Absence approval policies define the rules for approving employee absence requests and specify who must approve and who gets notified.
By creating and assigning these policies to employees, you simplify the approval process, ensuring clarity and consistency in absence management.
Setting up absence approval policies is available on the Ultimate subscription plan.
Accessing Absence Approval Policies
📌 Note: Absence is now divided into Time Off and Remote Work categories (currently in Beta).
If you don’t see “Absence Approval Policies” in your settings yet, your account will be updated soon. In the meantime, you’ll see Time Off Approval Policies—the functionality remains the same.
Navigate to Settings > Absence and scroll to the Approval Policies section at the bottom. Click Add Approval Policy to start.
Before You Start
Make sure the Absence Approval toggle is enabled in your settings. Without it, you won’t see the Approval Policies section!
Create and Configure an Approval Policy
Start by entering the basic details:
Name: Enter a name for the policy.
Description: Provide a description so users understand the policy’s purpose.
Next, configure the following for each absence category:
1) People Who Need to Approve
No approval needed
No approval is required for requests in this category.
Any one of the listed approvers
Any listed approver can approve the request.
All approvers
Every listed approver must approve the request.
📌 Tip: You can select a specific user or assign a dynamic "Manager" role as an approver. If you select "Manager," the person set as the employee’s manager in their profile will automatically be used as the approver.
2) Notify Upon Approval
Add individuals who should receive notifications when the absence request is approved.
3) Copy to Other Categories
Quickly apply the same rules to additional categories using the Copy to Other Categories option.
📌If you want to apply the setup to all categories at once, select ‘All’ from the category dropdown.
Saving the Policy
After configuring the approvers and subscribers for your absence categories, click Save to finalize the policy. Once saved, the policy becomes available for assignment in the employee profile or via the Employees view in Resourcing.
Default Approval Policy
Once a policy is created, you can set it as the default approval policy for new users in Productive.
Otherwise, you can select the "No default policy" option so no policy is assigned to new employees.
Visibility and Permissions
Who Can See, Create, and Edit Approval Policies?
Users must have the "Manage absence categories and approval settings" permission enabled to view or edit approval policies in Settings > Absence.
By default, these are users with Admin permissions.
Who Can Assign Approval Policies?
Only users with the "Add, edit, and delete absence allocations, manage approvers and subscribers for absence allocation" permission can assign policies to other employees.
By default, these are users with Admin permissions.
Viewing Approvers and Subscribers
Users with the "View your own absence allocations" permission can see approvers and subscribers in their profile screen.
Users with the "View all users' absence allocations" permission can see approvers and subscribers for all employees.
Managing Existing Approval Policies
Absence approval policies can be modified or archived to adapt to your organization’s changing needs.
Assigning the Policies to Users
Once the policies are set up, assign them to employees in Resourcing > Employees.
