Leave without dropped work: hand-over that runs itself

In most small teams, leave is approved in one place and the work is handed over somewhere else: a WhatsApp message, a hurried call, a note in a spreadsheet. The leave goes through. The client's task that was due on the third day of the leave does not. Nobody meant to drop it; it simply had no owner while the person was away.

This post shows how to set up TaskSync Leave so that approving leave and handing over work are the same step, and so that the work comes back to the right person when the leave ends.

Step 1: Set up leave types the way your company works

Open Leave and choose the Settings tab. Under Leave types, add or change each type: Casual, Sick, Earned or whatever your policy calls them. For each type you set:

• Days a year, and whether the allowance comes All at the start or Builds up monthly.
• Half days allowed, Minimum notice (days) and Document needed above (days).
• Carry up to (days) and when carried days lapse.

Under Work week, tick your working days and choose how Saturdays work: every Saturday worked, alternate Saturdays off, or 2nd and 4th Saturday off. On the Holidays tab, use Load India holidays or add your own. Leave is counted on working days only, so a Diwali holiday inside someone's dates is not taken from their allowance.

New joiners, probation and advance leave

Three settings cover most new-joiner questions:

• New joiners get a share of the year: someone who joins in the middle of the leave year gets the allowance for the months left. Joining on or before the 15th counts that month; after the 15th, the share starts next month.
• More than they have (advance): choose Not allowed, In advance with approval (with a limit on days owed), or Allowed. Advance leave is never approved automatically.
• Probation (new joiners): for the first few months after joining, allow unpaid leave only, or count paid leave as advance that needs approval.

Set each person's Joining date on Settings > Members: one by one with Edit, for several people at once, or with a Joining date column in a CSV. Each person then sees Available now next to each leave type when they apply.

Step 2: Let people suggest the hand-over when they apply

When someone applies, they choose the type and dates, and optionally Who covers. Under Your open work then, TaskSync lists their tasks that are due during the leave, start during it, or are already overdue. For each one they can suggest what should happen:

• the cover does it until they are back (the default when a cover is chosen),
• someone else does it,
• Postpone, or Move by the leave's length,
• a new date, leave it as is, or cancel it with a reason.

Nothing changes on their tasks yet. The suggestions simply travel with the request, so the approver does not have to ask.

Step 3: Approve with the full picture on one card

Approvers open Leave > Manage. Each waiting request shows:

• Also off then: people who share a department, manager or project with this person, and the most people off on any one day.
• The balance before and after this request.
• Open work then: tasks due (which opens the hand-over), open leads they own, repeating task copies due, and who covers.

From here the approver can click Approve, Don't approve with a reason, or Approve part… to approve shorter dates or leave out days in between. If the request includes advance days, Approve available days only approves the days the person has and declines the rest with a note.

Two settings help when requests sit too long. Remind approvers after (hours waiting) reminds approvers once in the app (24 hours unless you change it), and owners and admins are told if it waits twice as long. Approvals go to the person covering sends an approver's own approvals to their cover while they are away.

Step 4: Hand over each task in a few clicks

Click Pending work on the request. For each task choose:

• Extend to: after the leave, by the leave's length, or a date.
• Reassign to someone on the project: until the leave ends, in place of the person, or as well.
• Leave as is, with a note, or Cancel task, with a reason.

For a long list, use Postpone all or Reassign all to. The person's own suggestions are already filled in and marked Suggested by; Accept all suggestions goes back to them. Click Apply. The person gets one notice listing what was done, and each person given tasks gets one notice too, not one per task.

If your company wants this to be strict, turn on Hand over first on Team leave > Leave settings. Approving then accepts the person's suggestions for any task nobody handled yet.

Step 5: Let the cover person get the work on their own

Some work appears during the leave rather than before it. TaskSync handles the common cases:

• Repeating tasks: a copy of a recurring task that falls due on the assignee's leave day goes to the leave's cover person.
• Sales leads (with the Sales CRM add-on): lead rules can pass new leads to the cover, and the response clock can follow the cover's shift or pause.
• Approvals: with the setting on, approvals go to the cover while the approver is away.

Turn on Show "On leave until …" and colleagues see who is away, and who covers, in chat, in @mentions and on people's cards, so they ask the right person.

Step 6: Bring the work back when the leave ends

Tasks handed over until the leave ends go back to the person the day after the leave. If the cover logged time on the task, both stay on it. Finished tasks stay finished.

If approved leave is cancelled, or only part of it is approved, Undo hand-over is offered for the tasks now outside the leave. Assignees and dates go back to what they were, cancelled tasks are reopened, and any task that was changed since is listed and left alone.

When the person is back, their dashboard shows While you were away for a week: tasks done by others, tasks back with them, postponed and cancelled tasks, and leads their cover worked on.

Payroll and records

My Time marks leave days, half days and holidays, and time approvals list them for each person. On the Manage tab, export leave, balances, the register and Unpaid days per month to CSV or Excel for payroll. People who left — advance days still owed lists anyone who left with advance leave outstanding, for the final settlement.

Get started

Leave and the hand-over are part of every TaskSync plan. Read more on the HR & leave page, see what is included on Pricing, or start a free trial and set up your leave types with your own team.