If an absence request is sent to the wrong person, there are several areas you can review to identify the cause.
The issue is often related to an incomplete workflow, an approval or reporting override, or the fallback rules in place for absence approvals.
Follow the checks in each section below to confirm where the request has been directed and ensure future requests reach the correct recipient.
Check the Workflow Log
Firstly, you should ensure the employee has fully completed their absence request.
You can either ask the employee to check their running tasks in their task list or check the status of the workflow in the workflow log.
To do this, follow these steps.
In the Admin Tool, click Workflow Log.
Click Running, then open the relevant date range.
🤓Tip: To find the date range, open the employee's absence record on the website, then click the Request Details tab.
Click the Initiator tab, then double-click the relevant workflow.
To check which user it was sent to, click the form or messaging stage.
If the form is still waiting on the initiator, this means the employee hasn't fully completed their request.
If the request is fully complete, move on to the next section.
Workflow approval overrides
It is possible that the employee has an override set up. To check this, follow these steps.
Click Configuration, then click Configuration.
Click Workflow Approval Rules, then click Absence Approval Rule.
Click the Overrides tab, then check whether there's an override.
If there is one, select it, then click Delete.
If there's no override for this employee, move on to the next section.
Reporting overrides
Another possibility is that the employee has a manager override set in the reporting overrides tab.
To check this, follow the steps below.
📌Note: The reporting overrides tab only appears if you have person to person or mixture of both as your reporting line option in the Admin Tool.
Click Employees, click Employees, then click Career History.
Open the relevant employee's record, then click the All Appointments tab.
Open each appointment record, starting with the oldest.
Click the Reporting Overrides tab.
If there's an incorrect override, you should remove it. If there's no override for this employee, move on to the next section.
Fallback rules
If the request has gone to the wrong recipient, it is commonly because that person is the fallback recipient.
The fallback rules are designed to work with three variables, which are:
Key Activity: Absence request period.
Key Date: Absence start date.
Period of availability for the primary authoriser: Default = two days before.
By default, the absence start date is evaluated against the availability of the primary authoriser, and a fallback is only triggered if this availability is not at least two days before.
📌Note: If you need to change these rules, for example, to evaluate against the date the request was submitted, please contact your account manager to discuss your consultancy options.
Fallback example
Sarah, the manager, is the primary authoriser for her team's absence requests, and she's unavailable from 10 to 15 June.
James, an employee, submits an absence request on 5 June, for leave starting on 12 June.
What happens to the request?
SelectHR checks Sarah's availability for the absence start date, 12 June.
Because Sarah is unavailable on 12 June, SelectHR checks the fallback rule.
The fallback rule requires the primary authoriser to be available for at least two days before the absence start date. In this example, 10 June.
Because Sarah is unavailable on 10 June, the request goes to the fallback recipient.
Check if the employee's manager has changed
If the request was sent to the incorrect person, it is possible that at the time the request was made, the employee was their manager.