This help guide will explain how to enable and manage Workforce's 'projected leave balances' feature, which makes requesting and approving leave smoother and more user-friendly.
Note: For Workforce US users, any references to "Leave" in this guide may show as "Time off" in the Workforce US website and mobile app.
Projected leave balances let employees and managers see an employee's predicted balance for a leave type on a future date, so they can make better decisions when requesting and approving leave.
For example, an employee may want to request leave over Christmas. It's only March, so they don't have enough leave yet. By checking their projected balance, they can see whether they'll have enough leave accrued by Christmas.
Once set up, projected balances show on leave requests on desktop and in the mobile app.
How do I set up projected leave balances?
Display Predicted Leave Accruals can be switched on under 'All Settings' > 'Leave Settings':
Next, you must stipulate an accrual rate for each leave type. To do so, navigate to Time & Attendance > Compliance > Leave Types > Manage. Then, click on the leave type you want to edit, scroll down to the 'Leave Rules' subheading, and enter a leave accrual rate.
For this feature to work correctly, ensure you have entered an accrual rate for each leave type.
Once this feature has been enabled:
Employees see a predicted leave balance when they request leave.
Managers see the predicted balance before they approve or decline a leave request.
Note: Projected balances don't change employees' actual leave balances or your payroll system. However, if a leave type has Prevent negative balances turned on, the check uses the projected balance. If you'd rather it used the current balance, tick Ignore predicted accruals that the employee will have by the time this leave is taken on that leave type. This also hides the projected balance for that leave type.
How Do I See My Predicted Leave Balance?
Workforce Mobile App
To see your current balances, go to the Leave tab and select Balances.
To see your projected balance, create a new leave request, enter a future date and select your leave type. Your projected balance for that date is shown.
Workforce Desktop
Create a new leave request to view your projected balance (Time & Attendance > Leave). After entering your leave dates and leave type, a pop-up with your projected leave balance for that date will appear.
How Are Leave Projections Calculated?
We estimate how many hours the employee will work between now and the date of the leave, then multiply that by the leave type's accrual rate.
Expected hours come from:
Published rosters: shifts already rostered, up to the last published roster
Then, for dates after that, the first of these that applies:
Regular Hours of Work, if it has shifts set up
Contracted weekly hours
Roster patterns
If none of these are set up, the projected balance won't include any future accruals. It will roughly match the employee's current balance.
Are other future leave requests considered in the balance?
Yes. Approved future leave is deducted from the projected balance, for both employees and managers.
Pending leave isn't deducted. Instead, on desktop, a warning shows how much other pending leave the employee has, as it may affect whether the request can be approved.
For example, an employee's predicted balance is 80 hours on the date of their request, and they already have 16 hours of approved leave. They want to request another 10 hours. The projected balance shown is 64 hours (80 − 16). If they also had 8 hours of pending leave, the balance would still show 64 hours, with a warning about the 8 pending hours.