When your employees request for leave days to be credited to a certain leave balance, the request needs to be approved before the balance is granted. Set up the employees that can approve such balance requests. This is only applicable for leave types with the credit balance upon approval setting. For leave types with the periodical balance and no balance, just track taken setting, learn how to set up the leave approval process.

Please note: your employees cannot request balance until your organization’s credit approval flow is set up.

Permissions needed

• Leave Approval permission

Before you start

• Plan out who needs to approve balance requests (e.g., the applicant’s direct manager or specific employees in your organization).

Access your credit approval flow

• In the SeaTalk Admin Center, navigate to Application > Leave & Attendance.
• In the left panel, click Leave Approval.
• Click the Credit Approval tab. 
• If you’ve never created an approval flow, click Setup.
• If the approval chain already exists, you can view the existing approval flow. To make changes, click Edit in the upper right.

After you’ve accessed your credit approval flow, view and edit the approval flow and its advanced settings.

Set up your approval flow

In the Approval Flow tab, view the existing sequence of approvals. When a request is made, it starts from the top and goes through each step in the flow. The leave is granted when the request reaches the end of the flow.

There are two types of steps:

• Approver: determines the employee with the power to approve the request at that step. 
• Condition: differentiates requests and sends them to the appropriate next step.

If the approver approves the request, it goes down the flow to the next step. 

If the approver rejects the request, it will exit the flow. The applicant will receive a rejection notification and the balance won’t be granted.

Once the approval flow is done, learn to customize the advanced settings in the next section.

You can also save and apply your approval chain by clicking Save in the top right. If you’ve made a mistake and want to reverse all changes, click Cancel in the upper right.

Add or edit an approver step

When a request arrives at an approver step, the approver for that step will be alerted to the leave request in their approval center.

To add or edit an approver step:

• To add a new approver step, click the + icon where you want it and select Approver.
• To edit an existing step, click the step.
• In the right panel, select the approver by their role:
• Reporting Manager: select to have only one approver in this step. Click the Select approval level dropdown menu and select the specific manager to approve the request. Learn more about setting up your organization and its managers.
• Reporting Line: select to have a series of approvers in this step. Click the Approval up to dropdown menu and select the level of management the request will go up to. It will be sent sequentially from the most junior manager to the most senior manager selected.
• Department Lead: select to have the applicant’s department lead approve in this step. This only applies when an employee is part of more than one department. The first approver will make the decision on whether to approve or reject the request. Once the decision is made, the request will no longer be available for all other approvers. 
• Whitelist: select to have specific employees as approvers in this step. In the Add Person field, search and select employees. All these approvers will be alerted at the same time. The first approver will make the decision on whether to approve or reject the request. Once the decision is made, the request will no longer be available for all other approvers. 
• Click Save. This approver will be added to the chain.

Add or edit a condition step

A condition step differentiates requests using certain criteria and directs them down the flow to the appropriate next step.

If a request does not satisfy the Priority 1 condition, it is checked against subsequent conditions in order of priority until it reaches Other conditions. When a request satisfies a condition, it’s directed to the step below.

• To add a new condition step, click the + icon where you want and select Condition. Two conditions will be created and all existing steps that were after the + icon will be moved below the first condition. Click the condition that states Click to setup condition.
• To edit an existing condition step, click the specific condition step you want.

Please note: you cannot edit a condition step that states Other conditions. This condition step is required for all remaining requests by applicants that do not meet any set conditions.

• In the right panel, select the leave types that will move the request down this condition step.
• If you have more than two conditions, you can prioritize a condition by clicking the Priority dropdown in the upper right and selecting the priority. Requests will be checked against the Priority 1 condition first, then the Priority 2 condition, and so on so forth. 
• Click Save.
• To add another condition, click Add Condition above the existing conditions.

Delete a step

You can delete an approver step or a condition step. To delete a step:

• Hover over the step you want to delete.
• Click the bin icon.
• In the dialog box, click Delete. When you delete a condition step, all steps below the deleted condition step will also be deleted.

Please note: you cannot delete a condition step that states Other conditions. This condition step is required for all remaining requests by applicants that do not meet any set conditions.

Customize your advanced settings

In the Advanced Settings tab, customize when certain approvers will be skipped and if requests should trigger email notifications.

• Click the Advanced Settings tab.
• To immediately send an email notification to an approver’s email address when a request requires their approval, select Send approval reminder email to work email of approver.
• To skip an approver if they already approved the request in the previous step, select Skip successive repeated approver.
• To skip an approver if they are the same employee who sent the request, select Skip approval step when approver is same as applicant.

Once you’ve completed customizing your advanced settings and setting up the approval chain, click Save in the upper right.

If you’ve made a mistake and want to reverse all changes, click Cancel in the upper right.