The recent 6.2 patch update for Dimensions has put forward a new and useful option for our customers. From now on you can manage the absence requests made by employees directly in the Scheduler. This option previously only existed in Employee Self-Service where the direct manager could approve or refuse absence requests. Now, schedulers also have this option.
This tool has several advantages that could be useful for your business operations such as:
- Approval of absences from the schedule with the possibility of approving, refusing, cancelling, entering comments, etc.
- The level of approval is no longer limited to the immediate superior, but can be configured so that approval can be done by a group of other people.
- A visual indicator of the monthly calendar with the number of requests as well as the requests to be approved.
- An indicator of the number of requests in a Dataview column.
Approval of absences in the schedule
Once the employee has made his or her absence request through their Employee Self Service portal, the request will appear in the schedule. You will be able to view these requests by location and by period. If you right-click on the request, you will be able to view the status details, the different banks available to the employee, the date the request was created and the type of absence for which the request was made. You will also have the possibility to approve, refuse, modify, cancel and add a comment.
The statuses of the application can be easily differentiated thanks to a colour code. If the request is accepted, the corresponding pay code will be added directly to the schedule.
Finally, you will be able to determine what information and statuses you want to see displayed in the scheduler by clicking on the tab 
and selecting the following options:
Viewing the calendar
You are probably already familiar with the various indicators at the bottom of the time planner. A tab named "Absence Calendar" will be available. If minimized, three months can be viewed at a time. If maximized, 12 months will be displayed at a time. For each day, it will be possible to see the number of absence requests. When a black dot is displayed in a day, it means that there are requests to be approved for that specific day. If there is no dot, it means that the requests have already been processed. The data displayed will be that of the selected location.
The configuration
Displaying the request in the Schedule Planner
Follow the path as indicated here (Administration>Application Setup>Scheduler Setup > Schedule Planner) and activate the view of absence requests in the configuration.
Displaying the calendar in the Schedule Add-on
Follow the path (Administration>Application Setup>Scheduler Setup > Schedule Planner) and enable the calendar in the configuration
The addition of the requests column in a Dataview
Follow the path (Administration>Application Setup>Display Preferences > Information Access > Dataview Management) and add a column named "Requests" to be able to view the number of requests in the Dataview of your choice.
Approver Management
Follow the path (Administration>Application Setup>Employee Self Service >Request Subtype). By choosing an absence request, you will be able to choose an "Approval Setting" or not. A series of approvers can be defined here. If the selection is left at "None", the persons having access to the schedule as well as the manager indicated in the employee file under the "Reports To" field will be able to view and manage absence requests.
I hope that this new option will be beneficial to your company. It will be a pleasure to help you with the configuration and use of this tool.
Cristina Iacob
Kronos Consultant