Time Off
Leave requests move from the team portal to an admin decision to an updated balance without a single chat message. The system carries the request, the context, and the outcome.
Request to decision in five steps
The whole loop is request, decide, record. Nobody chases anybody, and the balance math never gets done by hand.
The employee picks dates and a leave type in the team portal. Their current balance is right there on the form.
The request lands in the admin time-off queue with the employee’s balance and history attached.
The admin sees the request in context: team calendar, remaining balance, overlapping leave.
On approval, days are deducted automatically and the leave shows on the team calendar.
The employee sees the decision and their updated balance in the portal. No follow-up message needed.
How each step works
The employee opens the team portal, picks dates and a leave type, and submits. Their remaining balance is shown on the form, so nobody requests days they do not have.
The request appears in the admin queue with everything needed to decide: the employee's balance, their leave history, and any team overlap on those dates.
Approve or reject, one click either way. Because the context travels with the request, the decision takes seconds instead of a back-and-forth thread.
On approval the days are deducted automatically and the leave appears on the shared calendar. Balances are never reconciled by hand at year end because they were never wrong.
The decision and the updated balance show in the portal immediately. The whole loop closes without a single “did you see my request?” message.
The seven elements
Every workflow we document has the same anatomy: seven elements, each assigned to a human, a machine, or both. This is the Centaur Map from our workflow design method.
An employee submits a leave request in the team portal.
The current balance, leave history, and team calendar, attached to the request automatically.
Approve or reject. The one judgment call in the flow stays with a human.
Requests route to the admin queue; outcomes route back to the employee’s portal.
An updated balance and a calendar entry, computed, never hand-tracked.
The decision and new balance appear in the portal immediately.
Balances and usage across the team, correct at all times because they were never manual.
The standing rules
- All leave goes through the portal, never through chat
- Balances are system-computed, never hand-tracked
- Every request is decided with the team calendar in view
- The decision and the record are the same thing
Why it works
- One queue means requests cannot get lost in a thread
- Context attached to the request makes decisions fast
- Automatic deduction kills the year-end balance argument
- Everyone sees the same calendar, so coverage gaps surface early