Time off enhancements

An improved interface for managing time off types and user policies

We’ve updated the interface used to add and edit time off types, and the Time Off tab in user profiles.

The key change is that each time off type will now display on a ‘card’. A section is added to the card for each new policy, and that's where you can choose which rules to add to the policy.

These cards make it easier to view and compare policies as you add or update user settings.

Quarterly accruals and resets

You can now choose to have policies accrue or reset once every quarter, at the beginning or end of the quarter. The existing frequency options are still available.

Automatic calculation of accrual amounts based on total time off entitlements

Previously, you had to calculate how much a user needs to accrue each week or month in order to reach their total (typically annual) entitlement. Now, you enter their yearly total (e.g. 120 hours off), select an accrual period (e.g. weekly), and accrual amounts will be calculated by the system automatically (e.g. 2.31 hours accrued per week).

The user’s current balance is visible from their user profile

The user’s current time off balance displays in the top, right-hand corner of the policy card for each time off type. This makes it easier for administrators to check the current balance when they’re making adjustments to policy settings.

A link to their transaction history is also available, to make it easy to find and view how the employee's balance changes over time.

An improved interface for users to view their policy details

When employees view their policy details, they’ll see the details laid out in the same format used when administrators manage policies.

Flexible validation options

Time Off History template has been replaced by the Time Off Transaction Details template

The Time Off Transaction Details report template:

• Has a single column that shows the change in balance for a transaction, instead of separate columns for each transaction type, making the report easier to understand

• Has a Department sub-filter in the User filter, but no stand-alone Department filter

The Time Off Balances template is streamlined

The Time Off Balances template includes a Time Off Balance, Time Off Accrued, Time Off Taken and Current Hourly Payroll column for reporting on balances.

However it excludes several other columns that it previously included, including the following:

• Balance From Last Reset
• Starting Balance
• Cost of Remaining Time Off
• Deposited Banked Time
• Hourly Payroll (As Of Date) 

Also, the template includes a Department sub-filter in the User filter, and user groups filters, but has no stand-alone Department filter.

A single unit (hours or days) is used for each time off type

Previously, we supported using different units for managing accrual policies and for displaying time off to users for a single time off type. This caused confusion.

If you used a different unit (hours or days) in policies than you used for displaying time off to users, Replicon will now use the display unit in both cases.

For example, imagine the scenario where you use days to display Vacation time, but hours to manage Vacation policies. In this system, if a user who works 8 hours per day accrued 10 Vacation hours each month, they will continue to see an accrual of 1.25 days each month (10 hours / 8 hours/day). However, that accrual will now also display as 1.25 days per month when their administrator manages their Vacation policy.

We chose to use the display units to minimize disruption, since the display units are used with end users, whereas the policy units were only visible to administrators.

No explicit Previous Balance carry over option

You can still carry over a full balance amount from a previous policy; if you don’t assign a starting policy rule, the balance will automatically be carried over. However, no transaction will be recorded for this carryover in the balance history.

Time off types are not automatically assigned when you add a new user

This is useful for organizations with many time off types, since you now choose which time off types to assign, rather than having to remove several.

Each time off type now uses a single unit only, either hours or days

Previously, you could set a time off type to use one unit for accruing time off and the other unit for displaying it. We’ve changed this option to reduce confusion and remove blocks to addition of new functionality.

Per time off type Save button in user profiles

When you edit time off policies in the user profile, each time off type has its own Save link. Previously, there was a single Save button for the whole page.

The mass edit policy option isn't available

You can no longer mass edit user time off type and policy assignments in user profiles.