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Leave and Availability Management

The Leave page in Timecloud is your central hub for managing time-off requests, tracking leave balances, and handling employee availability. Whether you're an employee requesting a day off or a manager approving requests across your team, everything happens here. This feature helps businesses stay organised, reduce scheduling conflicts, and keep accurate records of who's away and when.

Getting Started

Navigate to Leave in the main menu. Depending on your role and permissions, you'll see one or two tabs:

  • Leave — submit, view, and manage time-off requests
  • Availability — mark dates or times you're available or unavailable for rostering

Leave Tab — For Employees

The Leave tab is where employees submit, track, and manage their own leave requests.

How to Submit a Leave Request

Applying for leave follows a simple step-by-step flow:

  1. Click + Add Leave in the top-right corner.
  2. Choose a Leave Type — browse the available leave type cards. Each card shows the leave type name and, if your company has leave balances enabled, your current balance and when it was last updated. Tap a card to select it, then click Next.
  3. Pick Your Dates — select your Start Date and End Date using the date picker, then click Apply. A summary card confirms what you're requesting (e.g. "3 days of Annual Leave").
    • For a single-day request, you can toggle Partial Day on and enter the number of hours.
  4. Click Next. If your company tracks leave balances and the request would exceed your balance, you'll see a warning — you can still choose to proceed.
  5. Add Details — enter an optional Comment (some leave types make this mandatory). If file uploads are enabled for the leave type, click Upload File to attach a supporting document (e.g. a medical certificate).
  6. Click Done.
  7. Review the confirmation prompt and click Confirm to submit. Your request will appear as Pending until a manager acts on it.

Tip: You can navigate back through the steps at any time using the Back button. Your selections are preserved.

Understanding Request Statuses

 
 

Status

 

What It Means

 

Pending

Your request is waiting for a manager to approve or decline it.

Approved

Your manager has approved your leave.

Declined

Your manager has declined your request. A reason may be included in your notification.

Pending Cancellation

You've asked to cancel; awaiting manager confirmation.

Cancelled

Your request has been fully cancelled.
 
 
 

How to Edit or Cancel a Request

  • Edit: Click the pencil icon on any Pending request to update the dates, leave type, or comment.
  • Cancel: Click the cancel icon on a pending request to withdraw it. The status changes to Pending Cancellation until a manager confirms.

Viewing Leave Balances

  • If your company tracks leave balances, your remaining balance for each leave type appears in the Balance column.
  • Balances are also shown on each leave type card when submitting a new request. The balance shown is indicative only.
  • Visibility depends on your company's settings — your admin controls whether employees can see their own balances.
  • On the Attendance page: When leave balances are enabled, the Leave dropdown on an employee's timesheet shows each leave type's remaining balance next to its name (e.g. "Annual Leave — 12.5 days"). This helps managers quickly verify available balance when assigning leave directly from attendance.

Comments & Attachments

  • Click the comment icon on any row to open a message thread and add notes.
  • Click the attachment icon (if visible) to view uploaded documents for that request.

Leave Tab — For Admins & Managers

Admins and managers see all leave requests across the company, with powerful filters and approval controls.

 

The admin view shows all leave requests with filters for Status, Department, Employee, and Role, plus approval action buttons.

Admin Permissions (Feature Access)

If your company uses Feature Access (Settings > Feature Access), the Manage Leave permission controls what sub-admins can do on the Leave page:

  • View — see leave applications and download the leave report.
  • Add — create leave requests on behalf of employees.
  • Edit — approve, decline, or reset leave requests.
  • Delete — remove leave records.

Company admins and super admins always have full access. Sub-admins without the relevant Manage Leave permission will not see approval buttons or the download report icon.

Tip: If a sub-admin reports they can't approve leave requests, ask the account owner to check their Manage Leave operation permissions under Settings > Feature Access.

Understanding the Leave Table

The leave table displays the following columns:

 
 

Column

 

Description

 

Employee

The employee's full name.

Type

The leave type (e.g. Annual Leave, Sick Leave).

Last Date

The employee's last scheduled working day before the leave period begins. Timecloud infers this automatically from the employee's roster or shift pattern.

Period

The start and end date of the request (DD/MM/YYYY).

Return Date

The employee's first scheduled working day after the leave period ends. Timecloud infers this automatically from the employee's roster or shift pattern.

Submitted

The date the request was created.

Duration

The total leave duration (e.g. "3 days" or "4 hours").

Balance

The employee's remaining balance for that leave type (if balances are enabled).

Status / Action

For pending requests: approve or decline buttons. For processed requests: the status chip, who actioned it, and the date — with a reset option.
 
 
 

Good to know: The Last Date and Return Date columns are determined by the employee's published roster shifts and shift pattern, excluding public holidays. If no working day can be found within the search window, the column will be blank.

How to Filter Requests

Use the filter bar at the top to narrow the list:

  • Status — filter by Pending, Approved, Declined, or Cancelled (defaults to Pending).
  • Department — select one or more departments to view.
  • Employees — search and select specific employees.
  • Role — filter by company role (if roles are enabled).
  • Click Clear all to reset all active filters.

How to Approve, Decline, or Reset a Request

The Status / Action column adapts based on the request's current state:

  • Pending requests show two action buttons:
    • Approve (green tick icon) — approves the leave. If the employee's balance would go negative, you'll see a warning — you can still choose to approve.
    • Decline (red cross icon) — opens the Decline leave request dialog. You can optionally type a reason (up to 250 characters) to let the employee know why. Click Decline to confirm, or close the dialog to cancel. The reason is included in the employee's notification.
  • Processed requests (Approved, Declined, or Cancelled) show:
    • A status chip (e.g. Approved, Rejected, Cancelled)
    • The name of the person who actioned it and the date
    • A Reset button to return the request to Pending so it can be re-actioned

Tip: Providing a decline reason sends both an email and a push notification to the employee. If no reason is entered, the employee receives an email only.

How to Download the Leave Report

You can export a CSV report of leave applications directly from the Leave page:

  1. Apply any filters you need (status, department, employees, role, date range).
  2. Click the download icon in the toolbar (next to the balance buttons).
  3. A CSV file will download containing all leave applications matching your current filters.

The report includes: Employee No, First Name, Last Name, Type, Last Date, Start Date, End Date, Return Date, Submission Date, Duration, Balance, Comment, File (whether an attachment exists), Status, Approved Date, and Approved By.

Tip: The Last Date and Return Date fields in the report match the columns shown on the leave table — they reflect the employee's scheduled working days immediately before and after the leave period.

How to Update Leave Balances

Leave balances are updated manually — they do not sync automatically when you open the Leave page.

  • From a payroll integration: Click Update Balances (sync icon) in the toolbar to refresh balances from your connected payroll providers. The button is disabled while a sync is in progress. A progress notification appears at the bottom of the screen showing which provider is being synced — you can continue working on the page while it runs. Once finished, you'll see a confirmation message indicating how many providers synced successfully.
  • From a CSV file: Click Upload Balances to open the bulk upload wizard:
    1. Step 1 — File Upload: Drag and drop or select your CSV/spreadsheet file. A template is available for download.
    2. Step 2 — Field Mapping: Map your file columns to the correct fields (Employee Payroll Code, Leave Type, Balance, Units).
    3. Step 3 — Review: Confirm changes. The summary shows how many rows were updated, skipped, or had errors.

Note: The Update Balances button only appears when at least one payroll provider is selected for leave balances in Settings → Leave (or Settings → Payroll). If your company uses CSV import only, use the Upload Balances option instead.

Adjusting the Date Range

  • The Leave page defaults to showing requests from last month through to the end of next month.