Management settings - Blackout periods

As a manager you are able to add and identify blackout periods to prevent employees from applying for leave or unavailability requests during your business' busiest times.

• Manager with Finance and higher accesses should be able to view, add, edit and delete existing blackout periods.
• Manager access should be able to view existing blackout periods but can't add or edit blackouts. 
• Employee access should not have access to the blackout periods.

Blackout period is to block employees from applying leave requests on days that are added as blackout period by a Manager.

• When an employee applies for unavailability/leave it is blocked if any of that unavailability period overlaps any of the blackout periods.
• Managers should be able to bypass the blackout period and a pop-up alert should be displayed informing the managers about the blackout should they apply leave on a blackout period.

Part A: How to add a blackout period?

Requirement: Manager with Finance and higher access

On the dashboard, click the Management > Settings 

You should be redirected to the Blackout period page

To add new blackout, simply click the Add New button

• A modal will appear: 
  • Start and End date: should be today's or future dates. Entering past date is not allowed.
  • Location: you can specify the location that the blackout period is attached to (if this is at the top level then all sub-levels should automatically apply that blackout period.)
  • Notes: Note entered here will be shown to the employees as an error message, when they try to apply leave on a blackout period.
    • We recommend that you enter the reason on why it is a blackout to avoid confusion with the employees applying for leave on a blackout period.
  • Click the Save button

Note: Users can’t add blackout periods to locations where they don’t have access. When adding a blackout to a parent location, that blackout period will also be applied to all it's sub-locations. If by any chance the blackout period is not applicable to any of it's sub-locations, please do not add the blackout period to the parent location instead just add the blackout period to the locations where the blackout is applicable.

To edit a blackout, simply click the pencil icon beside the delete button.

• A same modal will appear:
  • Make necessary changes then click the Save button.

To delete a blackout, simply click the trash bin icon.

• A pop-up alert will be displayed asking for confirmation to delete. Click Yes to delete

Part B: How does Blackout period look like on employee's end?

• When an employee applies for unavailability/leave it is blocked if any of that unavailability period overlaps any of the blackout periods.
  • An error message will be displayed informing the employees about the blackout period.

• If you notice, the error message displayed the Note (from the blackout period) for employees to know the reason about the blackout.

Part C: How to bypass the blackout period on manager's end?

• Managers should be able to bypass the blackout period and a pop-up alert should be displayed informing the managers about the blackout should they apply leave on a blackout period.

• Clicking the Add anyway button on the alert box will add the leave request bypassing the blackout period.
  • Only managers are allowed to have this ability to add the leave request within blackout period.