This article explains how to approve or reject leave requests waiting for you. This is done by the approver of the current step in the Leave approval process defined for the employee's department (a specific person or the employee's manager). For how approval steps are defined, see Approval Process.
Before you start
A Leave approval process must be defined for the department. Otherwise requests are approved automatically and never reach you.
The request must be at your step. It does not reach you before the previous step is approved.
Step by step
From the home page
On the home page, find the leave row on the Awaiting your approval tab of Waiting for you (the inbox). For a quick approval, click Approve on the row; the window that opens shows the balance left after approval, and you approve with Approve. To reject, click the cross on the row.
To see the details, click the row. The Approve/Reject window shows the leave details, contact details and Remaining Leave Days Info (Employee's Current Leave Days, Requested Leave Days, Remaining After Approval). For leave types that require a document, the uploaded document is also here.
Click Approve or Reject. When rejecting, you can write a reason in Permission Rejection Description; on this card the reason is optional.
From the Leaves screen
In the left menu, go to Time and attendance > Leave.
On the row waiting for you, open the Actions menu and click Approve/Reject. This option appears only while the request is On Admin Approval and it is your turn. In the calendar view, clicking the leave opens the same menu (Listing, filtering and viewing leaves on a calendar in the Leaves screen).
Click Approve, or click Reject, enter the Leave Rejection Reason (mandatory, up to 225 characters) in the Reject Leave window and click Confirm Rejection.
Result
When you approve: If there is a next approval step, the request moves to it; the requester gets a "sent to next approval" notification and the next approvers get a waiting-for-approval notification. If it was the last step, the request becomes Approved and the requester gets an approval e-mail.
When you reject: The request becomes Rejected, the days return to the balance and the requester gets a rejection e-mail.
If the requester is an approver of a step, that step is passed automatically. If nobody can approve a step (for example, the employee has no manager), that step is skipped too.
If you approve or reject leave that falls into a closed payroll period, the action goes through and is logged; the closed payroll does not change.
Common problems
Symptom: The request is in the list but there is no Approve/Reject option.
Cause: The request is at another approval step or already finalised.
Solution: Hover over the Status column to see which approval step the request is at.
Symptom: Approve or Reject shows "This leave request is no longer at your approval step; another approver may have decided it." or "This leave request no longer waits for a decision".
Cause: While the list was open another approver of the same step decided, the request moved to the next step, or it was approved, rejected or withdrawn.
Solution: Nothing to do; the window closes and the list is refreshed. If the request reaches a later step of yours, it shows again with Approve/Reject.
Symptom: "You cannot decide on this employee's leave" warning.
Cause: You are not in the approval process of this employee's department and the employee is outside your branches.
Solution: Check the approval process on Configuration > Leave > Approval process, or leave the decision to an authorised approver.
Symptom: A team member's request never reached you and was approved directly.
Cause: No Leave approval process is defined for the employee's department, or the employee has no department.
Solution: Define an approval step for the department on Configuration > Leave > Approval process.
Symptom: You want to take back an approved leave.
Cause: Approved leave cannot be rejected from this screen.
Solution: A user with the LEAVE_DELETE permission must delete the leave (Cancelling a leave).