a specific person in your organization.
- Which requests use it. A request uses the chain on the policy for its leave type at the employee's location.
- In order. Each approver sees the request only when it's their turn. A rejection at any step ends the request, and approval at the last step approves it.
- Fixed at submit. The chain's approvers are saved on each request when it's submitted, so editing the chain later doesn't affect requests already waiting.
- Missing people. Steps that can't be filled, such as a manager's manager who doesn't exist, are skipped. If no step can be filled, the request goes to the employee's manager. If there's no manager either, it's approved automatically.
- Delegation. If an approver has delegated their approvals when a request is submitted, their steps go to the substitute.
- Reminders. By default, an approver who hasn't acted within 48 hours gets a reminder, then one a day. From the second reminder on a step that isn't the last, owners, admins and HR are also notified.
Good to know
- Leave types set to auto-approve skip the chain, unless a blackout period requires approval.
- Deleting a chain moves its policies back to the manager default.
- On Free, every request takes a single approval from the manager. If you move to Free, chains already attached to policies keep routing requests, but you can't create or edit chains.