Approving requests

Role managers, leave managers, team managers and org admins decide leave requests.

Someone waiting on an answer can’t book the trip or tell anyone they’re away. A quick yes, or a quick and kind no, is one of the most useful things you can do for them.

Deciding a request

1. Go to Requests. On a phone, it’s in the tab bar at the bottom.
2. Pending Requests lists everything waiting on you. Each row shows who’s asking, the dates (with any half day or times), how many days, the leave type, when they asked, and the Requester’s note if they left one.
3. Select Approve or Reject on the row. To see who else is out first, select the dates to open the request. See What a request shows you.

To explain your decision, select Note, write it, then select Approve or Reject. It reaches them as the Manager’s note in their email and in the request window, and can be up to 2000 characters.

Caution

Use Approve or Reject on the same row as your note. The list keeps one note at a time, so if you write a note under one request and then decide a different one, the note goes with the request you decided. To be sure, select the dates to open the request and add your note in the window instead.

From the list, Approve and Reject act straight away. In the request window, Reject asks “Reject this request?” first.

With two or more waiting, the sort button orders them by Starting soonest (the default), Waiting longest or Newest requests. Your choice is remembered in that browser.

What happens next

• Approved: it goes on the calendar and counts against their allowance. Their email reads as good news, with links to add it to Google Calendar or Outlook. If they’d booked a desk on the rota for those days, it’s freed up.
• Rejected: their email says it was rejected this time around, and suggests a chat with their line manager if they have questions. It’s worth having that chat, and finding dates that work.

Only a request that’s still pending can be approved or rejected. Once it’s decided, it can still be cancelled, or changed by an org admin.

Note

Folke checked the booking rules, like notice and allowance, when the request was made. It doesn’t check them again when you approve, and a clash or a day over a limit is a warning, never an automatic no. It’s your call.

Who you decide for

• Role managers decide for team members in their own team role. A role manager needs a team role themselves: without one there’s nobody to decide for, and their Pending Requests stays empty until an org admin gives them a team role.
• Leave managers, team managers and org admins decide for everyone in the organisation.
• Nobody decides their own leave except an org admin. Your own request goes to the other managers who can decide it.

Unless you’re an org admin, your own requests stay out of your Pending Requests, the dot on Requests and your dashboard figures. You’ll find them on My Leave while another manager decides them.

Everyone who can decide a request hears about it, and the first answer settles it. If someone else got there first, Folke tells you it’s already been decided.

Nothing chases you

A pending request never expires, and Folke doesn’t send reminders about it. The dot on Requests stays lit while anything is waiting and goes out when the last one is decided. Your own requests don’t count, unless you’re an org admin. It’s a dot, not a count.

Once the first day of the leave arrives, the team member can no longer withdraw a pending request themselves. Answering before then saves everyone a muddle.

Emails and alerts

You’re emailed when someone you decide for:

• asks for leave (Team leave submitted)
• changes a pending request (Team leave edited)
• cancels leave (Team leave cancelled)

Each link opens Requests, and each one can be switched off under Notifications. Alerts on your phone, and Slack messages if your organisation uses them, name the team member and the dates but never the leave type, since a lock screen is easy to see.