Event requests and their functionalities such as planning and reporting holidays and absences are part of Worktime Pro and Complete service levels.
Event types can be configured so they must be requested from line managers in advance. The primary supervisor and acting deputies are informed of new requests from their subordinates and can choose to approve or reject them. A common use of this feature is holiday planning, but any kind of reservation or need for request and approval between line managers and subordinates can be managed this way.
Setup
To configure an event type so it can be requested, it must be flagged as "Requested from supervisor in advance". This can be done either on Working community level or setting group level in Worktime > Administration > Working Community / Setting group Settings > Work hours > Event types.
It is recommended that event types that should be requested are not flagged as "In use", "On terminal" or "From direct link", as requests by their nature, should be for a date in the future instead of recorded in real-time.
After configuring the event type(s) to be requested, please ensure the Worktime roles (See Worktime > Administration > Worktime roles) for subordinates permit them to record events of that type from their calendar, and their supervisors can edit and approve them.
Once event type behaviours are set, and permissions are configured, subordinates will be able to make requests just like creating any other event.
Please note that if you wish to make use of the request email notifications, each person in the workflow, including supervisor deputies, must have a valid email address saved in Nepton. You can check this from Employees > Persons.
Workflow & Notifications
The event requests workflow is between subordinates and their primary supervisor (and/or active supervisor deputies), and follows three main steps; Request, Review, and Approve.
During these steps, edits can be made to refine the request, and messages about the request can be sent between supervisor and subordinate from within Nepton. All edits, including messages, are recorded and can be viewed later in the event history. Request messages can also be added even after the request has been approved. Relevant people are automatically informed of any significant actions on a request via email. More details on this can be found in each step described below.
Please note, that notifications are sent in near-real-time and will only reach people who have a subordinate/primary supervisor/supervisor deputy relationship at the time of the notification. Notifications will not be sent retrospectively if relationships are changed after the fact.
Making a request
New requests can be created by anyone with permissions to add events of that type. Requests are created in the same way as other events, but due to their nature, should be created for a future start date. Requests are easily distinguished in the calendar view, with a dashed outline and turquoise heading, as shown below.
When a request is created, the requester can record all the usual event information, including projects and attachments. They can also optionally include a message to the approver. Messages about a request are collected into a conversation history and can be viewed when editing the request. New messages on a request, trigger a notification to the subordinate or primary supervisor and active supervisor deputies.
To help people create sensible requests, any accrual usage and projected balance after requests, are shown when the event is created. See screenshot below. Please also see the dedicated heading about Accrual usage & predictions, below.
Unless the primary supervisor was the one creating a new request, the primary supervisor and any active deputies are notified by email, with a link to review and approve it.
PUUSKA TUULI - sähköposti
Reviewing and approving pending requests
Event requests can be approved in different ways.
Approving and rejecting requests in the Approve event requests - table view
Approve event requests - table view is the default layout of the event request approval tool. Primary supervisors and their active deputies are notified of pending requests from subordinates via email, and also by visual "Pips" in the Worktime navigation.
In the Approve event requests view, all pending requests from subordinates are listed. Requests can be edited and approved or rejected by a person's acting supervisor. Access to Approve event requests - view requires permissions to approve events.
The approve event requests view shows a visual indication on how each person's event request spans in the selected date range. Each person's information is on its own row. Active accruals are displayed next to the person's name. Negative accrual values are highlighted in red. The highlighted information helps you quickly evaluate requests.
By default the view opens with a list of all of the persons subordinates to be selected in the approval view for approving their event requests. Users who have event requests that need approval are selected by default. The date range can be set by entering the start and end dates of the period in the date fields in the top left corner of the view and clicking the refresh button next to them. It is generally recommended to leave the date range blank, in which case all pending requests are loaded and the date range is formed based on the requests time span.
Week view/Day view-button can be used to toggle the view from showing days to showing weeks.
Legend-button under the Tools menu opens a legend describing the event type category coloring and other description about the view.
Clicking a person's date cell will open a side panel which will show all events for the person in the date clicked. Displaying of additional info about the event like balance, possible request messages and exceptional entries can be toggled from the arrow next to the event type and date. The event can be edited by clicking the event type, which will open the event editing form with the clicked event.
Add-button under the person's name can be used to add an event for the person. Clicking the button will open the event editing form.
Communication between the acting supervisor and subordinate is possible via event requests. Each party can send messages about the request from within Nepton, forming a conversation. New messages can be saved without approving or rejecting events, and receiving parties are informed of each new message. An individual message about the event can be made by clicking the Reply-link beside the Messages-header. This will open the event editing form where a message can be added.
If the event is a pending request, it can be checked from the side panel so that it can be approved or rejected. Multiple requests can be selected so that for example all the requests that are ready to be approved, can be approved in one go.
Clicking the checkbox in the left side of the person's name will select all requests for that person. Clicking the person name will show all the events of the person in the selected date range in the side panel.
An empty date can also be opened to the side panel. This allows you to create a new event for the person if necessary
After requests have been selected, the action buttons below the person list become active. Requests can be approved, rejected or a message can be sent about them. The action performed will be done for all of the selected pending requests. When approving event requests, only the requests that are good for approval must be selected and then they can be approved by clicking the Approve - button. The same logic goes for rejecting requests, first all requests to be rejected are selected, and then the Reject - button is clicked to reject the events.
If a message to requesters is set, it will be included in the email sent to the requesters of the selected events whilst informing about request approval or rejection. The message field is optional.
Send message only - button will send an email message for the requesters of the selected requests but does not perform approval or rejection for the request. This is useful if it is needed to make a mass message on for example pending requests that overlap each other.
Approving a request will mark the event as approved by the acting supervisor. Approved requests behave in the same way as any other approved event in service. However, by editing the event in question, approval can be temporarily rescinded or the request even entirely rejected. In this situation, the subordinate will be informed, respectively, that their request is being reconsidered, or is rejected.
Rejecting a request will remove the event from all views and notify the subordinate. For convenience, the subordinate is provided with an email link to recover a rejected request, so they can quickly request again with similar information. E.g. same projects, supplements, attachments, etc, but on different dates. This also has the benefit of preserving request edit and message history.
Rejecting a request means that accruals need to be calculated again after removing the requested event, so it is slower than approving events.
If hours are approved either in the calendar or in the Approve hours view, and there are event requests in the period you are approving, they will also be approved without a separate notification.
Approving and rejecting requests in the Approve event requests - list view
List view can be selected by clicking the list view button under the tools menu. This view lists the event requests as a list.
The action buttons work in the same way as in the table view.
Click the table view - link to get back to the table view.
Approving and rejecting requests in individuals calendar
Event request approvals can also be done in person's calendar view in the same manner as hour approval.
Accrual usage & predictions
An essential part of the event requests feature is that employees and their supervisors have the necessary information to make good requests, and informed decisions for approval. However, when using the predicted accrual values, it is important to note their behaviour and limitations, each of which is detailed below.
"Running balance" style accruals (e.g. Balance)
Predictions for the remaining balance of a running accrual use the last complete day as a base and then assume the in-progress day, and any future days, will finish with +/- 0 balance change. The current day's markings are not considered because Nepton has no way of knowing if further edits will be made before the day ends.
Annual leave
The prediction for the remaining annual leave balance is shown for the holiday period in which the request begins. The prediction assumes that the current working day, and all future working days with work obligations, are fully completed according to the person's default event type (by default 'Work'). This allows the total annual leave balance to be predicted at the start of the holiday period, and all events after that date and requests that start before the end of the holiday period can be deducted from this to produce an estimated total.
Earned annual leave may contain decimals, but only the significant decimals are shown. For example, 10 days, 6.5 days, etc. If annual leave balances are managed in another system, the forecast for annual leave accrual can be turned off when the event is posted by disabling accrual.