Skip to main content

Absence & Leave Management

1. Business Goal​

The Absence & Leave Management module is designed to automate the lifecycle of employee time-off requests. It ensures accurate tracking of leave balances, provides a structured approval workflow for managers, and maintains a transparent audit trail for all changes to ensure compliance and operational efficiency.

2. Functional Blocks (User Flows)​

Leave Types Configuration​

  • Categorization: Definition of various absence categories such as Annual Leave, Sick Leave, Unpaid Leave, and Study Leave.
  • Policy Rules: Specific rules for each type, including accrual rates and maximum carry-over limits.

Balance Control & Adjustments​

  • Self-Service View: Employees can view their real-time available balances for each leave type.
  • HR Oversight: Capability for HR administrators to manually adjust balances (adjustBalance) to account for special circumstances or policy overrides.

Leave Request Lifecycle​

  • Drafting: Employees can create and save leave requests as drafts before formal submission.
  • Submission: Formalizing a request (submitRequest) to trigger the manager's approval workflow.
  • Approval Workflow: Managers can Approve or Reject requests, providing necessary comments for context.
  • Cancellation: Ability for employees to cancel their own requests before they are finalized or taken.

Audit & Logging​

  • History Tracking: A detailed chronological log (Audit Log) for every request, showing who initiated actions, when they occurred, and any comments left during the process.

Absence Calendar​

  • Visualization: A shared or team-specific calendar view displaying approved and pending absences to help with resource planning and team coordination.

3. Technical Requirements (Logic)​

Pre-submission Validation​

  • Balance Check: Logic to verify if the employee has sufficient balance for the requested duration before allowing submission.
  • Collision Detection: Prevention of overlapping leave requests for the same employee to ensure data integrity.

Status Transition Model​

  • Integrity: Strict enforcement of valid state transitions:
    • Draft → Pending
    • Pending → Approved | Rejected | Cancelled

Access Control & Scoping​

  • Employee Scope: Access limited to their own requests and balances.
  • Manager Scope: Access to requests from their direct reports.
  • HR Scope: Full global access to all requests, balance adjustments, and type configurations.

Work Day Calculation​

  • Logic: Frontend and backend implementation of algorithms to calculate the net working days between startDate and endDate, excluding weekends and public holidays.

4. API Endpoints (Contract)​

Leave Requests​

  • GET /api/leave/requests: Global list of requests (with filters for status and employeeId).
  • GET /api/leave/requests/me: Retrieves the current user's request history.
  • POST /api/leave/requests: Creates a new request record (initially in Draft status).
  • POST /api/leave/requests/{id}/submit: Submits a draft request for approval.
  • POST /api/leave/requests/{id}/approve: Manager action to approve a request.
  • POST /api/leave/requests/{id}/reject: Manager action to deny a request.
  • POST /api/leave/requests/{id}/cancel: User action to withdraw a request.

Leave Balances​

  • GET /api/leave/balances/me: Current user's available leave days.
  • GET /api/leave/employees/{id}/balances: Admin view of a specific employee's balances.
  • POST /api/leave/balances/adjust: Endpoint for HR to perform manual balance corrections.

Settings & Audit​

  • GET /api/leave/types: List of all configured absence types.
  • GET /api/leave/requests/{id}/audit: Retrieves the full activity history for a specific request.

5. UI States​

Balance Overview Widgets​

  • Visual Cards: High-level summary of remaining days per category (e.g., "15 days of Annual Leave left").

Dynamic Request Form​

  • Real-time Feedback: As the user selects dates, the form should immediately display the "Total Days" calculation.

Approval Timeline​

  • Visual Log: A vertical or horizontal timeline showing the sequence of actions: Submission -> Manager Review -> Final Decision.

Status Color Coding​

  • Standardization: Use consistent coloring: Yellow (Pending), Green (Approved), Red (Rejected), Grey (Cancelled/Draft).