How do substitutes work for absences?

A substitute can be named in an absence request. Here you’ll find the most common questions about this, each with a short answer and a link to the details.

Who can be selected as a substitute?

Substitutes are suggested from the department or team of the person making the request. You can’t set it up so that only certain people may substitute for certain others, for example. Anyone selected as a substitute can still take vacation themselves, the system doesn’t prevent this. If the requester wants to select a person who is on vacation as their substitute, that is also possible. The fact that the person is not available is indicated by a yellow background.

I’m an approver and I’m on vacation: Can I set up a substitute for myself?

Unfortunately, not directly. If you have stored several approvers in the department, employees can choose from them when making a request and directly pick a person who is not on vacation. Alternatively, all higher roles can also view other requests via the dashboard and approve or decline them if needed.

When am I a substitute myself?

Every employee can have it displayed when they are a substitute: Go to My Calendar, click View Options at the top right and select Show absences I am a substitute for.

I want the substitute to be required, or not required

You set whether a substitute has to be named per leave type. To do this, activate or deactivate the option Requires a substitute in the area Approval & Requirements. You can find an overview of all settings of a leave type in the article All Absence Type Settings explained.

The substitute should confirm the request first

This can be set up via the multi-step approval process: The substitute first confirms that they can take over the coverage, after that the regular approver approves. You can find the setup here. For general information on several approval steps, see the article How to set up a multi approval process.

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Your absence.io Team