Create allowances for absence requests
Create allowances to use for automatic approval of absence requests. This is useful for periods that are not scheduled and where decisions to approve or deny cannot be based on the staffing situation. The allowances can also be used as a basis for manual decisions.
The allowances are often based on a staffing budget where the allowance for each day is calculated based on the available resources and the forecasted need. If you already know how much your allowance for each day is, you can enter the allowance manually.
NOTE Only absences that are marked as Is contract time will deduct from the budget allowance for agent absence requests. For further information, see Create absence types
Prerequisites
- You have the Budgets permission and the underlying Request allowances permission.
- You have created a budget group.
Page location
Client > Budgets > Open budget
Procedures
Open budget
Open the budget for the default scenario and the period to set up allowances for.
- Right-click on the name of a budget group
- Select Open budget.
- Select the period to work with.
- Select the Default scenario.
- Click OK.
Create allowances manually
Set up allowances for absence requests without creating a staffing budget.
- Click Day view to work on day level.
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Enter the FTE h/day for the full period.
FTE stands for Full-Time Equivalent and FTE h/day is the average number of hours per day for a full-time contract. This value is defined in decimal form. To set it to 7 hours and 30 minutes, enter 7.50.
- Right-click and select Add shrinkage. Select the Include in request allowance check box and select to include all absence types you want to create allowances for. Click OK.
- Enter the total allowance for each day in the Override field.
- Enter the percentage of the allowance that can be used to automatically approve absence requests in the Threshold field. This is only useful when automatically approving absence requests.
- Full allowance shows the total number of FTEs that can take this day off. Allowance after threshold shows the percentage that can be automatically approved. An absence request will not be automatically approved if that would cause the absences included in the request allowance on that day to exceed the Allowance after threshold value.
Create allowances based on the staffing budget
Use a previously created staffing budget as a basis for creating allowances for absence requests. See How creating staffing budgets works for more information.
- Click Day view to work on day level.
- Review the shrinkages and ensure that the absence to follow up on are set as included in the request allowance. Enter a percentage for each shrinkage.
- Review the Budgeted leave, Budgeted surplus, and add any Extra allowance. The sum of these values is the Full allowance available for the day.
- Enter a value in the Override field to override the calculated allowance. This is typically used when you are understaffed and still need to allocate time for vacation.
- Enter the percentage of the allowance that can be used to automatically approve absence requests in the Threshold field. This is only useful when automatically approving absence requests.
- Full allowance shows the total number of FTEs that can take this day off. Allowance after threshold shows the percentage that can be automatically approved. An absence request will not be automatically approved if that would cause the absences included in the request allowance on that day to exceed the Allowance after threshold value.
Interpret calculated budget allowance values
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Budgeted leave
This is the number of FTEs that are predicted to be absent based on the shrinkages set up in the budget. Only shrinkages that are included in request allowance will be considered when calculating the budgeted leave.
Budgeted leave = (Gross staff + (Contractors (hours) / FTE h/day)) * Sum of all shrinkages included in request allowance
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Budgeted surplus
This is the difference between the budgeted staff and the forecasted staff when any budgeted absences and efficiency shrinkages have been considered. If the skills are overstaffed, the budgeted surplus is the number of FTEs that can be allowed to take time off on top of the planned budgeted leave.
Budgeted surplus = Budgeted difference / (1 - (Sum of all efficiency shrinkage factors))
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Full allowance
This is the total number of FTEs that can be allowed to take time off.
Full allowance = Budgeted leave + Budgeted surplus + Extra If there is a value in the override field, the full allowance is always the same as the override value.
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Allowance after threshold
This is the number of FTEs that can be used for automatic approval of absence requests. This many FTEs or agents, depending on the absence request settings, can get their requests automatically approved for this day.
Allowance after threshold = Threshold (%) * Full allowance
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