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Step 5: Set up Approval Flows & Managers
Appogee Leave is highly configurable so you can make it fit with your business requirements and organization structure. Below are our top tips for getting your Appogee Leave account set up, they have been split into 5 key stages and we strongly advise that you complete the steps in the order below.
Step 1: Configuration
Leave and Sickness Types
You can configure which types of Leave & Sickness employees request by setting up Leave & Sickness Types.
We have a range of default Leave & Sickness Types which you can import and use or add your own Types. Leave & Sickness Types can be set up as deducted or non-deducted, so they can affect an employee's allowance or not.
To set these up, go to Process Config > Leave Types or Process Config > Sickness Types.
For more information, take a look at the support article on Configuring Leave & Sickness Types.
Click create and complete the details to add your own types of Leaves. Once created this will be available as a Leave Type for selection when submitting requests.
Public Holidays
You can configure public holidays which will be marked as non-working days in the calendar.
Appogee Leave has a number of Public Holidays set up as defaults. Select one for your country or create your own.
To set these up, go to Leave Admin > Public Holidays.
If you need more information, take a look at Managing Public Holidays.
Step 2: Work Profiles
The Work Profile defines the working hours and allowances for a group of Employees. Every Employee must belong to a Work Profile, you may only need one for your organisation or you may need multiple to cater for all eventualities.
Work Profiles can be assigned upon the addition of new employees and you can have different Work Profiles for different members within a team.
Work Profiles are used to help set up the general working and Leave details of the employee such as the Leave amounts and working hours and rota and accruals.
Set these up under Leave Admin > Work Profiles > Create.
For more information, take a look at the following article: Work Profiles.
Step 3: Teams
Setting up Teams
Setting up Teams is the next logical step in setting up Appogee Leave. This is where you will set up your Approval Flows for Leave & Sickness.
Every Employee must belong to a Team, however, they can manage a Team and be part of a different Team themselves.
You can have multiple managers within a team.
Teams are set up under the Organization option in the menu.
Take a look at Creating & Editing Teams, Configuring your Org Chart and Deleting users & teams for more information.
It is recommended at this point to only create the Teams to set the structure - employees will not be added to the system yet so you will be unable to add members and managers until the next step.
Step 4: Add Employees
There are 3 possible ways to add Employees to Appogee Leave.
- Manual Registration
- CSV Import
- Through an integration
- Google Workspace (G Suite)
- Office 365
- Xero
1. Manual Registration
The manual registration allows you to add Employees using a simple form to add individuals to the system.
You will be prompted to provide:
- Full Name
- Work Email Address
- Job Title
- Team
- Work Profile
- Employee Status
- Joining or Active
- Employment Start Date
- Access to the system
You can see more information on this here: Manual Employee Registration.
2. CSV Import
The CSV import enables you to add Employees to Appogee HR in bulk. Use this option if you have a lot of Employees to add at once for set up purposes.
There is further information on the CSV import in this guide: CSV Upload Guide
3. Integrations
You will need to enable your Integration before being able to import your employees through this method.
Take a look at the following articles to set up an integration of your choice:
Importing your employees through Xero can be done as part of setting up the Xero integration.
To import through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 use the import wizard, which will take you through selecting employees from your domain then:
- Assigning Teams
- Setting Work Profiles
- Configuring Login
You can find further information on this here: Importing Employees from Google Workspace / Office 365.
Step 5: Set up Approval Flows & Team Managers
Now that your employees have been added to the system, you can assign which of them are Approvers & Managers.
Approvals are set up within Approval Flows - you can create as many different Approval Flows as necessary, Approval Flows can be assigned to Teams or Employees. This is the employee or employees to whom Sick and or Leave requests will be submitted.
To create your Approval Flows go to Leave & HR Admin > Approval Flows > Create
Name the Approval Flow as needed. It can be named after a person if requests are all going to one person or a Team name if it's for a Team.
You can have multiple Approvers and levels within an Approval Flow and an Approval Flow can be assigned to multiple Teams if their requests are going to the same people.
Once you've set up your Approval Flows, you can assign these to your Teams or employees. You can have multiple approvers on an approval flow and multiples approval flows within a Team.
To do this, go to Organization > Teams.
Select a Team and then go to Leave, Approvals & Calendar > Approval Flows. Select the Approval Flow from the list and optionally click to override the Approval Flow for certain individuals.
Next, you'll need to assign Team Managers. These could be the same as your approvers, or you could select different Managers. From the Team page, go to the Managers tab and add the managers.
Approval Flows could also be assigned per employee. To do this, go to Organization > Employees.
Select an Employee then go to the Approval Flows tab.
You can override to change to a different Approval Flows or create a brand one for just that user.
Additional Set Up Options
Backfill
You may wish to use the Backfill feature within Appogee Leave to import your employees' historic requests. This will allow you to use the system as a single source of truth for the full Leave year, regardless of when you implement the feature.
There are two ways you can use Backfill - manually or in bulk using a CSV template.
Requests submitted through the Backfill tool will be added to the system as approved, therefore bypassing the approval process. If you would like these requests to be approved in the system, you can add them manually, or ask employees to add them in themselves.
Go to Leave Admin > Backfill.
This will take you to the manual Backfill element of the tool, to use the CSV template, change the option from the top level menu.
Manually adding Backfill:
To manually add Backfill, enter the email address of the user, followed by the dates of the request & reason, then click Create Request.
Repeat this process for all requests for all your employees.
Adding Backfill in bulk:
Go to Leave Admin > Backfill from CSV.
Download the CSV template and complete it with the employee names, dates of requests & reasons.
Save the template as a CSV file and upload it to the system.
Integrations
Google Workspace
By integrating with Google Workspace you will benefit from Single Sign On for your users (no need for a username and password), the ability to register Employees directly from your domain, integration with your Google Calendar, the ability to set Out of Office messages at the time of making a request and the the option to have Appogee Leave accessible from your Google Workspace Menu.
You can find out how to get integrated with Google Workspace here: Google Workspace Integration.
Office 365
By integrating with Office 365 you will benefit from Single Sign On for your users (no need for a username and password), the ability to register Employees directly from your domain, integration with your Outlook Calendar and the the option to have Appogee Leave accessible from your Outlook Menu.
You can find out how to get integrated with Office 365 here: Office 365 Integration.
Xero Payroll
The option to integrate with Xero is available if you are using the Australian, New Zealand or UK versions of Xero Payroll. The integration allows you to sync basic Employee Profile information between Xero and Appogee Leave as well as updating Leave and Sickness requests and allowances.
Information on how to integrate, can be found here: Xero Integration.