Before you set up your leave system: 

• Ensure your organization’s holiday calendars are set up. 
• Ensure your employees are assigned to work groups. A work group consists of employees that have the same holidays and work days.  
• Ensure your employees have a join date in their organization profile.

1.Set up leave types and rules 

When employees request for leave, they will request for a type of leave, such as annual leave or sick leave. These are default leave types already in SeaTalk. If your organization requires a specific leave type, you can create a new leave type.
Each leave type has at least one leave rule. A leave rule determines:

• the employees that are eligible for the leave type; 
• the leave balance they have each year;
• if leave days will be released monthly or annually;
• carry forward rules; and
• other settings explained in later sections. 

If you’re only using SeaTalk’s default leave types, they already come with default leave rules. However, if you create a custom leave type, learn how to create and customize leave rules.

Learn more on how to set up leave types and rules. 

2.Set up a leave policy

A leave policy is a set of leave types and their respective leave rules. Employees must be assigned to a leave policy to request leave in the SeaTalk mobile app.
Set different leave policies according to the leave types and rules different employees are entitled to. 
An example of how you may set up leave policies:

• Both full time employees and contract workers are entitled to annual leave.
• However, the full time employee is entitled to 18 annual leave days, and the contract worker is entitled to 6 annual leave days.
• Full time employees are entitled to marriage leave but contract workers are not.
• In this case, the SeaTalk admin will create two different leave policies for each type of employee. The full time employee leave policy will have the annual leave type with a specific rule granting 18 days of leave and the marriage leave type.
• The contract employee leave policy will have the annual leave type with a specific rule granting 6 days of leave.

Employees in the same work group do not have to be assigned to the same leave policies. 

Learn more on how to set up a leave policy. 

3.Set up your approval processes

For leave requests to be approved, you must set up a leave approval process. Once set up, employees’ leave requests will go to their direct manager, multi-level reporting managers, department lead, or other relevant individuals for approval.
Some leave types require leave days to be credited to the employee’s balance first, before employees can apply leave. For such leave types with the Credit balance upon approval balance release setting, you must set up a credit approval process. Once set up, employees’ requests for credit will go to the individuals set in the approval chain. Once fully approved, the requested leave days will be credited to their leave balance and the employee can apply for leave after.
You can customize your organization’s leave approval process for different employees according to their employment details such as department, office location, payroll company, leave type, and leave duration. You can also customize your organization’s credit approval process according to leave type.

Learn more on how to set up your leave approval process and your credit approval process. 

4.Report on employee leave

Now that your employees can request leave, you can check their leave requests and leave balances, and make adjustments to incorrect leave balances. Learn more on how to report on leave records as a whole and how to report on a specific employee's leave. 
You can also import leave balance and import leave adjustment.