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Requests and Notifications

WFM includes a request system where employees can ask for time off, shift changes, or other schedule modifications. The system also sends email notifications for various events.

Request types

Requests allow employees to ask for changes to their schedule. Managers approve or reject requests, and approved requests are automatically applied to the schedule.

Default request types

WFM comes with common request types:

  • Time off - Vacation, personal day
  • Sick leave - Illness
  • Shift change - Request a different shift
  • Home office - Work from home
  • Preferred shift - The employee picks a specific shift template they would like on a given date. See Shift preferences.

Create custom request types

  1. Go to Settings > Configuration > Request Types.
  2. Click + Add Request Type.
  3. Fill in:
    • Name - Request type name (e.g., "Praca z domu", "Urlop wypoczynkowy")
    • Scheduling behavior - How the scheduler treats the request:
      • Do not schedule (absence) - The employee cannot be scheduled while the request applies (e.g., vacation).
      • Neutral (schedulable) - The absence is recorded, but the employee can still be scheduled (e.g., a training).
      • Preferred shift - The employee asks for a specific shift. See Shift preferences.
    • Paid - Whether the absence is paid
    • Description - Description of the request type
    • Abbreviation - Short code for display (e.g., "PZD")
    • Color / Background - The type's colors. Background is the color that identifies this request type in the schedule plan (see Request colors and states); Color is the text color used with it.
    • Active - Whether this request type is available
    • Must Be Approve - Whether requests require manager approval. Not available for Preferred shift - those requests are never approved.
  4. Click Save.

Note

Scheduling behavior cannot be changed after the request type is created.

Request types list columns

Column Description
Request Name Name of the request type
Request Type Category: Time off (types that do not schedule or are neutral), Available (preferred shift), Home Office, or Shift change
Description Description text
Active Whether the type is available

Submit a request

As an employee

  1. Open the Dashboard.
  2. Click + Add Request.
  3. Select the request type.
  4. Choose the date(s) and how much of the day the request covers:
    • All Day - whole days, from a date to a date
    • Half Day - one date, either the Morning or the Afternoon
    • Specific hours - an exact time range
  5. Add a description if needed.
  6. Submit.

The request is sent to your manager for approval. Agents can submit requests only for themselves. A request still waiting for approval can be withdrawn - see Agent view.

Note

The available request types may be limited by your contract - see Allowed absence types. Types your contract does not allow are not offered.

As a manager (on behalf of an employee)

  1. Go to People > Requests.
  2. Click + Add Request (or from the Dashboard).
  3. Fill in:
    • User - Select the employee
    • Request Type - Select the type
    • Workplace, Shift, Skill - For a shift change, a preferred shift or a home-office day
    • All Day / Half Day / Specific hours - How much of the day the request covers
    • Date/Range - For home office: one date, or a range of dates
    • From Date / To Date or Date - The dates of the request
    • Description - Optional notes
  4. Click Save.

Repeating requests

A request for a single Date - a half-day leave, a shift change, a preferred shift or a home-office day - can repeat:

  1. Below the date, click Does not repeat to open Recurrence.
  2. Set Repeat every - a number of Days, Weeks, Months, or Years. For weeks, pick the days in Repeat on; for months, the day of the month.
  3. Set when it Ends: Never, On a date, or After a number of occurrences.
  4. Click Done (or No repeat to cancel the repetition).

When you edit or remove one occurrence of a repeating request, WFM asks which ones to change: This Event, This Event And Following, or All Events.

Approve or reject requests

Managers receive notifications when employees submit requests.

How to process requests

  1. Go to People > Requests or open the schedule view.
  2. Use the filters to find the requests (see below).
  3. Review the details.
  4. Click Approve or Reject.

Pending requests can also be approved or rejected directly in the schedule: in the plan's Day view, right-click the request and pick Approve or Reject. See Working with Schedules.

Find requests

By default the list shows Pending requests of All dates. The filter bar above the list offers:

  • Date range - Today, Tomorrow, This week, Next week, This month, All dates, or Custom with a From / To date
  • State - Pending, Approved, or All
  • Only my team - Only requests of the employees you are a supervisor of (see Set up employee supervisors)

Click Filters to open Advanced filters with Request types, Users, Agent Groups, Only my team and Search in description, then click Apply. Reset in the filter bar returns to the default.

Besides the user, dates, request and state, the list shows:

Column Description
Agent Groups The agent groups of the employee
Will Exhaust For time-off requests: the hours the request takes from the employee's funds
Fulfilled For preferred-shift requests: whether the preferred shift was assigned. See Shift preferences.

Approval preview

When you approve a request from People > Requests or from the schedule, the confirmation shows what the approval changes:

  • Also out of office in this period - Other people from the same workplace whose time off overlaps the request. The colored chip is the type of their request, Pending marks a request not yet approved, and the people icon marks someone who shares at least one skill with the requester.
  • Coverage impact - For each affected day, the coverage of the needs Before and After the approval, the number of Under-covered slots (15-minute intervals with fewer people than required) and the Worst gap (the largest shortfall in any interval). Click Show timeline to see the intervals in color, from more people than required to two or more people short.

If the preview cannot be loaded, you can still approve the request.

What happens after approval

  • The request is marked as approved.
  • The schedule is updated automatically (e.g., the day is marked as vacation).
  • The employee receives a notification.

Approving a leave that collides with shifts

When you approve a time-off request that overlaps one or more of the employee's scheduled shifts, WFM asks how to resolve the conflict and offers up to two actions:

  • Cancel shifts β€” releases the colliding shifts and moves them to unassigned.
  • Deduct from shifts β€” keeps each shift and takes the leave hours off it: the shift is shortened when the leave covers its start or end, or gets an unpaid gap when the leave falls in the middle. The part of the shift outside the leave is kept.

If the leave covers a shift for its full length, that shift can only be released β€” there is nothing left to keep. In that case only Cancel shifts is offered.

Note

Deduct from shifts appears only when at least one colliding shift is partially overlapped. When a request collides with several shifts and only some are fully covered, choosing Deduct from shifts removes the fully-covered ones and trims the rest. Taking the leave hours off the shifts reduces coverage during the leave - check the plan for uncovered needs after approval.

What happens after rejection

  • The request is marked as rejected.
  • The schedule is not changed.
  • The employee receives a notification with the reason (if provided).

Request colors and states in the schedule

Every request in the schedule plan is displayed in the Background color of its request type, so planners, team leaders, and agents can tell request types apart at a glance. The border of the request block always uses the type's color; the fill shows the request's state:

State Appearance
Waiting for approval White fill with a colored border
Approved Fill tinted in the type's color, with a colored border
Rejected Grey fill with the name struck through

An approved request therefore looks like the shift cells in the plan (colored border and a light tint of the same color), while a pending request stands out as an empty outlined block.

Preferred shift requests

Requests of a Preferred shift type (see shift preferences) have no approval step - they are accepted automatically when submitted. In the schedule they follow the solver instead:

  • A shift preference is shown as approved (tinted) only after Smart Schedule has actually assigned the preferred shift.
  • A preference the solver has not (yet) honoured keeps the white pending look.
  • A general availability request (no specific shift selected) always keeps the pending look - there is nothing for the solver to confirm.

Email notifications

WFM sends email notifications for various events. Each notification type has its own template with support for multiple languages (Czech, English, British English, Slovak).

Notification types

Event Recipient Description
New time-off request Manager + workplace admins Employee submitted a time-off request
New shift change request Manager + workplace admins Employee requested a shift change
New home office request Manager + workplace admins Employee requested to work from home
Request approved Employee Manager approved the request
Request rejected Employee Manager rejected the request
Schedule published All employees with shifts New schedule is available
New shift trade offer Target employee Someone wants to swap shifts
Shift trade accepted Both employees The swap was confirmed
Shift trade rejected Both employees The swap was declined
Tomorrow's shift reminder Employee Reminder about shift the next day
Tomorrow's schedule summary Workplace admins Daily summary of tomorrow's schedule
Shift conflicts with vacation Workplace admins A scheduled shift conflicts with an employee's vacation
Hours below contract minimum Employee Scheduled hours are below the contracted minimum
Reset password Employee Link to set a new password

Configure notifications

Base URL

Links in emails (approve, reject, view request) point to your WFM address. Daktela sets this address for your instance - there is nothing to configure. If the links in emails lead to a wrong address, contact Daktela support.

Set up employee supervisors

Notifications about new requests are sent to every supervisor assigned to the employee. An employee can have more than one supervisor β€” each of them receives a copy of the notification. If no supervisor is set, only workplace administrators receive the notification.

  1. Open the employee detail.
  2. In the Superiors field, select one or more supervisors from the list.
  3. Save.

Supervisors can also narrow the request list to their own team with Only my team.

Note

Recipients are deduplicated, so a supervisor who is also a workplace administrator does not get the same email twice.

Edit email templates

Templates control the subject and body of notification emails.

  1. Go to Settings > Configuration > Emails.
  2. Click on a template to edit, or Add New for a notification type that has no template yet. Each type can be configured only once.
  3. Fill in Subject and Body - the default used for any recipient whose language has no translation below.
  4. Use variables in double curly braces. For example:
    • {{info}} - HTML table with request details
    • {{linkApprove}} / {{linkReject}} - Clickable approve/reject links
    • {{linkRequest}} - Clickable link to the request, where the manager can approve or reject it
    • {{shifts}} - HTML table of employee's shifts
  5. Under Localization, expand a language (cs, en, en_gb, sk) and fill in its subject and body.
  6. Save.

Note

The system selects the template language based on the user's language setting. If no translation exists, it falls back to English, then to the default template.