• Leave Management+
• Leave policy set up
• Requesting, approving or changing leave 
• Viewing leave
• Approving leave
• Leave balance
• Leave accrual
  • Tenure-based leave accrual 
• Public holidays

Leave Management+

What are the main features of Leave Management+ compared to standard Leave Management?

Leave Management+ provides additional settings for businesses with more complex leave requirements.

To check which Leave Management and Leave Management+ features are available on your plan, see Introduction to Leave Management.

What default leave policies are available?

The default leave policies available in Deputy can vary by region. Select your region below for more information.

How can I tell if I have Leave Management+ enabled in my account?

System Administrators can open Business Settings and select Leave policies. Features that require Leave Management+ appear below the Leave Management+ banner. If a feature is not included with your current plan, it appears locked in Deputy and indicates the plan or add-on required to access it.

To check which Leave Management and Leave Management+ features are available on your plan, see Introduction to Leave Management.

Leave policy set up

If the leave policies already set up in my Deputy account don't fit my situation, can I create my own?

Yes. See How to set up leave policies for more information.

How do I delete a leave policy I set up but no longer want?

For data integrity purposes, it is currently not possible to archive or delete an existing leave policy.

As a workaround, you can amend the name of the policy or create a group called Archived Policies and categorise the unwanted leave policies there.

Can you change a default leave policy name, for example Annual Leave (Vacation) to Annual Leave?

Yes, you can change the policy name, but be mindful of any connected payroll systems before changing the leave export code.

Requesting, approving or changing leave

Why is a leave type not showing up for a team member to request it?

If the leave policy exists in your Deputy account but the team member cannot see it, then either:

1. It is not assigned to them in their profile.
2. The leave type is set as not visible to team members in the leave policy settings.

Why can Location Managers and System Administrators see leave policies that aren't assigned to the team member when approving leave?

Location Managers and System Administrators can select a leave type that may not be visible to the team member, such as bereavement leave, when approving the leave request.

If a team member requests a day of leave, do I have to enter the times to get the right number of hours?

The start and end times and shift length populated for a day of leave initially use the standard hours for a work day. Once the manager selects a leave type, Deputy looks at a number of factors to suggest a standard shift time and length for the team member.

Regardless of the shift times or shift length Deputy suggests, the manager can adjust them when approving the leave if required.

If a team member submits a leave request with the wrong leave type, can I change it without declining and resubmitting the request?

Yes. The leave type selected by the team member is a recommendation for the manager. When approving the leave request, the manager can select the appropriate leave type for the individual days. This determines the leave timesheets that are generated.

A team member works different start and finish times on different days. How do I capture the correct hours when they take leave?

There are two ways you can address this:

1. Set up regular fixed hours for the team member so their usual shift times can be used when they request leave.
2. The manager can manually adjust the start and finish time of each shift in the leave request during approval.

If a team member usually works only certain days of the week, do they need to submit separate leave requests for each day?

No. They can submit a leave request spanning the full period and identify the relevant days as leave and the other days as non-working days.

Why isn't there a meal break when pre-approving leave?

Leave timesheets are created and exported as the shift length less the usual meal break, as there is no meal break while on leave.

What happens to a published scheduled shift when the team member's leave is approved?

If the shifts have already been created and published, Deputy will give you options for managing the affected shift, such as opening the shift, finding a replacement, leaving the shift empty or deleting it.

How do I allow or prevent team members from changing or cancelling approved leave?

Team members can change or cancel approved leave only if a System Administrator allows it.

1. Open Business Settings.
2. Select Access & permissions.
3. Turn Team member can amend or cancel approved leave request on or off as required.
4. Click Save.

I've set up a leave policy to calculate average working hours but Deputy doesn't seem to be calculating the average hours yet. Why?

If you have set up a leave policy to calculate average working hours, Deputy calculates the length of the average working day and displays this when the team member requests leave or when a manager approves leave.

If this isn't displaying as expected, confirm that:

• the relevant leave policy has been assigned to the team member's profile
• the team member has a minimum of five pay-approved timesheets.

Viewing leave

Who can see the Leave Management dashboard?

Only Location Managers or System Administrators can see the Leave Management dashboard.

Can I make annual leave visible to team members but hide another leave type, such as bereavement leave?

Yes. You can make individual leave types visible or not visible to team members. Configure the visibility setting for each leave policy in the leave policy settings.

How can managers see leave in the schedule?

There are two ways to see leave on the Schedule page:

1. Select Team member view to see leave and unavailability for the locations and date range selected.
2. Select Area view to toggle leave and unavailability visibility at the top of the Schedule.

Approving leave

What happens if the manager doesn't approve a leave request? Why did my leave request auto-decline?

If a leave request is not approved by a manager, Deputy automatically declines it when both of the following conditions are met:

1. The leave request has not been modified in the past 30 days.
2. The end date of the leave request has passed.

Leave balance

Does Deputy reduce accrued leave from the leave balance once paid leave is taken?

Yes. Leave is deducted after the leave timesheet is approved and the leave date has passed.

What is the difference between leave balance and leave remaining?

Leave balance is the total balance of leave recorded in Deputy for the leave entitlement.

Leave remaining is the indicative amount of leave left after accounting for leave already taken and future leave that has been requested and approved but has not yet been taken.

Can my team members view their leave balances?

Team members can see their approved leave requests and leave balance, but System Administrators can control whether leave balances are visible.

1. Open Business Settings.
2. Select Access & permissions.
3. Turn Team member can view leave balances on or off as required.
4. Click Save.

What happens if I manually update a team member's leave balance and later approve an older timesheet that triggers leave accrual?

The manual update will apply and the older accrual is overwritten because Deputy considers the manual update to be the most recent entry for the leave balance.

To avoid unexpected results, approve the relevant timesheets and apply the associated leave accruals before manually updating a team member's leave balance.

Why don't team members' leave balances show the same number of hours when calculating leave in days?

If you have enabled average working hours for a leave policy, the same number of days of leave may represent a different number of hours for each team member.

This is because the standard hours for each day of leave are based on each team member's average working hours.

For example, Sally and Xavier both have five days of leave for a leave entitlement with average working hours enabled.

Read Setting standard hours for a work day when managing leave for more information.

Leave accrual

Is leave accrued in hours or days?

System Administrators choose whether a leave policy is tracked in hours or days when configuring the leave policy.

What is the leave accrual rate?

System Administrators can configure different types of leave accrual depending on the settings available in their account.

To check which Leave Management and Leave Management+ features are available on your plan, see Introduction to Leave Management.

See Accruing leave in Leave Management+ for more information about Leave Management+ accrual options.

Can I set up a leave accrual to reset after a fixed period?

The leave balance reset options available depend on the settings available in your account.

To check whether your plan includes the settings you need, see Introduction to Leave Management.

See How to set up leave policies for configuration options.

Can I set a maximum accrual amount for a leave entitlement?

The leave balance and accrual limit settings available depend on the features available in your account.

To check whether your plan includes these settings, see Introduction to Leave Management.

If the relevant settings are available in your account, System Administrators can configure:

• a maximum leave balance amount
• a maximum yearly accrual.

If a fixed amount of leave is released on January 1 and a new team member starts later in the year, will they automatically accrue leave?

Yes, if the leave policy has been configured to allow this. See Set up a leave policy with pro-rata leave assigned for team members that join part way through the year.

I set up a policy where fixed amounts of leave accrue on January 1. Why weren't my team members' leave balances updated?

If you set up a policy to accrue leave on a specific date, the policy must be configured before that date passes. Otherwise, leave will not automatically accrue for that fixed period and you will need to manually update the affected leave balances.

The next time the configured date occurs, the fixed amount of leave will automatically accrue.

For example, if a manager sets up a policy on January 5 that accrues two days of leave every January 1, Deputy will not automatically add the two days for the January 1 that has already passed. The manager will need to manually update the team members' balances for that period. On January 1 the following year, Deputy will automatically apply the configured accrual.

Do archived team members accrue leave?

When a team member is archived, leave accruals and deductions based on the following are no longer applied:

• per-hour worked accrual
• fixed release accrual
• regular working hours.

Managers may still amend an archived team member's leave balance where appropriate.

Tenure-based leave accrual

Tenure-based leave accrual requires the relevant Leave Management+ settings. To check whether your plan includes this feature, see Introduction to Leave Management.

What date does Deputy use to calculate tenure-based accrual rules?

If you have set up a leave policy that accrues leave at different rates according to tenure, the team member must have an accurate Hire date recorded in their profile. Deputy uses this date to calculate their tenure.

What happens if a team member works an overnight shift that crosses a tenure date?

If a team member reaches a tenure milestone at midnight during an overnight shift, all hours in that shift accrue leave at the higher accrual rate.

This is because Deputy uses the end date of the shift when calculating tenure-based leave accrual rates for the hours in that shift.

When using tenure-based rules with fixed leave accrual, what units can I use to measure tenure?

The available tenure units depend on how frequently the fixed leave is released:

• Weekly: tenure can be measured in months or years.
• Monthly: tenure can be measured in months or years.
• Quarterly: tenure can be measured in years.
• Yearly: tenure can be measured in years.

Public holidays

Does Deputy pick up public holidays automatically?

No. You can add public holidays manually in the schedule.

How does leave accrue if a team member works on a public holiday?

If you are using a per-hour worked or fixed accrual rate in your leave policy, leave accrues in the same way as it does for another worked day. The accrual does not change based on the type of day worked.

Read Manage public holidays for more information.